12 Home Studio Necessities

by Joe Gilder of HomeStudioCorner.com

There are hundreds of ways to configure a home recording studio. If youve had a home studio for a while, then you know what Im talking about. Over time my studio has evolved and grown in all sorts of directions. If youre new to home recording, however, this can be almost paralyzing! Youve got a million different products, all of which claim to be the savior of the modern world. Where do you even start? My goal here isnt to provide an exhaustive list of everything you could ever possibly use in your home studio. Rather, I want to give you some guidelines, a framework around which you can build or expand your home studio. Im speaking from my own experience. Ive been recording music for years, and while Im no multi-platinum, award-winning audio engineer, I do have a lot of good experience setting up home studios. This eBook is catered more towards the beginner, but theres a lot of information here that could prove helpful to you whether youve been recording music in your home since the fifties or you have yet to record your first note. Hopefully I can shed some light on
Page 1 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

the matter and give you a broad picture of what it takes to have a great home studio. In thinking through this, Ive come up with the following list:

12 Home Studio Necessities:

1. Computer 2. DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)/Recording Software 3. Audio Interface 4. Microphone(s) 5. Studio Monitors 6. Headphones 7. External/Dedicated Hard Drive 8. Acoustic Treatment 9. MIDI Controller 10. Good Cables 11. Power Conditioner 12. Accessories Over the course of this eBook, Ill delve into each of these. Not everyone will need everything on the list, but these are the things Ive come to see as necessities in my home studio. You probably noticed that Ive not included any standalone multi-track recorders or workstations. I certainly have nothing against them, but they seem to be slowly dying off with the advent of affordable computer-based recording equipment. Nearly all of the topics I plan to cover will be applicable to standalone DAW user, so read on. If youre starting to freak out a little bit, tugging at your collar like George Banks in Father of the Bride, relax. You certainly dont need everything on this list to get started. In fact, you could have only two or three out of twelve and be well on your way to making great recordings. In fact, I started out in high school with a basic #1, a free version of #2, and a #4 that I cant believe I even usedmore on that to come.

Page 2 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

#1 - Computer

Photo by afromusing

Before you can even think about releasing your first quadruple-platinum album, youll need some way to record it. For years, big ol tape machines ruled the recording world. Ive got a buddy who laughs at how much much useless information from the analog days is taking up valuable space in his brain - things like like how to align a 2-inch tape machine. While it used to take up to several hours just to set up the studio for recording (aligning tape machines, zeroing out the console, setting up the patchbay), now I can walk into my studio, flip on a power switch, double click on an icon, and I dont even have time to make coffee before my studio is ready to start recording the next Bohemian Rhapsody. Thank God for computers. Sure, they bring in an entirely different level of complexity, but they allow the average Joe to spend a few hundred bucks and have (in many ways) the same capabilities as the big analog studios that cost thousands upon thousands of dollars. Having a home recording studio simply wasnt feasible for most people thirty years ago. Now Im amazed at the music we are able to produce from a bedroom in an apartment. The other side of that coin, however, is that it becomes just as easy for horrible musicians to record themselves. This is a topic of another discussion for another day.

Page 3 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Im operating under the assumption that you are planning to use your home studio to make good music. Please, make good music. So what computer should you get? The majority of the time, your home computer will have plenty of power to run most recording programs out there. Im not going to give an exhaustive list of specs and requirements, because that changes every few months. For the purpose of this article, suffice it to say that you should consult the manufacturers websites. They all have a minimum requirements page that should be helpful, especially if youre going to buy a new computer. Please, please, PLEASE do yourself a favor and research software requirements before buying your computer. Youll be glad you did. That being said, one huge thing you can do to beef up your current (or brand new) computer is add more RAM. RAM is where the magic happens. Thats where all your audio will be processed, so the more the merrier.

Mac or PC?
Ah, the age-old question. All the Mac guys are touting the superiority of their machines. All the PC guys are trying to prove that theirs are just as cool. Im a Mac guy myself, but Im not so naive as to think that owning a Mac is the only way you can possibly produce anything creative.

Photo by GIRLintheCAFE

What I will say is this: one reason Apple computers tend to get the reputation of being more stable is because theyre all the same. Think about it, how many stores do you know of that build Apple computers? None. Theyre all built buy Apple. They all have the same components. PCs, on the other hand, can be built by just about anyone. You could order the same computer (same processor speed, same amount of RAM) from Dell, Gateway, HP, and Walmart, and each one would be completely different from the next, even though they all have similar specs. Of course, you can also build one yourself. You can order in parts and make this frankenstein beast, all for relatively little money.
Page 4 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

If you were to buy all these computers mentioned above and install the same recording program on each, chances are it wouldnt work on all of them. Heck, theres a good chance it wouldnt work well on any of them. Why? Because recording software is much more demanding than a word processor program. Most PCs are built for office use - running spreadsheets, checking email NOT streaming tons of audio data back and forth. Also, the computer will need to communicate with an external device (such as an audio interface), which can prove to be troublesome. (After all, its hard enough to get your computer to see a printer sometimes, what about an audio interface with all sorts of ins and outs on it?) This is why PCs have gotten a bad rap in the music industry. If I was a software developer, I would love to develop for Mac only. Why? Because I would only need to develop the software to work with a certain processor, motherboard, etc. I wouldnt have to make various versions for each motherboard out there on newegg.com. That being said, I wouldnt completely write off PCs. As I mentioned earlier, chances are good that (with a little tweaking) you can get your PC to work well for recording. However, be ready to do some fiddling and handholding to get it working. If youre looking to buy a PC, then I would seriously suggest looking at one of Sweetwaters Creation Stations. These are built from the ground up to work with all the major recording platforms out there. Theyre a bit more expensive, but theyre made by folks who know music technology, AND theyre super quiet. Ive heard of many a person building his own recording PC, only to find out that it sounds like a rocket ship taking off. Yep, thatll pretty much ruin any recording. Sowhich is better? If you put a Mac and a good, comparable PC (like a Sweetwater Creation Station) side by side, you would not see much difference in performance. Those guys over in Silicon Valley have come up with some ridiculously fast processors, so theres a lot you can do with computers today that you couldnt even do five years ago, both on a Mac and a PC. The Deciding Factor I could build an entire website around the Mac vs PC debate, but I dont want to. The biggest deciding factor for you is this - What software are you wanting to use? It does you no good to research Macs when you want to use Sonar recording software (which is PC only). Its just as bad to research PCs when you have your sites set on Digital Performer (which is Mac only).
Page 5 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Ill get into the various recording platforms in the next section, so keep in mind that when thinking about a home recording studio, you need to think in terms of a system. Too much focus on one component could lead you down the wrong path if it doesnt fit in with your vision for the entire system.

