Discover How to Build a Home Recording Studio on a Budget? - Part 2
(Click this link if you want to see Part 1?)
“Dave, I have $xxx to spend on Home Recording gear…What should I buy?”
In this 2nd part today, we’ll cover what recording equipment to buy with budgets of:
Then in the final part:
Please feel free to let us know if you found these examples useful. Just use the Comments section at the end of each post.
Thanks!
Ken Johnstone
(Publisher)PS: Of course there’s much more than just budget to consider. Click this link for more information on our step by step guide to selecting the right kind of gear for your recording needs.
Dave, I have $1300 to spend on Home Recording Studio Equipment, what should I buy?
[tag]Cheap music recording equipment[/tag]? Not at this quality of gear! But you still want to aim for best value - and we’ll have lots more great advice on this in future.
Buying tip: For now, just one point - apart from special offers (for example, Musician’s Friend currently has a rebate offer on SM58’s) - you’ll probably find it hard to find much price difference between the major suppliers. However, look for the vendor offering free shipping. This may well more than outweigh any price difference and can be very worth while!
With a budget of around $1300, you will be able to get some great music studio equipment. Go to your favorite online store, or use the links below to buy:
R0DE NTK Microphone ($530) - This high quality condenser microphone will make a worthy addition to your studio. This mic is great on Vocals and live instruments. Plug it into your friend’s computer and start recording using Pro Tools Free downloaded from the Digidesign website and record using this.
- *Tascam CDR-788 CD Burner (<$200) - A CD burner is essential if you want to be able to output your music to CD to listen to on your personal stereo. If you already have one on your existing PC, most likely you’ll have a CD burning package included. If not, download Nero ($80), or CDBurnerXP Pro (free).
CDR 80-Minute 50-Pack ($40) - You need to get some blank CDs to record onto!
Sennheiser HD25 Headphone ($200) - These fantastic, flat-response headphones will let you hear very clearly what you are working on and you will start to learn to listen accurately to music before progressing to studio monitors. BE WARNED - Headphones do not give a totally accurate representation of sound but this is not really a problem for most people.
- Propellerhead Reason 3.0 Win/Mac Music Software ($400) - Stand alone music station software. This combined with Pro Tools Free will give you a lot of ability to be creative.
*Note: I’ve included a link to our eBay CD Burners page, since the Tascam CDR-788 model is now hard to find new. Current models are much higher cost…
Dave, I have $2000 to spend on Home Recording Studio Equipment, what should I buy?
You will be able to get some great music studio equipment with this amount of money. As above, go to these links (or your favorite online store) and buy:
- Shure SM58 mic - dynamic microphone ($100)
- R0DE NTK Microphone - Tube Condenser Studio Microphone ($500)
- CD Burner (on existing PC?) and Nero (or CDBurner XP Pro) Software ($80)
- CDR 80-Minute 50-Pack - Blank CDRs in Spindle
- Sennheiser HD25 Headphone - Studio Monitor Sealed Headphone ($180)
This time, also include:
- Mackie HR624 Active Studio Monitor ($450 each ) This pair of reference monitors are great to start recording on. They give you accurate sound so you know what you are listening to. These are [tag]active monitors[/tag] which means they don’t need a separate amplifier.
Dave, I have $3000 to spend on Home Recording Studio Equipment, what should I buy?
You will be able to get some great music studio equipment with this amount of money. In this case, we’d suggest moving up a couple of gears in the software department.
Go to the links above, then add…
Apple Logic Pro 7.2 (Macintosh) ($1000) - The professional package for composers and musicians wanting to write and record. This is a fantastic program that will do everything you need it to and more.
or
Cakewalk SONAR 6 Producer Edition Recording Software ($500) - A less expensive alternative to Apple Logic. With not the complete functionality of Logic still a very popular program.
Shure Microphones
4 responses so far ↓
1 Adam Knapp // Jul 19, 2007 at 2:35 pm
No offense man, but it seems like you’re extremely inefficient with your equipment budgets. On 1300 bucks I:
Bought a laptop: $500
Bought a digital interface: $150
Bought two multi-pattern, large diaphragm condensers: $300
Bought an SM-57 and cable: $80
Bought monitors: $200
Bought a mic stand: $20
I had 50 bucks left over, so I used it to grab a stick of 512mb ram for my laptop, then used the change to buy lunch. The laptop was a simple Pentium M 1.5GHz Dell I got on eBay. You could put together an even better computer much cheaper than this if you built a desktop, but I like portability.
When you’re at this level, you need -decent- equipment, but not the best. The Rode NTK is a decent microphone for 500 bucks, but the MXL V69 can be had for 300 dollars less on sale, and sounds just as good. Studio Projects also makes some decent mics for the 100-200 dollar price point.
A good interface is absolutely vital for the overall sound of the recording. This includes the pre-amp, phantom power supply, and A/D converters. The Tascam US-122 and 144 are good two-track modules, and usually run around 150. The lexicon omega contains DBX preamps and can record 4 tracks at a time. Those list for under 200 as well.
As for monitors, Behringer makes a decent set for the money. If you replace the tweeters, they sound amazing. Sony’s V6 headphones, standard studio fare, retail around 100 bucks and are routinely rated some of the best budget headphones for producers, DJ’s, and musicians.
Last note, never pay for software. There are too many talented programmers out there with pre-existing options too similar to their expensive counterparts to justify the spending of such large amounts. CD burning, Music recording, track mixing…Even the operating system can be free. VST effects are often given out by those who make them, and they are compatible with nearly every piece of audio software out there except for pro-tools, which uses a proprietary, expensive, untranslatable format.
2 Ken Johnstone // Jul 19, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Thanks Adam.
Always good to get an alternative approach.
Thanks!
Ken
3 matt // Apr 2, 2008 at 7:28 pm
I like Adam’s plan better. I built a desktop for about 700-800.
ECS Nforce 6-M a MoBo
AMD 64 x 2 5600+ (2.8 Ghz)
4 gigs of Kingston Hyper X dual Channel RAM
EVGA 8600 GT 512mb PCI-E
320-gig SATA II HD
CD-RW
DVD - RW
Used Bit-torrent for Windows Vista Ultimate (64 bit OS) to utilize the dual core 64 bit processor.
Again, Bit-torrent and got Adobe Premiere CS3 and other editing tools.
Recording equipment i also found cheap. there are deals out there, u just gotta find em.
4 discriminating noob // Jun 5, 2008 at 11:51 am
its good to have alternative opinions but i searched the web for reviews, and just about every product the other person recommended had very bad reviews if not the worst.
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