Assess Your Studio Needs

Before you spend a dime of your money on studio gear (hardware or software) you need to assess what your needs are. Sounds kind of obvious, right? But most of us do this backwards. We purchase what we see advertised as “good” or what people on forums say we should buy. Marketing and home studio gear junkies shouldn’t influence where your money goes. Instead you should ask yourself a set of simple questions to quickly assess what YOU actually want to accomplish in your studio, and move accordingly.

Via Simon Cunningham Flickr

How Many Tracks At Once?

Probably the biggest purchase you’ll make (other than a decent computer) is your audio interface. This is the hub of your studio as it allows you to get all of your audio in and out of your software. There are a ton of interfaces out there each promising to give you top notch audio and ease of use. But ultimately the first thing you need to determine is how many tracks do you need to record at once.

Are you a singer/songwriter? Then you probably just need a simple 2 channel interface with at least one mic pre built in. Are you recording your whole band? Then you’ll want something a bit more robust, with maybe 4 to 8 mic pres built in. Do you want to open your own project studio and track bands live? Then you might need an interface that can track 18+ inputs at once.

This is your number one decision. If you can figure this out, then you can rule out a lot of unnecessary gear and move on to question number two…

What DAW Should I Use?

The next big question you need to ask is which piece of recording software will be the heart of your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). On one hand, all DAWs will let you do the same thing: record, edit, and mix your music in the digital domain. But not all DAWs do things alike. Each are built by musicians and engineers who approach recording slightly differently, so you may want to look into each program’s strengths and weaknesses.

Depending on what computer OS you use, your decision might be a little easier as not all DAWs are Mac and PC compatible. So that plays in a little bit. But honestly the big idea here is not so much WHICH software you go with as much as it is actually picking one, learning it, and sticking with it. No matter what people tell you about switching to a new DAW being pretty easy once you know one, it always is frustrating. Workflows are different, key commands are different, and the graphical interfaces are different. Part of becoming a great engineer these days is knowing your DAW so well that it becomes merely a tool for you to use and not a roadblock between you and musical accomplishment.

Do yourself a favor, make a decision on your DAW early on, and then learn it all you can. Don’t be swayed by fan boys of other DAWs. You’ve made a good decision, so quit worrying and instead get back to the music making.

What About The Rest?

The first two decisions really focus you in on what I think are the most important elements of your home studio. But when it comes to everything else what do you do? When you begin asking yourself questions like: Should I buy new studio monitors? Better converters? More mics? Acoustic treatment? A channel strip or external mic pre? Talkback control?…then what you really should be asking is…WHY would I need those?

Don’t start to be convinced that you need more gear without rational reasons. Each piece of gear in your studio should serve a very specific and helpful purpose in helping you reach your goal of making quality music. If n0t, then why the heck waste your money on it? It is all to easy to start accumulating stuff for your studio, even great stuff that is genuinely quality, only to not derive any real value from it.

The Challenge

So here’s a challenge: take a minute, jot down your studio’s needs and goals, assess your current gear/software situation and be honest with yourself. Do I own way more stuff than I need? Can I sell some of this gear and focus on the core pieces that I DO need? Am I getting the musical results I want? If not, is it really because I don’t have the right gear or is that I just need more practice and experience in this craft?