#2 - DAW/Recording Software

Alright, so youve determined that your computer is up to snuff for recording music. Congratulations! The computer is oftentimes the most expensive piece of the whole studio (especially starting out). Youre creating a DAW, a Digital Audio Workstation. Now that you have a computer, you need some recording software. What should I get? you ask. Free Software There are a ton of options, and many of them are free. If youre not sure how serious you are about recording, you may need to start with one of the free programs. Ive found Reaper to work well on the PC. If youve got a relatively new Mac, then youre already off to the races with GarageBand, which is included for free. Dont let the studio snobs intimidate you, there is good music to be made with free software. A good friend of mine in Nashville has made some very good-sounding recordings with GarageBand and a cheap little audio interface. (Ill cover interfaces in the next section.) Free software is, however, free, so you will most likely run into limitations before too long. At that point, you may be ready to spend a little money on some good software.
Page 6 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

The Major Players There are several major players on the market vying for your attention (and your money). They are as follows: Digidesign Pro Tools (Mac & PC) Apple Logic Studio (Mac only) MOTU Digital Performer (Mac only) Steinberg Cubase (Mac & PC) Cakewalk Sonar (PC only) Ableton Live (Mac & PC) Presonus StudioOne (Mac & PC)

Now there are hundreds of users who swear by each of these platforms, and Im not here to make a definitive statement about which one is best. As a consumer, Ive used most of them. Having sold music equipment for years, Ive sold them all to various customers, and Ive developed differing opinions on each. Here are my picks: If youre on a PC - Pro Tools If youre on a Mac - Pro Tools or Logic Why? Well, for one, I own them. Secondly, youll hear it all over the web, but Pro Tools really is the industry standard. If you think theres ever a chance youll want to work in a studio, or send your files to a studio to be mixed, youll need to have Pro Tools. Also, Pro Tools has a simple layout, which is helpful for beginners. There arent a million buttons all over the screen to confuse you. And you dont have to deal with a bunch of different windows. You only have two - the Mix Window and the Edit Window. Another added benefit is that Pro Tools LE is a an exceptional value. You simply buy one of their audio interfaces (either from the Mbox family or 003 family), and Pro Tools LE software is included. Thats huge. My brother-in-law recently got into Pro Tools. He spent around $300, and that covered both his audio interface (Mbox 2 Mini) and his recording software (Pro Tools LE). [For more on Pro Tools, read the article I wrote on Why I Use Pro Tools.] I love Apples Logic Studio as well. Its a very creative platform. In fact, GarageBand and Logic both share the same audio engine. If you have songs you recorded in
Page 7 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

GarageBand, you can simply buy Logic, open up the songs inside Logic, and continue working on them. Logic includes a lot of virtual instruments (such as orchestra sounds, keyboard sounds, etc.). Its great for songwriting and composing. The other benefit is that Logic works with pretty much any audio interface. What that means is you can choose your interface, whereas with Pro Tools you have to use Digidesigns interfaces, which limits your selection. The truth is that all of these programs will do the same thing. The difference lies simply in how they do it. If I told ten guitarists to play an E minor chord, I bet they wouldnt all play it the same way, but none of them would be wrong. Do yourself a favor, do a little research, but dont make it a 6-month process. For every month you wait around for the perfect solution, thats one less month that you couldve been making music. And thats what its all about after all, right?

#3 Audio Interface
Sound Card? Mixing Board? Firewire? USB? What is an audio interface? Plainly speaking, an audio interface is any device that gets audio into and out of your computer. Audio interfaces can be PCI cards that you install inside your computer. They can be outboard devices that you connect to your computer via USB or Firewire, or they can be some combination of both. Every computer comes with a built-in sound card, or audio interface. These are fine for playing email sounds or YouTube videos, but theyre hardly suitable for recording and playback. For this reason, home studio owners buy an audio interface. First Things First Before you can start comparing this interface to that one, you need to know which type of interface your computer will accept. Take a minute to note what connections your
Page 8 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

computer has. This will be helpful when determining which direction you want to go. (Hint: PC users - You may have firewire and not know it. It will be labeled on your computer as 1394. You can check it out here.) The two easiest systems to use will be firewire or USB. The other option is a PCI cardbased system. This will only work (of course) with desktop computers, not laptops. The Ultimate Question While this may sound ridiculously simple. The main question you need to ask yourself when picking out an interface is How many inputs and outputs do I need? Keep in mind that you dont want to have to re-buy anything in two years, so think about future expandability as well. Dont just jump into a little interface with only two microphone inputs if you are seriously thinking about recording a full drum kit in six months. With this in mind, start perusing your options. There are a lot of reputable brands out there that make great interfaces. If youve decided to go the Pro Tools route, then your job is a little easier. You simply need to look at their various Pro Tools LE interfaces. [UPDATE: Pro Tools 9 is now compatible with ANY audio device.] However, if youre going with Logic, Sonar, Cubase, or any other system, you get the distinct pleasure of choosing your own interface. While there are no hard and fast rules as to which interfaces you should pick, Ive come up with some quick picks. For Sonar on a PC Anything from MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn) For a higher-end option, check out RME For Cubase on a PC Anything from PreSonus (Jars of Clay actually went on the road with one of Sweetwaters Creation Station PCs, a PreSonus Firestudio, and Cubase recording the entire tour. Worked flawlessly.) MOTU or RME would work well, too.
Page 9 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

