Best home studio set up?

[ABlackMan]

Looking to get started at home but I need to know what things I need or what would be best. I want great sound quality or quality good enough for putting tracks out until I can get them professionally mixed for the whole project. Any help would be appreciated. I'll be working on iMac, I have FL and Logic but can get another program for recording if needed. My bro gave me an audio technica mic the other day so I am currently looking at interfaces for the moment.

 

[ABlackMan]

Ain't no love

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

Knowing what your budget is, is very important in order to steer you in the right direction.
I would also need to know what your recording space consists of in detail. Are you recording in a bedroom? Closet? How big is the area? What else do you have in the room?
I've been doing this for over 10 years and can tell you all about the mistakes I made when trying to get my sound to where it is now. (And I still have a lot of improvement I need to make as far as my skill set).

I could spend hours typing all types of advice for you but unless I know a little more about your situation I wouldn't really be able to tell you anything that would benefit you directly.
One thing I hate seeing online is people pretending there is a "one size fits all" solution to recording, so I avoid doing that.

Spoiler: My Home Studio

 

[nahnah]

Knowing what your budget is, is very important in order to steer you in the right direction.
I would also need to know what your recording space consists of in detail. Are you recording in a bedroom? Closet? How big is the area? What else do you have in the room?
I've been doing this for over 10 years and can tell you all about the mistakes I made when trying to get my sound to where it is now. (And I still have a lot of improvement I need to make as far as my skill set).

I could spend hours typing all types of advice for you but unless I know a little more about your situation I wouldn't really be able to tell you anything that would benefit you directly.
One thing I hate seeing online is people pretending there is a "one size fits all" solution to recording, so I avoid doing that.

Spoiler: My Home Studio

Your home studio is bigger than my home

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

Your home studio is bigger than my home

All baby steps breh.

Spoiler: This was my first studio set up

This was 10 years and several thousand dollars ago.
It's all possible if you have patience and solid work ethic.
I worked fast food for 10 years as well. I was embarrassed every time someone would ask me about my job, but I kept my head down and stayed at cause I had a goal in mind.
Little by little I climbed the ladder at the restaurant, made enough money to buy and pay off a car, got married, got my associates degree, and bought a house.
I was actually unemployed for a whole year after we bought the house because the restaurant I worked at was under new management and they got rid of most of the staff.
Today I have a really laid back office job that I get to spend 95% of my day on the coli.
I know what it is to have almost nothing, and to have a lot.
I spend a lot of time on the coli joking around but when it comes to helping someone out, if I can, I will.
I share my experiences when appropriate to show people it's possible to reach your dreams.
Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
I made a lot of mistakes when building the studio, but have learned from them and can definitely help steer you in the right direction if you have any questions.

 

[ProfessionallyTrill]

Well shyt I'll step up and hijack the thread.

I'm in Atlanta, produced for some big names back in the day and am ready to churn out tracks again.

My Fantom and Mac are outdated and i wanna go digital. Im cheap so my budget is $1500. I want the bare minimum and dont have the patience to download shyt illegally. Give me the rundown:

- DAW: I want either Reason (heard it was easy) or Fruity Loops (looks hard but is adaptable)
- Cheap laptop?
- Cheap interface?

The fantom will be my midi controller and ill get a 25keyer later for portability.

HELP

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

Well shyt I'll step up and hijack the thread.

I'm in Atlanta, produced for some big names back in the day and am ready to churn out tracks again.

My Fantom and Mac are outdated and i wanna go digital. Im cheap so my budget is $1500. I want the bare minimum and dont have the patience to download shyt illegally. Give me the rundown:

- DAW: I want either Reason (heard it was easy) or Fruity Loops (looks hard but is adaptable)
- Cheap laptop?
- Cheap interface?

The fantom will be my midi controller and ill get a 25keyer later for portability.

HELP

Do you NEED a laptop? You would get more for your money with a desktop platform.

I would go with a 2.3Ghz iMac for $1,100
iMac

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Interface $250
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2nd Generation USB Audio Interface

Out of the box you can make a ton of great beats with Garage Band which is free.
Logic Pro X is the next step up and it's a beast. A LOT of studios are using Logic Pro X for everything now.
Avid screwed their high end customers a few years ago but making a lot of plug ins obsolete in the later versions of Pro Tools. Since then, a lot of people have left the Pro Tools platform and have moved on to other DAWs. I still use Pro Tools, but Logic Pro X is a very solid choice. It retails for $200, but trust me...it can be much "cheaper" very easily. One of the Coli brehs passed the mustard a while back and it works flawlessly.

