Home studios - School me!

Marshall_stax

So, I'm in the fortunate position of having just bought a house that allows me a room to turn into a little studio.

Question is, without breaking the bank what kit do I really need? 

I have a reasonably powerful Mac book that I can start with and a fairly good working knowledge of Garage Band. Is this a good starting point? Should I upgrade this to Logic? 

I have a basic interface which allows me to plug guitars into the Mac but not much else. 

There is so much to choose from and think about that for a home studio newbie it's hard to know where to start. 

Any pointers would be great. Expand my mind!

Cheers guys. 

sweepy

There are some great FireWire interfaces that you can use with your MacBook that give you better vfm and performance than the newer USB options. I'd sit down and work out how many Mic's you want to recird at once and how many people can fit in your room, don't forget a big second monitor for Logic or GarageBand, USB keyboard, headphones and monitor speakers etc, welcome to the Moneypit

rico

I'm in a similar position, albeit the mrs doesn't know about it yet...

I have a MBP with Garageband and an Apogee Jam 96k and Roland RH200 cans. I'm looking at expanding this to either the Focusrite 18i20 or Roland Octa-capture interfaces (one of them has ADAT which means an expansion for analogue ins but I can'r remember which) or indeed one of the Audient interfaces with an ADAT channel strip. As for monitors, not really sure yet. Likewise with mics (apart from SM57s). I need to do some homework on the mic and monitor front but it is not looking cheap!

Freebird

Upgrade to Logic, get some decent monitors/headphones, look into some room treatment, and start reading about home studios on the internet 

spark240

Oh boy...you have a rocky road ahead !...in my experience of going through quite a lot of gear, I would say think about how far you want to go with it....lots of folks say Im just "dabbling" but soon become frustrated with equipment limitations and end up spending more cash.

As already mentioned, a decent room setup can make even the basic mics etc sound better, good cans, yes I would say so.  

Decent monitors, yes...but not mega bucks, I got my B stock Yamaha HS7's for less than £300, and there are lots to choose from under that.

I chose Presonus ( after a few other attempts), so I now have the 16.4.2 mixer as an interface, and I use Studio One Pro DAW, I chose a desk because I want to have lots of things connected at the same time without unplugging all the time, but many of the new interfaces have quite a few inputs now. 

Recording great home demos is not difficult, but a few £££ spent in the right area can put you way ahead of the rest.

Good Luck !   

sweepy

The Presonus 1602 is a cracking option as you get decent faders and plenty of inputs to play with, the HS7's are also a very good choice. Treat yourself to a subscription to Sound on Sound magazine as you'll find it an invaluable source of useful info

Marshall_stax

Freebird said:

Upgrade to Logic, get some decent monitors/headphones, look into some room treatment, and start reading about home studios on the internet 

Fair enough. 

Danny1969

Ha ha .... money pit indeed .....I started dabbling about 25 years ago .... 

I brought one of these  



Then built one of these 



That turned into this .... Batcave studios in my garage 




Until finally I went too far and built this  

A live room ...


And control room 



All that started from wanting to record the odd thing on my computer

You have been warned ! this home recording thing gets addictive and expensive

Marshall_stax

Danny1969 said:

Ha ha .... money pit indeed .....I started dabbling about 25 years ago .... 

I brought one of these  



Then built one of these 



That turned into this .... Batcave studios in my garage 




Until finally I went too far and built this  

A live room ...


And control room 



All that started from wanting to record the odd thing on my computer

You have been warned ! this home recording thing gets addictive and expensive

Um...yeh. Point taken mate. Thanks for the heads up!

Jalapeno

Danny1969 said:

Ha ha .... money pit indeed .....I started dabbling about 25 years ago .... 

I brought one of these  

Snap !