For Logic Studio on a Mac Apogee - Best-sounding interfaces out there (in my opinion) For Digital Performer and Cubase on a Mac Pretty much all of the interfaces mentioned above. *Ive had good experiences with Edirol and M-Audio (especially on a PC) and Focusrite as well. I Need More Inputs You may have noticed that most interfaces max out and 8 microphone inputs. What if you want to put 12 mics on a drum kit? Herein lies the beauty of expandability. Youll notice a lot of interfaces have whats called an ADAT optical input. This can be used to bring in eight more channels of audio. So if you have something like a PreSonus Firestudio, which has two ADAT inputs on the back, you can pump in an additional 16-channels into your existing system! This is done by using standalone 8-channel preamps with ADAT outputs on them. One of the most popular is the PreSonus DigimaxFS. As I mentioned earlier, this is what Jars of Clay did on tour. They had one PreSonus Firestudio (8 mic inputs) and two DigimaxFS preamps (16 mic inputs) for a total of 24 microphone inputs running into Cubase! Off to the Races You may be wanting someone to just say get Product X, but I dont want to do that. For one thing, Product X may not be around in six months. My goal is to give you some tips for what to look for when buying an audio interface. The market will change every six months, but the basic principles still apply: Choose an interface that is compatible with your DAW software. Choose an interface with enough inputs and outputs to handle your present and future needs. Find out which interfaces have a history of playing nicely with your DAW software and your computer platform (Mac or PC). Ive listed some suggestions above for that. Buy it and make some music!!

Page 10 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

#4 - Microphones

Photo by bpbpBrianPetersen

I recorded my first album in high school. At least I called it an album. My gear list included: A basic home PC A free version of Cakewalk Guitar Tracks I got from a friend. That skinny little dictation microphone that used to come with home computers. (Remember those? It was a skinny little microphone about eight inches long, mounted to a cheap little plastic stand, plugged into the sound card at the back of the computer. See pic at the end of this section.) This was my first foray into recording. If youre wondering, I shant be re-releasing that album. Whew, it was awful. However, I learned a lot of things back then. I had no idea I was using sub-par equipment, and I worked really hard to make the recordings sound good. Most of all, I had fun.

Page 11 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Perhaps youre in the same place. Youre having fun writing songs and perhaps even recording a little bit. The fact that youre reading this eBook shows that youre wanting to step things up a bit. Weve been through computers, DAW software, audio interfaces, and now lets look at microphones. One Good Mic If youre like me, the majority of your plans for recording involve one microphone. Youll record the acoustic guitar first, then vocals, then some additional parts. To do this, youll want to get a good large-diaphragm condenser microphone. There are basically two types of microphones - dynamic mics and condenser mics. Dynamics are usually used in a live sound setting. Theyre also used to record drums and guitar amps. (Im speaking in very general terms, since there are no hard and fast rules.) Condensers are primarily used in a recording environment. They are powered via phantom power. (Youll need to make sure your audio interface can supply phantom power. It will usually be marked +48V. The phantom power is sent to the microphone through the microphone cable.) Condensers are more sensitive than dynamic microphones, so they tend to pick up more detail. There are large-diaphragm and small-diaphragm condenser mics. Smalldiaphragm mics are great for recording various instruments or drum overheads. They usually dont work well for vocals. If you just want one good microphone, get a good large-diaphragm condenser. Small diaphragm mics are great, but I would only buy them after you have a good largediaphragm mic or two. Whats Your Budget? I know, I know. It seems like such a salesman type of question, but its a really important question to ask yourself when dealing with microphones. You can spend anywhere from $50-$10,000 on a single microphone. In my experience, with microphones - especially ones under $1,000 - you really get what you pay for. What I mean is that if you compare a $500 mic with a $1,000 one, youll definitely hear a difference. For me the breaking point is around $250. If you spend less than that, youll most likely need to buy a new mic in a year or so. If you can swing $300 for a microphone, youll be
Page 12 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

happy. Im a big fan of Rode microphones for anyone who wants good quality but doesnt want to spend a ton of money. Now if youve got a big chunk of cash laid aside for your dream studio, then you can seriously consider some of the higher-end microphones out there. Brands like Neumann, Blue, and AKG come to mind. Why do big studios have mic lockers full of microphones? Because no one microphone works well in every situation. Its like painting. If you give a painter one or two colors to work with, theyll only be able to create a handful of paintings. In the same way, microphones can add a lot of color and character to your recordings. One mic that sounds great on my vocals may sound awful on another guys voice. If youre aiming for a professional studio, youll need to look into investing in several microphones. That way you can cover whatever situations you come across during a recording session. What Do I Use? Ive used a ton of microphones over the years, but right now I have two go-to mics in my home studio. One is an $800 tube condenser mic from M-Audio called the Sputnik. The other is a $250 condenser mic, also from M-Audio, called the Luna.

My First Mic

M-Audio Luna

M-Audio Sputnik

I know what youre thinking, Two microphones from the same company, how versatile is that? Surprisingly, these mics, although they look almost exactly the same, have a very different sound. The Luna sounds very crisp and transparent. Its a very versatile microphone.
Page 13 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

The Sputnik, on the other hand, is a tube microphone. It has a darker, more colored sound. It has a very warm response. Its not as bright and crisp as the Luna, but it adds its own natural compression and a teensy bit of distortion. I love it for vocals. On any given day, Ill either record guitar and vocals one at a time, or Ill use both mics (Sputnik on vocals, Luna on guitar) to record everything at once. What you choose is certainly up to you. Be creative, and take a chance on a little bit more expensive microphone if you can. Itll be something youll use for years to come.

