What do you think you need to produce and engineer your own music? SSL Mix Console? Teletronix LA2A? API 500 modules? The answer is none of thee above. Your skill in the craft is far more important than your equipment. While the gear you use does have an impact, if you do not know where and how these tools should be used, it will make no difference to the quality of your music nor the mix and master.
For the bedroom studio musicians, there are only a few elements you NEED to start up your learning process. With digital tools accurately replicating beautiful vintage pieces of outboard hardware you have more than what you need to get started. But the on a dime musician should start with: (And this entails all instruments digital and live)
Obviously you need a computer. Until you reach a specific point in power, most any desktop or laptop with 8GB’s of ram will suffice. You need decent processing power to stay away from latency as well as distortion and glitches within your project which will also translate to requiring latency in order to move past this until further power is required thus demanding more latency to allow your PC to process information from your wav and tools before it delivers the audio to your speakers or headphones.
An audio interface. You can find great budget friendly interfaces made by Focusrite, Berhinger, Avid and many more that offer great digital amps and a small handful of recording parameters most of which including phantom power if need be per microphone. I recommend the Focusrite 2i2 for starters who want to capture that of both XLR microphones as well as 1/4″ DI or analog signals from bass, guitars, vocals, keyboards and really anything that is mono. For stereo there is a bit of routing you need to implement via your Digital Audio Workstation which will allow multiple inputs to be recorded at once. This can come in handy for things like Drum Rooms, Vocals, Drum Overheads and again, anything you see fit for stereo recording.
This one is a good one as i know most certainly you want the best recording at the source. You can only fix so much in the mix and there is nothing that beats the genuine quality of a great recording as well as one that mails the take rather than editing to compensate. Good microphones ranging from $100-$300 includes the Shure SM58, Rode NT1A, Aston Origin and the famous AKG Pr Audio C214. All of these microphones deliver a brilliant high end as well as capture very natural elements of the performance in detail. The Shure as well as the Rode are very quiet in ways that they eliminate outside noise thanks to the full grill surrounding the unit in case of live recording with other instruments like a full band or group of vocalists in a choir.
This one is optional, but you can never go wrong. You will want a acoustic treatment shield to surround your microphone to help eliminate any reverberation that might make its way back to your microphone. I have an Auralex shield that i swear by in my studio as the whole thing i solid wood leaving lots of room for unwanted reverberation and frequency bleed which can stunt the quality of your performance. There are lots of great products that offer the same kind of shield, but i highly recommend Auralex. (Not noted but obviously you will need a microphone stand to equip your gear upon.)
This one is also quite obvious, but you will need a method of playback and monitoring. I love the process between headphones to monitors as i will detail my mix on headphones for lows and mids and focus the high end to the monitors as well as see how it all translates on a separate pair. Budget monitors are kind of tough, which i why i DO recommend headphones. Sennehsier 589SE or any Sennheiser headphone with a closed back will deliver very honest referencing, but depending on your purchase point you might end up with a pair that emphasize areas of your mix you want heard more truthfully. It is important to remember to reference your mix in your car. This is where most music is enjoyed and will provide a great ground for your further mixing or mastering decisions as subconsciously we all know what pro productions sound like in our car from years of listening. For budget monitors, i highly recommend Yamaha’s HS8’s or HS5’s. These are very transparent speakers that have adjustable parameters for your room as well as low end boosting, mid boost and high end boosting which can all be reduced to best suit your mixing and referencing needs per your room or just flat out what you are comfortable with audibly. I also recommend KRK Rokits. These speakers define your mix in a clean and precise way that is honest for the price point. Standing at around $300 for the five inch monitor set you can not beat this price. I had been referencing on a set of Fostex RM900 eight inch monitors for about a year and added the KRK set to my system and was blown away by how well the high end worked in comparison. To define it by ‘you get what you pay for’ the Fostex monitors were over one thousand dollars as the KRK’s i found used for $175 for both making a set.
Finally, you will need an audio workstation of some sort. Unless you plan on recording to tape, a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) will inherently make your work flow more ergonomic. With the ability to punch in, edit, sample, use amp sims to develop tone and recovers mixes and so much more without tape you save yourself an enormous amount of time in these processes. Depending on your styling of music there is a DAW for you! Sadly, not all of them are on a budget… For beat producers you can grab something like FL Studios from anywhere between $100 to $1000 dollars depending on the package you would like. Ableton is a great DAW as well, but does cost you a pretty penny of i believe a fat $800 for the full version. You can get a lite version which does not include some tools here and there for $100. You can find these tools among other companies to implement in your DAW of any kind to compensate as well but in some cases, you can not replicate the original tool. What i started with was Audacity because it was totally free. As i advanced in my needs, i found that Reaper was the best deal on the market as you can trial the FULL version for as long as you would like until you choose to purchase a license AND when you do purchase, it is only sixty dollars! You can download tools from various other aforementioned DAW’s and load them into Reaper to use as if though you were in the DAW of your choice. You get community based updates every thirty days or so which all do nothing but improve the quality and work flow for the people who pay into the company. But at the end of the day, there is no RIGHT DAW. Try the free versions of each one until you find something that pleases you in any way shape or form and really dive into it. I was told to get Logic but did not like how it felt for the price i had to pay. If you can afford it, i do recommend something that is industry standard along with the previously mentioned pieces of gear, but this is about a budget and the artist that is on a dime.
Edit: DO NOT FORGET YOUR CABLES.
And with that i bid thee happy mixing and creating. This small studio setup which should obviously include your instruments of choice (not mentioned for obvious reasons) will run you anywhere between $800-$1500 depending on your products of choice as well as what kind of computer you get with what kind of power. There is nothing cheap about audio and production but this is a killer setup that i spent years on to develop the skills needed to accurately apply those Teletronix LA2A Compressors, API 550’s and various other pieces of boutique gear we all seek. Once you learn the way your tools work you can present your talents among any genre as you will know what needs attention when and where. Do NOT let people tell you genre matters. As it does help to find a niche within your passion for listening, these skills work quite universally unless it is the physical beat, lyric or performance you are delivering. For mixing and engineering yes this applies about 15% from 100%. Stay strong with your setup and remember that practice makes perfect. If you can master your digital tools then you can master your outboard ones with an extra analog touch given by the actual electronics and tubes powering them.
I hope this helps you find the motivation to start recording and engineers your own music as i know hearing this helped the spark for me. For awesome digital tools check out VST4FREE as well as the product companies Waves and Fabfilter which all produce high quality tools for you mixing and writing. If you seek more song writing information or thoughts on music production follow my space and read back on my previous posts!
-Andrew Giordanengo
-Audiohut
