Home studios are often limited or compromised in one way or another, but it doesn't mean they can't produce professional sounding end results. However, it's important that we learn how to get the best out of what we have, and make sure nothing is holding us back.
Today I want to go over a few simple things you can do to get the most out of your current home studio. Let's get started.
Arranging Your Room
The way we set and organize our home studio has a decent amount of impact on our work. If you have the ability, place your mixing station (desk, monitors, etc) centered along the shorter wall of your room (assuming your room is rectangular). This will result in a slightly longer early reflections (or "slapback") from the wall across the room, which will make the room sound a bit more natural.
Placing Your Monitors
This is often overlooked, but the placement of your monitors is very important in order to get a good and balanced sound, and get the best out of your monitors. A 1000$ pair of monitors aren't worth that much if they aren't used correctly. Try to place your speakers by these basic guidelines:
Stay Away From Wall And Corners Don't stick your monitors to your wall, and don't shove them in the corner of your room. This will cause major low frequencies issues, you'll have a decent amount of bass build up (especially if your monitors' bass port is on their back), and you'll make it very hard for yourself to get a natural and balanced sound.
Set Your Monitors To Face Your Ears Most monitors will require to be set to a perfect triangle shape with your ears.
Spread Your Monitors Wide Sticking your monitors to the sides of your 24" screen is not ideal. Try to place your monitors as wide as your desk goes, or even beyond it (on monitors stands). This will give you a much wider stereo field, and a better sense of space.
However, don't forget to keep in mind your distance from the speakers.
Set Your Monitors To The Right Height Most monitors are designed to be placed with your ears at the same height of the tweeter (high frequencies driver) or at the space between the tweeter and the woofer (check the user manual).
This is because high frequencies are much more directional, they don't spread around the room as much as low frequencies do, they have to be pointed towards your ears. If your monitors are not set to the right height, you'll hear a darker sound. If your monitors are too low in relation to your ears, find something to lift them up (monitors stands, piles of books, acoustic foam, etc).
Acoustic Treatment
If you're working in an untreated home studio, your room probably has a lot of reflections and reverberation.
Sound is bouncing of the walls, floor, and ceiling, you have frequencies building up, null points and standing waves, and a lot of coloration on sound you hear or record. But you don't have to spend a lot of money, or go crazy with perfect design and calculations, to get a decent sounding room.
However, it's important to use heavy, dense materials, like rock wool and glass wool, mineral wool, fiberglass.
Do NOT use "acoustic foam", it won't take care of any acoustic issues in your room, other than the very high frequencies (which are not the main problem).
You need mass in order to absorb the bass frequencies that bounce around your room.
These minimal acoustic treatments will do great to the sound of your studio:
Acoustic Panels In Strategic Placements: 1. On the side walls of your mixing sweet spot. 2. Bass traps in the corners of the room. 3. On on the wall behind your speakers. 4. On the wall across your mixing position.
Furniture If your studio already has some soft furniture in it (bed, couch, etc) you're off to a good start. This type of furniture absorbs some high and mid frequencies, similar to acoustic foam.
This will tame some unwanted frequencies and dampen your room. A carpet can take care of reflections bouncing off the floor. Curtains can cover up big, reflective, glass windows.
Treating your room can do wonders to your work. Your recordings will sound much cleaner and tighter, even "more professional" if you will. And your mixes and masters will translate much better to other sound systems outside your studio, since the sound you hear in your room will be more natural and "transparent".
Getting To Know Your Gear
You know what's more important (and will give your better results) than buying new gear? Getting to know the gear you already own. Instead of buying a new microphone every month, learn how to get the best out of the microphone you already have. Instead of buying every new plugin bundle that comes out, learn how to get the most out of the plugins you already have. If you keep going through new gear, without actually putting the time and effort in learning the gear you own, you'll never get better at your craft.
The better your know your tools, the better work you can do. If you know your mics and plugins inside out, you'll be able to make great recording and great mixes, easily. It's that simple. It doesn't matter what gear you have, the only thing that matters is if you really know how to use it.
I'm not saying never buy any new gear, what I'm saying is have a great amount of experience with the gear you have, and know every little bit about it, before you go out to search for something new to buy.
Read The Manual Every piece of gear has some stuff you don't know about it, whether it's a hidden feature or some specific instructions, you won't know until you read the user manual. If you have already thrown your manuals away, you can easily find them online.
Experiment
Working in a home studio might bring up problems that don't necessarily happen in a professional studio, therefore we sometimes need to experiment with different things and come up with creative solutions, even if it's not what we read on the latest audio magazine. Don't be afraid to try different spots in your room to record in, hang up thick blankets to create some isolation, or even do drastic EQ moves. As long as it sounds good, that's the way to go.
Practice
Getting better (at anything) takes time and effort. Keep practicing, working, learning, and trying, and you'll get better over time, guaranteed. If you're only reading on techniques and tips, without actually working and practicing by yourself, it doesn't worth a thing, and you won't progress and improve your skills.
Did you learn anything new about your home studio?
Is there anything new you're going to try out?
Share it in the comments bellow!
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