#5 - Studio Monitors
If you were to browse any of the popular recording forums, it wouldnt take you long to find someone complaining about how their mixes dont translate. What hes complaining about is that he records a song, spends hours in his studio mixing it, and then it sounds completely different when he burns a copy to go listen to in his car or stereo. This is something that has always plagued engineers and will continue to do so for years to come. The issue? Everybody listens to music on a different set of speakers. And no two sets of speakers sound the same. So a perfectly crafted mix on one pair of speakers could sound really bass-heavy and muddy on another pair. The Cure While there is no quick fix for this, one of the biggest reason mixes dont translate is inaccurate studio monitors. (When I say studio monitors, Im referring to speakers specifically designed for reference monitoring in a recording environment.) When youre mixing a song, you want to hear exactly whats going on in the music. If youve got a cheap set of speakers that do something to the sound to make it sound better, youll end up with a mix that sounds goodbut only on that specific pair of speakersnot anywhere else.

Page 14 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Imagine youre a really bad vocalist. (Dont freak out, this is strictly hypothetical.) Now imagine that you have a magical set of speakers that make you sound amazing. Everything you sing through them is just heavenly. Heres the catch. These speakers are too big and heavy to take to a gig or studio, so you only sound good at home. Now you go to sing in a studio or at a gig (or at an American Idol audition), and your real voice comes out. Suddenly youre all over the news as the worlds worst vocalist. If only your speakers (and your friends) had told you the truth. Flat is Good So were in a agreement. You dont want your studio monitors to lie to you. What you want is a pair of monitors that have a flat frequency response, meaning they dont boost or cut certain frequencies. Flat studio monitors give you a clean slate on which you can begin your mixes. Sowhich monitors are flat? A lot of the same principles I discussed with microphones applies to studio monitors. You get what you pay for. Cheaper monitors tend to be less flat than more expensive ones. Microphones and studio monitors are arguably the most important parts of your studio. Microphones capture the sound. Studio monitors reproduce it. Yes, you need a good audio interface, but its all for naught if your microphones and monitors are garbage. That being said, you should plan to invest a decent amount of money into your monitors - at least a couple hundred dollars. There are as many monitor options as there are microphone options, but the main point I want to make is this - Dont use cheap computer speakers to mix your music. Rather than dropping $70 on a pair of Logitech computer speakers at Best Buy, go to a place like Sweetwater.com and check out the studio monitors. Any studio monitor would be better than cheap computer speakers. Trust meI used them on my first album in high school, and as Ive said before, twasnt good. How big? Youll notice that there are studio monitors of all different shapes and sizes. Generally speaking, the bigger the speaker, the better it is at reproducing low frequencies. A 3inch monitor isnt going to have nearly the same bass response as an 8-inch monitor.
Page 15 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

The biggest problem area I have when my mixes dont translate well is how the lows sound. I mixed for a few years on some nice little 5-inch monitors. They sounded great and were fairly accurate. However, due to the fact that they were only 5-inch monitors, I couldnt hear what was happening in the deep bass of my songs. I would record something as simple as a guitar-vocal, and it would sound great in my studio. Then Id play it on a system with bigger speakers and BOOM! Theres a TON of bass on the guitar that I simply couldnt hear on my smaller monitors at home. The bass was always there, from the moment I recorded it. I just never knew it because my speakers couldnt reproduce it. My Recommendation If you can afford it, try to get something with a 6-inch to 8-inch woofer on it. Ive found that these tend to reproduce enough low frequency information to provide reliable, accurate mixes. Spend at least $300-$500 if you can. $700-$1500 will get you into a really professional set of monitors, but avoid spending less than $200 if you can. Youll only end up using them for a year at most. Then youll sell them for some nicer monitors. What about headphones? Ill discuss headphones in the next section, but generally-speaking theyre not great for mixing. Because theyre so close to your ears, they tend to make the bass sound louder than it actually is. Also, the stereo imaging (how the song sounds from left to right) is very different than with studio monitors. More on that to come. What I Use In my home studio, I use M-Audio EX66 monitors. Theyre a bit different from your standard monitor in that they have two 6-inch woofers instead of a single woofer. This gives it a very deep, tight response. Ever since I got these, I noticed that my mixes started sounding much better. I still have to work
Page 16 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

hard to manipulate the audio to my liking, but a good set of monitors always makes it easier to hear whats going on in the mix.

#6 - Headphones
I couldnt tell you how many hours of my life Ive spent with headphones on my head. Whether youre editing tracks in your apartment at three in the morning or recording vocal overdubs, headphones are an invaluable component of your home studio. First Things First We took a look at studio monitors in the last section. If youre new to this whole home studio thing, you may be wondering, If studio monitors are so important for getting good mixes out of my home studio, why do I need headphones, too? Thats a fair question. The biggest single reason you need headphones is for recording. Since you only want your instrument or vocal to be recorded, youll obviously need to mute the studio monitors while recording. You need to be able to hear whats being recorded as you record it, and thats where headphones come in. This could be an arguable point. Lets say youre recording yourself singing and playing guitar. Perhaps you want to play and sing at the same time to capture the feel and energy of the song. (Oftentimes the song loses a little bit of energy when you record the parts separately, i.e. guitar first, then vocals.)