As far as software, you'll find that it boils down to workflow preference. There is no such thing as "This software SOUNDS better than this other one".
At their core, they all do the same thing, the use you personally get out of each one will vary from person to person as they find the work flow that works best for them.

I make all my beats in Logic and do all of my recording/mixing/mastering in Pro Tools 10/11.

You will need a good set of speakers but given your budget I would go with the best you can find with what you have left, and possibly some head phones.

All of this I would only recommend if your focus truly is just producing.

Down the line, I would look into solid speakers. KRK makes a good entry level speaker.
Some acoustic treatment for your room is important too. This is something I can't stress enough and is something that until you actually hear the difference for yourself, you won't really grasp it. A LOT of people complete ignore acoustic treatment or spend money on garbage auralex. When the time comes to treat your room, build your own acoustic treatment like I did which Roxul insulation which can be purchased for much cheaper than auralex and does a WAY better job at controlling sound reflections.

 

[ABlackMan]

Knowing what your budget is, is very important in order to steer you in the right direction.
I would also need to know what your recording space consists of in detail. Are you recording in a bedroom? Closet? How big is the area? What else do you have in the room?
I've been doing this for over 10 years and can tell you all about the mistakes I made when trying to get my sound to where it is now. (And I still have a lot of improvement I need to make as far as my skill set).

I could spend hours typing all types of advice for you but unless I know a little more about your situation I wouldn't really be able to tell you anything that would benefit you directly.
One thing I hate seeing online is people pretending there is a "one size fits all" solution to recording, so I avoid doing that.

Spoiler: My Home Studio

I'm running with an iMac, mpk mini2, two speakers. My room is pretty big, king size bed, desk, big ass drawer, and a love seat, still plenty room to move around in. One thing I'm highly concerned with are my windows, I'm on the second floor and the windows are thin and not sealed properly so they pick up sirens, trains that are two minutes down the street, traffic noise, all the crickets at night. My bro gave me an audio technica and I was thinking about getting a scarlet interface. I'm making small steps but trying to really pursue this music thing so budget is tight for now but you can provide something to start with and then also post an upgrade option or two.

 

[ProfessionallyTrill]

@Kamikaze Revy unfortunately i will need a laptop. Im in Atlanta and need to be able to throw shyt in a dufflebag to head to the studio.

I agree going mac would be better but a cheap latop ahould do the trick on some old school Lex Luger/Southside tour bus set up

 

[ABlackMan]

@Kamikaze Revy unfortunately i will need a laptop. Im in Atlanta and need to be able to throw shyt in a dufflebag to head to the studio.

I agree going mac would be better but a cheap latop ahould do the trick on some old school Lex Luger/Southside tour bus set up

Flash drives or an external HD. Get a SATA cable if you have to, this is all for the storage/transferring of files. I remember my bros losing all their shyt they had recorded for some time. Computer crashed and they lost everything man whew

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

@Kamikaze Revy unfortunately i will need a laptop. Im in Atlanta and need to be able to throw shyt in a dufflebag to head to the studio.

I agree going mac would be better but a cheap latop ahould do the trick on some old school Lex Luger/Southside tour bus set up

Macs aren't cheap, and you don't want to go cheap on your computer.
If you're doing any serious production you will need the power to run multiple plug ins and multiple tracks at once.
Check out MacOfAllTrades.com if you're on a tight budget and feel that you need a mac no matter what.
Otherwise, you might have to consider moving to a windows platform.

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

I'm running with an iMac, mpk mini2, two speakers. My room is pretty big, king size bed, desk, big ass drawer, and a love seat, still plenty room to move around in. One thing I'm highly concerned with are my windows, I'm on the second floor and the windows are thin and not sealed properly so they pick up sirens, trains that are two minutes down the street, traffic noise, all the crickets at night. My bro gave me an audio technica and I was thinking about getting a scarlet interface. I'm making small steps but trying to really pursue this music thing so budget is tight for now but you can provide something to start with and then also post an upgrade option or two.

You're going to be very limited in that space as far as professionally mixing and mastering audio.

