Who would have thought that we would be able to make commercially hit record music at home? The music you can make now in a home-based music recording studio would have required a high-end music recording studio with equipment worth thousands of dollars just a couple of decades earlier. Moreover, mixing and mastering a song was not as easy as it has become now. It would take a professional audio engineer to edit and mix perfectly to make it available for commercial use. However, the music industry has changed a lot in recent years. Home-based music recording studios are becoming more and more popular, and artists are becoming independent to release their originals without relying on professional music recording studios. But does it mean that we no longer need professional music recording studios? We will discuss this subject throughout this blog, but first, let’s explore what it takes to make a fully-functional home-based recording studio and how much it will cost in 2022.
Making quality music at home is getting easier day by day. However, you still need a set of equipment and studio gear to match the audio quality with a studio version. You don’t need to spend a lot of money on buying expensive high-end studio gear. The things we have listed below are all you need to start a home-based music recording studio:
You can install free music software for your DAW and Amp on your computer. All the things listed above won’t cost you more than a thousand dollars. With this gear set, you can music of any kind at home, including recording vocals, editing, mixing, and mastering. There are thousands of free tutorials available for learning how to record, edit, mix, and master music at home. It won’t take you long to record your music at home if you learn with dedication. Once you learn the basics, you can upgrade to advanced audio software like Pro Tools or Logic Pro X, where you will be introduced to millions of music plugins and much more.
Now, let’s get back to our topic. With the upsurging trend of home-based music recording studios, why would anyone pay for professional music recording studios? Well, there are several good reasons for that. Let’s uncover them.
Professional music recording studios have audio engineers, musicians, and mixing mastering experts with decades of experience under their belt. Unless you are a veteran in music production with years of experience, their knowledge and expertise will always outclass yours. Their expertise will help you in the following:
These skills take years to develop. You can’t simply replicate these on your own and can’t give that ‘extra’ to your song to make it extraordinary at a home-based music recording studio.
Professional music recording studios are more likely to contain exclusive high-end gear that a simple home-based studio owner can’t afford. Expensive condenser and microphones, high-end synth, guitar amps, and other high-end gear will be available for use in a professional music recording studio.
There are certainly affordable software emulations available to emulate the effects of the expensive studio gear. However, there still remains a slight difference between the outputs.
No matter how expensive recording gear you purchase for your home studio setup, you can never get the perfect acoustic environment at your home. You can try to make your room noise-proof and even use voice compressors to crush the extra vocals, but it won’t give you the feel of the vocals recorded in a professional music recording studio. Music studios enhance vocal textures by creating a perfect acoustic environment for effectively recording and controlling sound waves’ reflections. Moreover, Vocals recorded in a professional music recording studio are clear and easier to mix and edit than those recorded in home studios regardless of the microphone used.
So, can you produce a standard commercial song at home? You absolutely can!
To reach the point where you are capable of it, you may have to devote a significant amount of time to training, practicing, and sharpening your skills. However, you can save yourself the trouble if you have enough money to afford a professional music recording studio session.
A professional music recording studio can also provide acoustically treated music recording rooms, high-end studio gear, and the invaluable expertise of professional audio engineers and editors.
In the end, it all boils down to your personal resources.