Photo by Mulad

In this case, youll use headphones to make sure the microphones are positioned properly and that everything sounds good, but then you could take off the headphones and just play.
Page 17 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

I do this quite a lot with my songwriting podcast. Ill set things up, then throw the headphones down and just play. Its very musical for me, and it helps me focus on the performance rather than the sound in my headphones. There are many reasons, however, why you would want to record the guitar and vocals separately. For one, you dont get the sound of the vocal in the guitar microphone and vice versa. Also, it allows you to focus on the performance of each instrument individually and to record several versions, or takes. When taking this overdub approach, you record one part first (guitar, for example), then you record additional parts on top of it (like a second guitar part, drums, vocals, etc.). To do this, you need a way to hear the parts youve already recorded while you record the additional parts. This is why you need headphones, since, as I mentioned before, youll be muting your monitors during the recording process. Which Headphones Should You Get? There are various types of headphones out there - open, semi-open, and closed. For recording, its best to go with a set of closed headphones. Closed headphones (particularly circumaural or over-the-ear headphones) are designed to keep the sound from leaking out of the headphone and getting picked up by the mic. Ive had many a recording session where the guitarist plays the last chord of the song, and then as the music fades out you hear a tickticktick Thats the sound of the click track (or metronome) bleeding out of the headphones into the mic. Few things are as frustrating as trying to get rid of that ticking. Take my advice - get a good pair of headphones that provide a good seal around the ear. What I Use While the Sony MDR-7506 headphones are probably the most popular, I still get too much bleed when I use them. Ive fallen in love with the Sennheiser HD-280 Pro headphones. They both sell for around $100, but the HD280s completely surround the ear. In fact, theyre so good that when Im wearing them I dont hear my wife come into the studio. Shes scared me so many times that I had to make a rule that shes supposed to flick the lights when she comes in, so I know shes there.
Page 18 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

What About Mixing? As I mentioned in the last section, headphones really arent ideal for mixing. However, they can be quite useful. I always check my mixes on headphones to make sure they sound good to all the headphone wearers out there. I also use headphones quite a bit when Im editing, as you can hear little details a bit better. As far as mixing goes, I know plenty of folks who do their mixes entirely on headphones, but typically a good pair of studio monitors is going to give you a better chance at good, consistent mixes. However, the biggest challenge you face when mixing is simply learning how to mix on whatever equipment you have. You need to learn how your equipment (either headphones or studio monitors) sounds. Then you must learn how to make that sound translate to the rest of the world.

Page 19 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

#7 - External/Dedicated Hard Drive

Photo by sebastiankippe

This is a concept that has been a little fuzzy for a lot of home studio owners. Whenever youre getting into multi-track recording, its important to have a dedicated hard drive for streaming all your audio. What do you mean dedicated? Recording music to a computer can be a pretty intense process, especially when you start recording and playing back ten or twenty individual tracks of audio or more. Each of those audio files has to be streamed in real time from your hard drive. The system hard drive on your computer (the one that came with your computer) will technically work as your audio drive, but its not the best idea. For one thing, your operating system and all the software you own is installed on the system drive. Before you even fire up Pro Tools or Garage Band, the system drive is already working pretty hard. It has a full-time job of simply running the operating system. Now to ask that drive to handle all of your audio streaming is just too much. What that means in the real world is you will start to get freezes and error messages in your recording software. For this reason I (along with every DAW software manufacturer out there) recommend using a dedicated hard drive for recording. This means you want to use a second hard drive that does nothing but stream your audio to and from the computer.

Page 20 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Internal or External? There are basically two ways to add a second drive to your system. If youre using a desktop computer, install a second hard drive inside the computer. If youre using a laptop, or if you simply dont want to bother installing a hard drive on your desktop, you need an external drive. Internal drives technically give you more speed, since they communicate directly with your motherboard. However, Ive exclusively used external drives, and theyve worked wonderfully. The reason I have used external is that Ive always run a laptop setup, which doesnt allow for you to install a second internal drive. Also, external drives are convenient for when I want to take my sessions to another studio and work on them there. I just unplug the drive and head out the door. As of today, there are basically two types of external drives - USB and firewire. USB 2.0 drives are just fine and are plenty fast, but I prefer firewire because it can be daisychained. If youre new to computers, that basically means that you can plug several firewire devices into each other (since they all usually have two firewire ports on them) and then run one firewire cable from the last device into the firewire port on your computer. Firewire drives are also hot-swappable, meaning you can plug and unplug them from your computer without having to restart the computer every time. (However, you need to make sure you eject the drive from your system before yanking the cord out.) What I Use My studio is based around an Apple Macbook, which only has one firewire port on it. From that one port I connect to my Digidesign 003 and three firewire hard drives. My main recording drive is a Glyph drive, which I highly recommend. Ive been through my share of cheap drives, and while most of them worked just fine (in fact, I still use them for backup and archiving), they can be ridiculously loud! In a home studio environment, youre already battling noise from the air conditioning, your neighbors, your computer, your cat. The last thing you need is a noisy hard drive to add a lovely hmmmm to all your recordings. Its pretty obnoxious. Whats special about Glyph drives is that they were made specifically for audio recording. A few features:

Page 21 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

 Theyre ridiculously quiet. They use actual acoustic treatment on the inside of the drive itself to insulate the drive noise from the rest of your studio. They can be rack-mountable. This is just cool. And Sweetwater throws in rack ears for free. They have the appropriate chipset for all the major recording platforms. Basically, not all hard drive enclosure chipsets are the same. Many do not work or do not work well with Pro Tools or any other platform. They have a great warranty, which is awesome since hard drives do crash from time to time A Little Geek Speak Glyph drives are a bit more expensive, so if they dont fit your budget, make sure you get a hard drive that is 7200 rpm and has an appropriate chipset (like the Oxford 911 chipset) for the recording program youre planning to use. All the manufacturers spec this out on their websites, so check those out. One final thing. You may be wondering how exactly you use the external drive with Pro Tools, for example. Basically, all you do is save your session to the external drive. When you first create a session for a song, it will give you an option to choose a hard drive where you want that session and all its corresponding audio to reside. You dont need to install Pro Tools or your Windows or Mac operating system on your external drives. They simply hold your audio. Hopefully this shed some light on the whole recording hard drive mystery.