When it comes to mixing/mastering the most important aspect is your room.
You need to get it acoustically treated properly. (No, this does not mean go buy a box of auralex and slap it in random spots of your room).
Proper acoustic treatment can be done with Roxul (A very dense insulation that can be purchased at Home Depot. It performs way better than Auralex - which does close to nothing- and is cheaper than Auralex as well). It'll require a bit of work from you to set it up but the end product is worth it. The panels are VERY easy to make. You'll need to buy some wood, a few screws, your choice of cloth to cover the panels, wood staples, and you should already have a hammer and screw driver. If you don't have them already you'll need a staple gun which can run $20 and a circular saw $75 or a hand saw for $20. I could make a whole thread with step by step instructions on how to make cheap, incredibly effective acoustic panels for any situation. Let me know if this is something you're interested in and I'll walk you through it.
Roxul Safe 'n' Sound 3 in. x 15-1/4 in. x 47 in. Soundproofing Stone Wool Insulation (1-Batt)-RXSS31525 - The Home Depot

If you can't (or refuse to) acoustically treat your room I would tell you to adjust your expectation as far as mixing and mastering.
Without a treated room you will not hear how the music actually sounds, instead, you will hear how the reflection of your music sounds. The result will be that your music will sound completely different from one source to the next and ultimately your mixes will suffer. You'll be making mixing decisions based on the reverb of your room and not what the actual characteristics of the sound.

That aside, the next thing to tackle would be the vocal quality.
Every studio needs one of these.
SE Electronics RF-X Reflexion Filter X Vocal Booth
You'll see in my studio pics that even though I have an acoustically treated booth, I still use one of these.
In a room with no treatment at all, it isn't perfect, but it definitely helps isolate the sound more.

The Scarlett interface is a decent starter interface.
The mbox 3 is a good one as well if you have a little more to spend.
On the high end you have the UA Apollo which is the next upgrade for the studio I'm looking at as well as a new iMac.

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

I might be able to help more if you tell me what you have already, what you want to do, and how much money you have.
For example, a question could be: "I have a decent mic, a windows PC, an interface, and $100. What should I buy next?"

 

[ABlackMan]

See

You're going to be very limited in that space as far as professionally mixing and mastering audio.

When it comes to mixing/mastering the most important aspect is your room.
You need to get it acoustically treated properly. (No, this does not mean go buy a box of auralex and slap it in random spots of your room).
Proper acoustic treatment can be done with Roxul (A very dense insulation that can be purchased at Home Depot. It performs way better than Auralex - which does close to nothing- and is cheaper than Auralex as well). It'll require a bit of work from you to set it up but the end product is worth it. The panels are VERY easy to make. You'll need to buy some wood, a few screws, your choice of cloth to cover the panels, wood staples, and you should already have a hammer and screw driver. If you don't have them already you'll need a staple gun which can run $20 and a circular saw $75 or a hand saw for $20. I could make a whole thread with step by step instructions on how to make cheap, incredibly effective acoustic panels for any situation. Let me know if this is something you're interested in and I'll walk you through it.
Roxul Safe 'n' Sound 3 in. x 15-1/4 in. x 47 in. Soundproofing Stone Wool Insulation (1-Batt)-RXSS31525 - The Home Depot

If you can't (or refuse to) acoustically treat your room I would tell you to adjust your expectation as far as mixing and mastering.
Without a treated room you will not hear how the music actually sounds, instead, you will hear how the reflection of your music sounds. The result will be that your music will sound completely different from one source to the next and ultimately your mixes will suffer. You'll be making mixing decisions based on the reverb of your room and not what the actual characteristics of the sound.

That aside, the next thing to tackle would be the vocal quality.
Every studio needs one of these.
SE Electronics RF-X Reflexion Filter X Vocal Booth
You'll see in my studio pics that even though I have an acoustically treated booth, I still use one of these.
In a room with no treatment at all, it isn't perfect, but it definitely helps isolate the sound more.

The Scarlett interface is a decent starter interface.
The mbox 3 is a good one as well if you have a little more to spend.
On the high end you have the UA Apollo which is the next upgrade for the studio I'm looking at as well as a new iMac.

yeah I'm renting this spot G, I'm just trying to make something of quality for SoundCloud upload until I can find an actual studio to do mastering. Or should I just go to the studio to start?

 

[Kamikaze Revy]

Been in my own commercial recording studio for 3 years now. Crazy how time flies