So you’ve always been a Bryan Adams’ fan (or whoever else’s) and wondered why you don’t sound like him despite your capabilities? Well, here is your answer, YOU have the skill, and YOU have what it takes to be the next best musician. But what you don’t have is a home recording studio: engineering your amateur audio to a professional polish.

Of course, building a home studio is not just about user-friendly software. It is more than that and requires proper microphones, headsets, instruments and a lot of accessories that are a quintessential part of this “home” work. Here is your right guide to grab all this and just within what your pocket permits.

studio

Your house is the biggest gadget of all. Pick the room that has natural sound proofing. Maybe one where your mother doesn’t pass by often or where the neighbors’ dogs barking don’t match the rhythm of your guitar. Of course to jazz it up you can add studio furniture, dim lighting and music panels.

Apart from that, here’s what’s also worth considering:

Microphone

The warm, rich sound we hear when we listen to Elton John is courtesy a fantastic microphone. A commonly used and well within budget is a large diaphragm microphone SHURE SM-58-LC. Another recommended one is Sennheiser MK4. Though inexpensive, it’s a hit in the major recording studios. As for other instruments, Shure KSM141 is one other good option that can be considered.

Recording Software

It’s the right tool that helps you achieve great music and achieve the highest quality mix faster. And what better tool can be than Pro Tools 10. It is this avid software that gives us the best sounds and the next-gen audio production software most widely-used in the industry. It enables us to record, compose, edit, and mix with great ease and speed. A new addition to this software has been Mbox Mini audio interface. This software lets us record our music directly to a PC or MAC or even drop the source files onto a thumb drive for use in a studio. As Shiraz Dada, bass player in Maps and Atlases quoted “Think seriously about using Pro Tools.”

Speakers and Headphones

Speakers are an important part of any studio, after all the end result of all recording is playback. Yamaha NS10 Speakers are of studio standards and produce an accurate, flat, realistic sound because of the way speakers are sealed. As commonly quoted “Most modern mixes we have known and loved were mixed through these bad boys.” Also today, NS10M’s modern replacement is HS80M speakers marketed by Yamaha with the tagline, “If your mixes sound good on these, they sound good on anything.”

Headphones are mostly used by musicians and engineers for tracking and playback. One should go in for a pair that is comfortable and gives an accurate representation of our music. Anyone can make a recording sound enrapturing with on a pair of $1000 headphones, but most people don’t listen to songs that way. Thus keeping this spirit alive, another good option is the pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M50 headphones, a large and comfortable set with good bass thanks to the 45 mm large-aperture drivers.

Jason Anderson is the author of this post and works with a recording studio in London. He shares his ideas of setting up a perfect recording studio and helps establish new bands, artists and singers.