Page 22 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

#8 - Acoustic Treatment

Photo by southerntabitha

Acoustic treatment is arguably one of the most important components of your home studio. Sadly, its usually the most neglected area. Most folks would much rather buy a new mic or new studio monitors than bother with acoustic treatment. Or theyll buy plug-in bundle after plug-in bundle, praying that one of them would be able to fix their mixes. Oftentimes the problem isnt the gear, its the room. Think about it. Everything you do in your studio revolves around sound waves. These sound waves are bouncing all around the room. Unless your room was built from the ground up to appropriately handle all these reflections, youll need acoustic treatment. A Big Shoebox Most home studio owners are using a spare bedroom or office. Most likely the space is rectangular, like a big box. This just isnt all that conducive to recording (and especially mixing) music. (Just stand in the middle of the room and clap your hands. Youll hear a little flutter echonot very pretty.) The parallel walls cause all sorts of standing waves and room nodes. This causes certain frequencies to build up in certain areas of the room. It can also cause certain frequencies to be dramatically cut. You know how your studio monitors are supposed to have a flat frequency response, so you can accurately hear what youve recorded? Well a room that isnt acoustically

Page 23 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

treated will most likely not have a flat response. The room itself will change the way you hear the sound, even if youre using flat, accurate monitors!! The Solution There are a lots of things you can do to address the acoustics of your room. If youre pretty serious about getting the room as flat as possible, you can have Auralex do a free room analysis. Theyll analyze your space and give you a best-case-scenario solution, including absorption products, diffusors, bass traps, etc. Completely treating a room can get expensive, but even a few changes can cause drastic improvements to the way your room sounds. If nothing else, pick up a $100 box of 1-square-foot foam panels. Thats what I did. I was able to place nine panels directly behind my studio monitors, four panels on the ceiling above the mix position, and ten panels on the wall opposite the monitors. Is this solution perfect? Nah. But it did make a noticeable difference in the sound of my speakers. They suddenly sounded tighter and more detailed. (Note: I used 2x2 ceiling tiles to glue four panels into one diamond shape, then I hung each diamond on the wall with just one nail.) What happens is the foam absorbs the first reflections off the walls. These first reflections are what cause a lot of your acoustic problems. By absorbing them, you hear more of the direct signal from the monitors and less of the reflections in the room. Another good place to put treatment is directly to your left and right, to prevent reflections coming off the side walls. Mirror Rule Lets say youre going to pick up a box of foam, but youre unsure of where to place it on your walls. Use the mirror rule. Sit in your mix position, and have someone run a mirror along the walls. Wherever you can see your monitors in the mirror, put up some foam! Its a simple process, but it really helps you think through how the sound reflects through your room. Sound waves and light waves behave similarly, so the mirror rule can be pretty effective! Give it a shot If youre wanting to build a professional home studio, youll need to invest some time and money in good acoustic treatment. Youll need to get absorption panels, but youll
Page 24 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

also need bass traps (to handle low frequency issues) and diffusers (to help spread out the sound more). However, if youre just starting out, make small changes here and there. Buy some foam. See how that works. Then buy a set of bass traps to put in the corners. That will help with too much bass building up in your room. Just take it one step at a time. Theres no rule that says you have to buy acoustic treatment. You can get creative with blankets or mattresses. Anything that absorbs some of those first reflections can be extremely helpful. If nothing else, remember that your room plays a huge part in how your recordings will turn out. A minimal investment in a little bit of acoustic treatment can make your equipment and mixes sound exponentially better.

#9 - MIDI Controller

Photo by bennylin0724

Not every home studio owner is a keyboard player, but almost every home studio owner will want to put keyboard parts into their recordings at some point. Hence the need for a MIDI controller, or MIDI keyboard. The reason I call it a MIDI controller as opposed to just a keyboard is that not everyone needs a big expensive keyboard with lots of sounds. Most recording software you can get today comes with all sorts of free virtual instruments, like keyboards, strings, organs, drums, etc.

Page 25 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Obviously youll need some sort of keyboard to actually play these sounds that are living inside your software. Thats where a MIDI controller comes in. What is MIDI? MIDI is a communication language. Its the way different devices (particularly keyboards and sound modules) talk to each other. (See Intro to MIDI video.) MIDI is used in all sorts of ways. It can allow one keyboard to play the sounds off of several keyboards. It can control lighting. It can change settings on an effects unit. It can do your laundry and make your bed, too. For our purposes, well look at how MIDI relates to recording. What I love about using MIDI in my home studio is that I have complete control over every aspect of the performance. I can record the MIDI information to a track, just like audio. But the beauty of MIDI is that I can change the performance after its recorded. If I hit a wrong note, I can simply click on that note and delete it. If I want to add or take away notes here and there, no problem. Another aspect of MIDI that I love is that you can change what instrument your MIDI notes are playing. I could record a MIDI track with a really nice piano sound. Later on, I can change that sound to an orchestra, and I dont have to re-record the part! I simply reassign those notes to a different instrument. Getting Connected There are three ways to connect a MIDI controller keyboard to your computer: 1. Connect a MIDI cable from the keyboard to a USB MIDI interface, which then runs the MIDI into your computer via USB. 2. Connect a MIDI cable from the keyboard to a MIDI input on your existing audio interface, which then carries the MIDI signal (along with all your audio signals) into your computer. 3. Connect the MIDI controller directly to the computer via USB. That last option is becoming more and more common. These MIDI controllers usually have no internal sounds. They can be pretty inexpensive, and theyre made mainly for studio use.

