If you’re a musician, and you’ve always wanted to record a song you came up with, you can do it. It’s not necessary to hire a professional to record it for you because you can do it at home with the help of a few tools.
Although, sometimes it can be good to hire a professional because they walk you through the process. Nevertheless, we’re going to share the necessary steps and tools on how to record music at home.
How To Set Up A Home Recording Studio?
The first thing we need to record music at home is a home recording studio. There are three essential things you should think about before we notice you on Spotify. You need to know what you’re going to record, which recording gear to get, and which software to use to record your music.
1. Assess Recording Needs
Think about the type of instrument you’re going to record, and the frequencies it can produce. If it’s a ukulele, it’s soft and not very messy to record. It’s important to know exactly what kind of sound you’re dealing with before you decide to record music at home.
The reason you need to carefully consider this aspect of music recording is the type of microphone you’re going to use. If you know how to record audio on iPhone, then you can use it for a smaller project.
However, there are great condenser microphones that aren’t that expensive, but for rounding out higher frequencies you need to consider getting a dynamic one as well. You’ll need a set of good noise-canceling headphones for any kind of music you record.
2. Get The Recording Gear
When you think about if you’re going to go on budget or get premium recording gear, there are still essential types of gear you need to consider. This means that whether you’re aiming to record for a hobby or become a pro, you need these:
Microphones:
Again, if you know how to record audio on your iPhone, you can try recording without a mic. However, we strongly recommend getting at least one condenser mic to go along with your iPhone.
Headphones:
Any set of headphones can do. You can opt for the ones that cost less than $50 or the more professional ones that cost over $300. We recommend avoiding wireless headphones because of connection issues that can come with them.
Pop filters:
These are good for blocking out popping sounds which can appear when you sing or speak. Also, they’re good for noise reduction and can come in handy if your room isn’t soundproof.
Speakers:
A warm recommendation is to try to get some studio monitors because these are used in professional studios. They reproduce sound that’s not enhanced like with regular speakers.
Hard Drives:
Storage is essential for saving your loops and other samples you might want to reuse in a different song. For the best possible quality, we recommend getting larger capacity hard drives, because quality takes up space.
Audio Interfaces:
Necessary for getting the analog sound into digital form. They go well with all the other gear on the list because not all mics have USB outlets, and the monitor needs an audio interface.
3. Set Up The Home Studio
For properly setting up your home recording studio you need to see which place in your home is the quietest one. It can be the garage, but it’s not one of the best record room ideas, it’s more for jamming with your friends than for recording music.
When playing the guitar, you can get an electric one and the input can go directly into the audio interface. It’s a great beginner choice for recording your music at home. So, consider these before picking the right room.
It’s best to pick a room that doesn’t share a wall with the kitchen or the bathroom because of all the noises that can come from those places. The acoustics should be as good as possible, so if you think the room has bad acoustics, try getting reflection filters.
Reflection filters need to be behind the mic as you record because this way they isolate the mic from the reverb in the room, and you have a dry recording fit for your needs. You can also get acoustic panels for noise isolation.
4. Get The Software For Recording Music
After you’ve set up all the necessary equipment and the room for your home recording studio, you can think about the software you’re going to use. We’re going to recommend 4 different software for both beginners and pros.
Audacity:
If you know your way around recording software, then you certainly know about Audacity. This is one of the most popular free recording pieces of software out there. It has many options for editing the audio you record, and it has an easy-to-use interface.
All the tracks you add to the program are represented as waves, and you can edit them in this form. The only drawback is that once you edit, you’ve changed the original audio file you recorded, and there’s no undoing it. So, make sure you have copies.
Screen Capture:
When you’re looking to record computer audio to shorten the process of rendering the audio file after you’ve edited it and compiled it, you can use ScreenCapture. It’s a great piece of software that can help you do some awesome tweaks.
Also, you can record different sounds from the YouTube audio library, and you can get some samples from Apple Music if you’d like. However, we don’t recommend doing this because of copyright infringement.
Free Audio Editor
The tool is much like the other free tools, apart from some advanced features. However, this free editor software offers a great visual interface, some presets, and the possibility to process your records in one batch. It’s a great alternative to Audacity.
GarageBand
If you’re an all Apple devices person, then you’re going to love GarageBand because it’s an exclusive app for the macOS, and it’s one of the best for editing recordings and recording music at home.
The main advantage is the processing speed due to the operating system and the specs. It’s one of the reasons most music or video producers use MacBook to render video or audio files after editing. It takes little to no time.
5. Record
Finally, once you’ve figured out all the tiny details about your home recording room, the recording gear you’re going to use, and the software you’re going to use for editing and producing the music, the only thing left to do is a record. So, get your electric guitar in your hands and get going.
Conclusion
Follow these steps to get going with your music at home. Now that you know how to record music at home, you can give it a try. Hopefully, we’ll get some nice soundtracks or songs with your name on them. We wish you all the luck.
