Home Music Studio Setup – The Ultimate (and Only) Guide You’ll Need

You’ve made the decision—you’ve decided that recording and/or creating music is in your future. There are many different routes you can take, and they all depend on what you plan on doing. But no matter your ultimate goal, learning how to set up a home music studio setup is the first step.

Not every music studio will look the same. For example, recording vocals doesn’t require that much. So if you only intend to record vocals, a home music studio really doesn’t need a lot of equipment to get started. However, if you plan to create from scratch, instrumentals and all, your home studio setup could easily become elaborate and diverse—it really just depends on what you’re looking to do.

No matter your goal, in this article, we’ll explore how to set up a home music studio best-suited for your needs.

How To Set Up a Home Music Studio: The Basics

Don’t be overwhelmed by the grandeur of the word; a music studio is nothing more than a place to record and/or create. I have similar articles about setting up a recording studio—but this article is about setting up for recording, producing, creating, etc.

The minimum requirements really aren’t much. However, in this day and age, a computer is a necessity. It will serve as your mainframe no matter what kind of music you plan to create. The rest is variable.

First off, setting up your studio doesn’t need to be expensive—and it doesn’t need to happen all at once.

Musical equipment can get very expensive. However, there is always an intersection point where price meets quality, and you’ll start to see diminishing returns the more you pay.

If you can get headphones that provide 90% of the performance for 10% of the cost of premium headphones, you’ll be able to record great music affordably. Don’t think you need to spend top dollar to create quality sound.

We’ll show you how to set up a home music studio that is professional and affordable. Here is a basic list of what you will need. Keep in mind, different approaches might not require a microphone but may require a MIDI keyboard. It really depends on what you are looking to do.

Setting Up for Success: The Room

A home music studio is not something that you set up and break down every time you have friends over. You should consider your home music studio to be a semi-permanent addition to your home.

If you’re recording, you’ll want to consider the acoustics of your room. It’s also nice to soundproof your room so you can record at any time of the day without upsetting anyone else in the house—or them upsetting you.

Consider the size of your room. Once you start soundproofing and adding equipment, you can run out of space quickly.

Keep in mind you’re probably not going to find the perfect room in your house or apartment. Don’t let that stop you.

Learning how to set up a home music studio is a process, and you’ll get a lot better at it even if your first set up isn’t ideal. In a perfect world, you would have a large room with hard floors, high ceilings, and irregularly shaped walls.

But since you probably aren’t a millionaire with unlimited resources to construct a recording studio room from scratch, just pick a room and get to work. Here are some things to consider:

Soundproofing

You can’t make good recordings if your mics are always picking up the sounds of sirens, barking dogs, or your screaming neighbors (why are they so unhappy anyway?).

Sound travels in the air and through vibrations in the floor. Sound curtains or blankets mounted on the wall will absorb sound. Make sure the doors and windows are sealed so air can’t escape—or get in. One strategy is to build a room within a room.

But assuming you aren’t building a house for this, start with the basics:

Make The Room As Airtight As Possible

Use weather strips for your windows, and draft stoppers for underneath your doors. You may want to block off your windows entirely if the outside noise pollution is especially bad.

When sealing up the doors, a door sweep on the bottom is a good way to keep sound transmission down––whether it’s traveling in or out. But you also don’t want to forget about the space between the door and the frame. Make sure to get all the potential air gaps as tightly sealed as possible.

Limit Floor And Wall Vibrations As Much As Possible

These are highly-rated acoustic panels

Use acoustic paneling for rugs, and consider laying carpet on floors.

Unless you really dig in, there is only so much that can be done about sound traveling through the floor and ceiling. Your problem usually depends on what’s above you or what’s below you.

Air Supply

Now that your windows and entrances are airtight, mount acoustic boxes over the vents to prevent sound from coming in and out.

Acoustic boxes are boxes with an S-shaped tunnel covered in sound dampening material. Any sound waves that enter the box, from either side, are absorbed before they can pass through.

Acoustic Treatment

Not to be confused with soundproofing, you’ll now need to consider the acoustics inside of your room. Sound waves bounce all over the place, and your mic will capture it all.

Acoustic panels absorb sound waves. Strategic placement of these is key.

That’s not to say that all reverberation is bad. Dampening the room too much may cause it to sound “dead.” A certain amount of reverb is to be expected.

Diffusion panels allow you to break up sound waves and transform ambient room noise from a disharmonious blast to a warm background element.

Now That You Know How to Set up a Home Music Studio…

music studio setup

…get started! The first step in how to set up a home music studio is to just get started. You should consider your first DIY home music studio to be a labor of love and a learning experience.

Figure out your budget, get the best studio equipment within that budget, and begin learning the creative process itself. Most importantly—your home recording studio setup doesn’t need to be perfect.

Every second you spend thinking about what other equipment you can add, how you can better soundproof your room, you are not perfecting your craft itself. All too often, it’s easy to put off creation because you’re too busy idealizing your perfect studio. Just get started! Your studio will improve over time.

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