Page 26 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

But Joe, do I need it? There are some home studio owners who will never need a MIDI controller. If youre doing 100% recording and never need to sequence any keyboard parts or pads or synths or drum parts, then youre off the hook. However, I would bet that the majority of us need keyboards in our songs from time to time. I would also be willing to bet we dont have a bunch of fancy keyboards and a Steinway grand piano lying around in the corner of our studio. Since thats the reality for most home studio owners, a MIDI interface and some virtual instrument plugins become a worthwhile investment. What I Use For a long while I used an old Yamaha PSR keyboard as my MIDI controller. It was so bulky, had built-in speakers and sounds that I rarely used. So I dumped it and bought a cute little baby blue CME U-Key controller. Its simple enough and gets the job done, and it takes up very little space on my desk! Theres a lot more to MIDI than I was wanting to cover in this eBook. Hopefully this gives you a good starting point.

Page 27 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

#10 - Good Cables

Youll hear regularly in the pro audio world that your studio is only as good as your weakest link. And the weakest link is? Cables. Do yourself a favor. Dont use cheap cables in your studio. Every single piece of equipment that you will use for making music in your studio will be connected using a cable, so focusing on good cables is important. Im not advocating going out and buying the latest gold-plated, oxygen-free, organically-fed, free-range, thousanddollar cable out there, but dont spend $4.95 on a cable either. As Ive mentioned several times in this eBook already, you get what you pay for. Using a good cable as opposed to a cheap one will help you in a number of ways: They will help reduce the amount of noise and interference that gets picked up by your audio signal as it passes through the cable. Home studios are Photo by williac noisy as-is; so the less noise your cables add to your system, the better off youll be. They will preserve the frequency response of your system. Cheap cables can really affect the audio that passes through them, especially in the lows and highs. Ive heard lots of stories of people upgrading their cabling and raving about how much better their equipment sounds afterwards. They will last a lifetime. If you use cheap cables, youll need to re-buy them in a year or two. Good cables will last forever, or at least theyll have a lifetime warranty, so if they do wear out you can have them replaced for free.
Page 28 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

What I Use In my home studio I have mainly Pro Co cables with some Monster cables and some Blue cables. Be sure to give some serious consideration to what cables youre adding to your shopping cart. Good cables, while not all that expensive, can make a huge difference in the sound of your studio.

#11 - Power Conditioner

Throughout this eBook, weve looked at various pieces of equipment for your home studio. Almost all of them have one thing in common: they run off of electricity. At this point in your home studio, youve most likely invested a fair amount of money. Now you need to protect your investment. Its time to consider a power conditioner. If you compare your gear to a car, then a power conditioner would be both an insurance policy and regular maintenance. It protects the gear and helps it run at optimal performance. You mean a power strip? The idea of power conditioning is a bit of a new concept for most people. There are plenty of cheap plastic power strips out there. You can spend a few bucks at Walmart
Page 29 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

and get a power strip with plenty of outlets on it. However, do you want to entrust all of your gear and your computer to a $20 power strip? Its a question worth asking yourself. A good power conditioner will give you two things: Surge Protection Noise Filtering Surge Protection Youve heard the stories. Your neighbor down the street lost his home stereo to a lightning strike. Or a power surge took out your buddys TV. Im not saying anything new when I say that surges happen. But you may wonder why you should buy a $180 Furman versus a $20 surge protector. Those cheap ones do indeed offer surge protection, but if the surge is too large, these units can fail. If that happens, the surge can get passed on to your equipment. Also, these cheaper units can catch fire! Last I heard, thats a bad thing. If you want to see some cool videos on this. Head over to Furmans website. I love their stuff. A good power conditioner has the capacity to clamp down on surges, preventing them from passing on to the gear. Some of the less expensive models (~$60) are sacrificial systems. The surge protector is destroyed (internally), but your gear is protected. If this happens, youll simply need to buy another one or have it repaired. Nicer ones, like the Furman PL8 that I own, actually have transformers and capacitors in place that can handle virtually any surge without sacrificing itself. (Im no electrical engineer, so I cant give you specifics on how exactly it does it, but the point stands: it works.) Noise Filtering Have you ever been watching TV, then someone in the next room turns on a vacuum cleaner? What happens? A lot of times youll end up with static on the TV. The same thing happens with your audio equipment, although its not as obvious. What causes the TV static is noise transmitted through the electricity in your house.

Page 30 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

This same noise can get into your audio equipment. While it may not be a noticeable hiss or buzz, it can effectively raise the noise floor of your entire system. (The noise floor is how much low-level noise your system generates by simply being powered on.) The higher the noise floor of your system is, the more likely you are to hear that noise in your recordings. Each piece of equipment you add to your home studio contributes its own bit of noise to the system via its power cable. The solution? Noise filtering. While surge protection is cool, noise filtration is really cool. Basically, higher-end power conditioners (like the ones from Furman and Monster) have intricate filters in place that filter the power before passing it along to the equipment. In addition, they offer filtration between components plugged into the same power conditioner. That way your computer (which generates a certain type of noise) wont affect your studio monitors (which generate a different type of noise). In fact, most of these power conditioners have separate outlets with separate filters for both digital and analog equipment. The Verdict? I dont have any audio samples to show you a recording done with a $20 power strip versus a nice Furman power conditioner. And I know it can be a hard pill to swallow, especially since a power conditioner doesnt really help you make music. However, like I said at the beginning of this section, a good power conditioner is like an insurance policy plus regularly scheduled maintenance for your gear. Running off of dirty power can wear your gear out over time. Protect and prolong it with a good power conditioner. One More Thing I think its important to note that everything Ive covered in this section relates to power conditioners, not voltage regulators. There are some cool voltage regulators out there that do everything Ive already mentioned, and they regulate the voltage, sending a steady 120V (in the US) to the equipment. This is a best-case scenario, but theyre pretty expensive. I wouldnt worry about getting one unless you have a huge amount of money invested in your studio already.

Page 31 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

What I Use As I mentioned before, I use a Furman PL8. It sells for around $180. I have also owned a Monster Power Pro5100 in the past. Both were great.

