Pc setup for home recording

It is a sad fact that too many people get stuck, become frustrated and never achieve their recording goals. We want to help you succeed! So we take a very simple approach here. Start of with the right home recording studio kit — you only need a few basic items to get going. Then we give the help and advice you need to get it setup correctly. Watch the video tutorial on home recording studio setup, then read on for more. These are the key essentials needed to make good quality recordings at home.

You can build up step by step and what you choose to buy for your own home studio recording will depend on what you want to achieve. It may be you can achieve everything you want with a simple USB mic and a set of headphones if you just want to record vocal tracks.

Or just a MIDI controller if you are only interested in creating sheet music or learning to play the keyboard or piano. So pick the items YOU need. But to help you get started here are our top 7 items for the complete newbie. We will look briefly at each item in turn and carefully explain in plain english exactly what it is, how it works, how to choose the best equipment for you, how to set it up and troubleshoot any problems. Once you have got the basics in place, then we have step-by-step guides on how to use each component to record yourself , edit, mix and master your tracks, to create your own music , or use it to learn how to play an instrument better.

The same techniques will apply whether you are a musician wanting to record your songs or backing tracks, whether you are a video artist looking to make professional audio tracks and voiceovers for your videos, or whether you are a podcaster, coach or hypnotherapist wanting to make high quality recordings of your voice to sell or share.

For more information, read our disclosure policy here. And although newcomers to home recording fret about the kind of computer they should purchase, if you are just starting out, then start with the computer you have got, and pick peripheral gear that will work on multiple platforms. Once you have got your basic studio together, and are ready to upgrade your computer then we can look at options in detail.

But for now, pick an audio interface that will work on PC, Mac and iPad if you can and are not sure which direction your recording is going to take. If you bought a computer or iPad within the last 3 or 4 years it will be more than adequate for recording, mixing and sharing your audio tracks. If buying from scratch, then we can vouch for the solid performance of a MacBook Pro for reliable recording power.

This is the equipment that will get your recordings INTO your computer and will also connect to speakers or headphones so you can hear what you are doing.

If you want to know all about different types of microphones, and what all those complicated spec sheets mean, then you can refer to our ultimate guide to recording studio microphones.

Once you have invested in a mic, you have three basic options when it comes to using a microphone for recording on your computer or tablet. RAM is also hugely important. Thankfully, most desktop computer builds are capable of being upgraded — best to check before you buy — as this does at least allow you to boost its capability in the future.

Storage is the other key ingredient. Regular hard disk drives HDDs offer huge amounts of storage, but lack in the speed department. Solid state drives SSDs , on the other hand, are much quicker at accessing data making them ideal for storing sample libraries but are usually more expensive. Combining the two is often a good solution. The simple reason is that music and audio production requirements — i.

Whichever option you choose, from pre-made to custom builds, desktop PCs are still very much an attractive proposition for music production. Chris Corfield is a journalist with over 12 years of experience writing for some of the music world's biggest brands including Orange Amplification, MusicRadar, Guitar World Total Guitar and Dawsons Music. Chris loves getting nerdy about everything from guitar gear and synths, to microphones and music production hardware.

MusicRadar The No. Included in this guide: 1. Dell XPS Specifications CPU: Intel i5 - i7. RAM: GB. Reasons to avoid - Not the most inspiring visually. Apple iMac M1. Specifications CPU: M1. Graphics: M1. RAM: 8 - 16GB. The veteran all-in-one is still one of the best PCs for music production. You need one hard drive for all your software and operating system and another for audio data. Having this setting greatly increases the likelihood that your system will remain stable and not crash, especially if you try to play 16 or more tracks.

As for the size of a hard drive, larger is better, at least for the drive where you store your music. For a platform drive, you can get an 80GB 80GB drive; For an audio drive, getting GB is very conservative because audio data can take up a lot of space. Choose your hard drives wisely. But for the audio aspect, you need a driver that can handle the audio data transmission requirements. When I was first building my recording studio at home, I had a lot of trouble getting things just right.

It took a lot of trial and error, but I eventually got there. Obviously, you might not have a ton of control when it comes to room size and layout. That said, there are some guidelines you can follow to choose a reliable space. As a good rule of thumb, choose a relatively large room.

Smaller rooms with walls that are close together produce early sound reflections. Early reflections will cancel out some frequencies and make the overall studio image very muddy. This can be a bit tough to accommodate, but hear me out. Perfectly square or rectangular rooms are a nightmare when it comes to reverberation. Irregular shapes, such as an alcove or awkward closet, can diffuse some of those reflections and provide you with a more accurate sound. Those fancy professional studios are designed by acoustical engineers that charge thousands of dollars.

The trick to creating a good home recording studio is to plan your space accordingly so that you can minimize those issues as much as possible. The first step in that is finding the right room. I f you do have a square room for your home studio recording and cannot really do much about it, check this video. He gives some interesting information and a solution in case the room you want to use is small and squared.

Go directly to the minute where he explains the 3rd and proper configuration for the speakers in such a room. Otherwise, watch it all as it is very interesting and full of worthy and practical Infos. The professional audio industry is very vast. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

Before you start shopping, set a budget and stick to it! You can get a pretty decent studio for only a few hundred dollars. Or, you can spend several thousand. The choice is yours. Regardless of what you decide to spend, there are several pieces of essential gear that every home studio needs. First things first, you need a quality computer. Your computer is going to be the brains of the operation.

DAWs are only getting more resource-intensive as the years go by. But for now, aim for a new computer with respectable specifications. All DAWs ie. Once you find the minimum requirements, get a computer with more resources than you need. Fast processors are the best. I recommend bumping that up to 16 GB if you plan on recording music with tons of tracks. Now, onto storage. Project files are surprisingly big. Thus, you need plenty of storage space. Though, more is always better.

I recommend going with solid-state drives if you can spring the extra cash for it. SSD storage is much more reliable and has faster load times. This translates to a much smoother workflow. For the longest time, Mac computers were much more reliable for music production.