To get an understanding of what kind of home studio is best for you, ask yourself the following questions:
How much money can I spend on equipment? For most people, money is the ultimate determining factor in choosing their studio components. Set a budget and try to stay within it. The sky’s the limit on what you can spend on recording equipment for your home studio, but you don’t need to spend a ton of money. If you know your goals and do your research, you can create top-quality recordings without having the best of everything.In fact, your skill as a recording engineer has a much greater effect on the overall quality of your sound than whether you have a $3,000 preamp. With the techniques that you discover in this book and tricks that you uncover as you get to know your equipment, you can make recordings good enough to compete in the marketplace. Digital recording technology has improved tremendously over the last few years and will continue to improve in the years to come. Don’t get sucked into the belief that you have to have the latest, greatest thing to make great music: otherwise you’ll always be buying something. After all, great albums and number-one hits throughout history were recorded on lesser equipment than you can find in most home studios today. Focus on the song and the arrangement — practicing solid recording techniques — and you can get by with any of the pro or semipro recording systems available.
Is this studio just for me, or do I intend to hire it out to record others? Your answer to this question may help you decide how elaborate a system you need. For example, if you eventually want to hire yourself and your studio out to record other people, you need to think about the compatibility of your system with other commercial studios. Your clients need to be able to take the music that they record at your studio and mix or master it somewhere else. You may also have to buy specific gear that clients want to use, which often means spending more money for equipment from sought-after manufacturers that may sound the same as lesser-name stuff. If you’re interested in going the commercial studio route, check out other commercial studios in your area and find out what they use and what type of equipment their clients ask for.If this studio is just for your use, you can focus on getting the best bang for the buck on gear without worrying about compatibility or marketability issues.
Will I be recording everything directly into the mixing board, or will I be miking most of the instruments? Your answer to this question is going to dictate your choice in how much of your budget goes toward equipment and acoustical treatments for your room. If you intend to plug your instruments directly into the mixer and you only need a microphone for the occasional vocal, you have more money to spend on synthesizers or plug-ins for your digital audio workstation (DAW) — or you just won’t have to spend as much. (DAWs are covered in detail in the section “Computer-Based Digital Recording Systems,” later in this chapter.)Conversely, if you plan to record a band live, you must allocate enough money for those pieces of gear to allow you to do that effectively, such as having enough mics and inputs, sound isolation, and available tracks of simultaneous recording.
How many tracks do I need? The answer to this question is important if you’re considering a system that has limited tracks, such as mobile or studio-in-a-box (SIAB) systems that come with 2, 4, 8, 16, 24 (and sometimes more) available tracks. (For the lowdown on these systems, see the sections, “Studio-in-a-Box Systems” and “Mobile-Device Recording,” later in this chapter.) This question is still worth considering even if you end up with a computer-based system because, even though many recording software programs boast having “unlimited” available tracks, you’re still limited by the power of your computer and the number of inputs and outputs contained in your audio interface hardware. (For more on the capabilities of computer-based systems, check out the section, “Computer-Based Digital Recording Systems,” later in this chapter.) Having more tracks is not necessarily a better thing. The more tracks you have, the more you think that you need to fill them for every song. This can make for cluttered arrangements and hard-to-mix songs. No matter how many tracks you end up with, use only those that you need to make your recording the best that it can be. With digital recorders, you can create submixes and bounce several tracks into one or two without losing sound quality, reducing the need for more tracks. (Find out more about bouncing in Chapter 10.) Remember that some great albums were made using just four or eight tracks.
Will I be sequencing the parts or playing the instruments live? If you plan on sequencing all your music (that is, programming your part into a computer or sequencer and having it play your part for you), make sure you get a good Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) controller. You can also consider having less capability for audio tracks. But if you plan to play and record all the instruments live, make sure your recorder has enough tracks for you to put each instrument on its own track.
Detailing Your Digital Options
Even with the fast pace of today’s technology, one thing is for sure in the home recording world: Digital is here to stay. Digital recording has become the standard for home recordists and most commercial studios. And the format of choice is hard drive because it has many advantages over the other forms of digital recording. Not only does digital recording create a great sound, but it’s also relatively inexpensive, especially compared with an equivalent-sounding studio from 20 to 25 years ago.
In the sections that follow, I examine the main types of digital home studios: computer-based DAWs, the all-in-one SIAB systems (such as the Zoom R24 or TASCAM DP-24SD), and mobile recording on your phone or tablet. Each has its advantages. What’s right for one person may not be the best choice for another. (Isn’t it great to have choices?)
Regardless of the type of digital recording system you like, consider the following things before buying:
Editing capabilities: Some systems allow very fine editing of audio data, while others offer less. If you want so much control that you can edit down to the waveform — which basically means being able to edit out a single note or even just a part of a note — look for a system with that capability. If such control is less important to you, take a pass on such systems.Along with the actual editing capabilities, find out how this editing is done. Is it on a tiny LCD screen or can it be done on a large computer monitor? Of course, if you won’t be doing a lot of editing, this feature may not be important to you. If this is the case, you may be able to buy a system for less money that sounds as good as the one with full editing capability. Paying for something that you won’t use doesn’t make sense.
Compatibility: Compatibility between the various parts of your system (the recorder and sequencer or the software and audio interface, for instance) or between your studio and other studios (your friend’s or a commercial studio) is an important issue for many people and one that may come back to bite you if you don’t consider it before you buy a system. For example, some plug-ins don’t work with certain software programs. If you just have to have a certain soft-synth (software synthesizer) or amp simulator plug-in, make sure that you buy a system that allows you to use it. (Plug-ins are extra sounds, samples, and effects that you can “plug in” to your computer-based DAW’s software program to increase its capabilities.) Likewise, some sound cards don’t work well with certain software programs.
Number of simultaneous tracks: Even though a recorder may say it has 16 tracks, it may not be able to actually record that number of tracks at one time. Most SIAB recorders, for example, record fewer tracks than they can play back at once. This usually isn’t a problem because you likely record only a few tracks at a time and overdub the rest. This would be a problem if you needed to record all 16 tracks of a 16-track recorder, such as recording a band playing live at a club.
Realistic track count: If you end up considering a computer-based system, the number of tracks that a computer software program is advertised to record and how many