#12 - Accessories
I know, I know. Accessories is a pretty anti-climactic topic to end this eBook on. However, were talking about 12 Home Studio Necessities here, and accessories can play a huge part in the functionality and workflow of your studio. In light of that, Ive compiled a list of accessories that I find indispensable in my home studio. This is certainly not an exhaustive list. Its more of a starting point to get you thinking about what various items you may be missing. Here goes. Equipment Rack - Theres nothing quite like having a rack for your equipment. However, filling up a rack can be quite addicting. (Be careful of Gear Acquisition Syndrome) That being said, even if you just have a few pieces of gear audio interface, power conditioner, rack-mountable hard drive you can still benefit from a rack. There are all kinds out there. At the time Im writing this eBook, Ive got a very basic $20 rack sitting next to me. Its just a metal frame with rack rails on it. Works just fine.

Page 32 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Desk - Youll need at least a table to hold all your fancy gear. There are lots of desks out there made specifically for recording studios. Some have built-in racks, which is nice. I currently use an L-shaped glass desk I got from a local hardware store. It has a raised platform on which I place my computer monitor and studio monitors. Headphone Accessories - Its always good to have extra headphones around in case you are recording more than one musician. Also, if your interface only has one headphone out, youll need to either get a headphone amp with multiple outputs or just a Y splitter cable to split the signal to two headphones. Its also a really good idea to have a few headphone adapters in your arsenal - both 1/4 to 1/8 and 1/8 to 1/4 (see picture). You never know when youll need to listen to an iPod, or someone may bring in headphones with only a 1/8 connector on them. Youll want to be able to accommodate them. Another one of my most favorite accessories is a headphone extension cord. Its simply a 10-foot cable that has a 1/4 male jack on one end and 1/4 female on the other. This lets you get away from your noisy computer and hard drives to record without having the headphone cable yank you back. DI Box - Its always a good idea to have a DI box for recording guitar and bass. Sure, you may mic up a guitar or amp, but getting a copy of the signal off of a direct box can be invaluable. (It allows you to change the guitar/amp sound down the road if you need to.) Flash Drives - While I love using my firewire hard drives for recording and archiving, they can be a pain to lug around to a friends studio to swap files, etc. Keep a few USB flash drives handy. If youve got a large set of files you want to move around, a larger, bus-powered USB drive would be great for that. Ive got an old 20GB USB drive that I use from time to time. It makes life pretty easy. Pop Filter - Just go ahead and get one. You can play all the tricks you want when recording vocals, trying to prevent the notorious plosive Bs and Ps from popping the microphone, but a pop filter will make your life easier, so the singer can focus on just singing. Use the nylon ones, or even the metal mesh ones out there. Id stray away from using a thick foam ball. Foam tends to absorb high frequencies, and you you want the vocal to pass through to the microphone as accurately as possible. Blank CD Spindle - You know the spindle that hold a stack of blank CDRs when you buy them? Well, once you use up all your CDRs, keep the spindle. Its a great place to store all of your installation discs for the various pieces of software you own. It gets so
Page 33 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

annoying to have to look through jewel cases or those little paper sleeves to find the disc you want. Like I said, this is certainly not an exhaustive list. These are simply things I see around my studio as I type this.

Congratulations!
Youve made it through the 12 Home Studio Necessities. This should give you enough ammunition to move forward with your home studio and start recording some beautiful music. Also, if you havent signed up for my email newsletter, please do so here. Thanks again for reading this eBook! I hope it was very helpful.

To better recordings, Joe Gilder HomeStudioCorner.com

Products by Joe Gilder

Understanding Pro Tools - www.understandingprotools.com
New to Pro Tools? Want to deepen your understanding of it? In Understanding Pro Tools I walk you through the program over the course of over 3 hours of video content, explaining the things you need to know to become a more confident Pro Tools user. Im even giving the first video away for FREE. Click here to learn more.

Page 34 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Understanding Editing - www.understandingediting.com

Editing is one of those skills that can be difficult to learn. Its essentially the process of taking your recorded tracks and polishing them, getting them ready for mixing. In these videos (over 3 hours), I explain to you the nuts and bolts of editing audio, everything from removing unwanted pops and clicks from a vocal track to pocketing bass, guitar, and drums. It took me years to learn how to do this efficiently. Now Ive condensed all that information down into a single tutorial series. Click here to learn more.

Understanding EQ - www.understandingeq.com
EQ can be a frustrating process to learn and understand completely. In this tutorial series, I teach you how to become confident in your ability to EQ anything. Click here to learn more.

Understanding Compression www.understandingcompression.com

Compression was a big mystery to me when I first started recording. It took me a long time (and lots of hours) before I felt comfortable using it. In this series, I teach YOU how to become comfortable with compression (in much less time than it took me). Click here to learn more.

HSC Production Club - www.hscproductionclub.com

The Production Club is my very first training course. Its a 12-week course, where I walk you step-by-step through the recording process. Youre basically looking over my shoulder as I record one of my songs from start to finish, everything from pre-production to recording to mixing and mastering. I only open this course up a few times a year. Click here to find out more, and to sign up to the interest list.

Page 35 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010

Mix With Us - www.mixwithus.com

Im a singer-songwriter in addition to being a recording engineer. Prior to releasing my latest album, Out of Indiana, I launched Mix With Us, a 10week training course. As a member, you download the full multi-track audio files for all 10 songs from the album. I also provide a video tutorial showing how I mixed each song. You have the chance to mix the album in your own studio and submit your mixes for critique/review by me. Its a LOT of fun. Click here to find out more.

One-Hour Challenges - www.onehourchallenges.com

One-Hour Challenges is a longer training course for people who want to take what they learn and actually apply it. Members receive 16 different challenges, one every two weeks. Each challenge is designed to be done in under an hour. Setting a time limit for yourself forces you to focus on the important things and getthingsdone. Registration is currently closed, but will likely open again soon.

Page 36 HomeStudioCorner.com Joe Gilder 2010