Take advantage of this guide to create your own Home studio and make the most of it.
It’s quite impressive what can be achieved in a well-used home studio. Many people think that to produce something professional you need a big studio with a lot of expensive equipment, but this is not the case.
Nowadays, it is very possible that the computer or mobile on which you are reading this guide has enough technology to produce a very good quality track or share your live music.
How to improve your acoustics at home
Here are some basic tips to start using your room as a Home Studio for recording, production or streaming.
Basic equipment
Make sure your basic equipment (computer, music controller, monitors, audio card, cables) is in good condition and has the right settings to work with audio in the highest quality or resolution possible.
- Computer: Almost all computers have enough resources to be able to work with good quality audio, however it is worth making sure you have a proper configuration. For example, enough USB ports or RAM memory.
- Controllers: These are the devices most often used to produce electronic music. If you are just starting out, we have selected the best DJ controllers for beginners.
- Monitors: It is very important to have studio monitors. Stereo speakers or home theaters have an equalization and compression process to achieve a characteristic sound of each brand, so it is not recommended to use them for production. Also avoid working with DJ headphones.
- Audio Card: Make sure you have an audio card capable of recording and reproducing high resolution audio. There are currently multiple options on the market at very reasonable prices.
- Cables: It is worth investing in good balanced cables to get the most out of your equipment and therefore your productions.
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Space
It is very important to choose a room to work in, because at the end of the day, it is the place where you will spend most of your time. Choose a place where you feel comfortable to work on your creativity, preferably as quiet as possible, since you are going to work with audio and want to be able to listen as carefully as possible.
If possible, try to choose a space that is not completely square, as it is much more complicated in terms of acoustics.
Monitor placement
The monitors and your head should be at the same height and form an equilateral triangle. Point the speakers towards your ears. If you have space and you can separate the monitors from the wall, if you keep them there, you will have the direct signal from the speakers, plus the one that bounces off the wall.
- To avoid this bounce, put absorbent material between the speaker and the wall. For example, you can cover the section of wall that is located behind the table at the height of the speakers with a bed sheet.
Try to put with the monitors further apart or closer together, and let your ears help you decide.
- Read more: DJ Desk Ideas for your Setup
Room acoustics
Acoustics is quite a complex subject and professional insulation can be quite expensive. However, there are some tricks to improve the acoustics in your home studio that can make a big difference and you can do them yourself.
- A full bookcase and a sofa on the wall behind you can be very useful as substitutes for bass traps and diffusers, you will never know what frequencies you are working on but it will certainly be much better than an empty wall and they work quite well.
- Use curtains (as thick as possible) and place a carpet on the floor. Carpets, like all fabrics, have sound absorbing properties.
- Avoid corners, the corners between walls act like trumpets. Any sound that goes towards the corner bounces with greater intensity. You can “kill” corners with cardboard and tape, changing the 90º angle and fill the back of the cardboard with absorbent material (padding from cushions, fabric clippings, expanded polystyrene).
- If you are motivated, we encourage you to make your own panels, so you can achieve much more. Obviously, the best way to soundproof your streaming room is to place soundproofing foam on your walls in the areas where sound will be projected. For example, if you are going to be facing your monitor and talking, it would be best to place the soundproofing on the wall behind your monitor.
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