Turn your room into Home Recording Studio Setup – A Definitive Guide!

As they all say, the best way to get good at something is by putting in the work. This is true, especially in music production, where you must implement different ideas. And to experiment with different ideas, it is best to turn your room into Home Recording Studio.

This way, you can utilize time in the best possible way and turn your interest into something meaningful. Moreover, it is one of the most popular ways to get started in music recording and your home recording studio.

This article presents ten ways to turn your room into a home recording studio setup so you can get a feel of owning a studio and what possible things you can do with it.

In short, to turn any room into a home recording studio, you need a powerful computer, desk setup, studio gear, and acoustic room treatment. These points make getting studio-quality recordings and productions at home.

10 Steps to turn your Room into Home Recording studio

Here are ten steps to turn any room into a home recording studio. Let’s go over them one by one.

1) Optimize Room for maximum space

The first step is all about optimizing the room space. Space optimization will help you to squeeze maximum area out of your room. It will allow you to comfortably place different studio gear, instruments, and a desk for your computer in a room.

Furthermore, getting the most out of your space is a continuous process. Brainstorm on different items placed in your room and what you can do with them to get more space.

Consider these points to make your room more spacious:

• Try repositioning your bed, closet, or furniture,
• If you have a small room, remove everything and then re-setup the area,
• Remove all the unnecessary furniture from your room except your Bed & Closet.

Furthermore, if you live in a compact space, remove everything out of your room and then set up your studio first.

Setting up the studio first in an empty room will allow you to freely organize the studio, which is challenging to accomplish in a crowded space.

However, a disadvantage here is that you will not know how much space you will need to place other important furniture back into the room.

Simply said, you know your room better than anyone else. Therefore, it is best to take some time and think of new ways to set up your room so that it can be used as a standard room as well as a studio space.

2) Desk Positioning

The next step is to place a desk in your space-optimized room. The desk will be mainly used to set up your essential studio gear and recording instruments right in front of you, along with a computer. It is also where most of the production work will be done.

The best way to position a desk is shown in the image above, but you can try different positions as per your room design and personal preferences.

Generally, setting up your desk in the middle of the wall is best as it does not allows sound frequencies to accumulate in the corners, which can cause bad mix referencing. Therefore, we are placing the desk in the mid-section of the wall. 

Importantly, it allows you to keep instruments on both sides of your desk, keeping the instruments within reach and handy. Furthermore, you can also set up a recording booth on one side and keep instruments on the other. 

NOTE: Don’t forget to leave space between the walls and the desk if you place the desk in a corner.

Nonetheless, you can also place the desk in one of the corners of your room. But, for that, you must adequately soundproof your room, especially corners, to prevent sound from accumulating in the corners.

3) Acoustic Treatment & soundproofing

Soundproofing and acoustic treatment is one of the most important factor to consider in any recording studio.

Proper room acoustics will make sure that you get polished audio recordings which will make the production process easier and more efficient. Recording in an acoustically tuned room makes sure that the sound waves are not re-captured by the microphone.

Below are some of my favorite ways to efficiently soundproof any home studio setup.

1) Bass Traps: Bass traps, as the name suggests, lower and dampen the accumulation of low-end energy in the corners of a room. Low-end accumulation in the room’s corners can make you feel that more low-end content is present in the audio.

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2) Acoustic Foam Panels: These foam panels are great for diffusing audio and preventing audio reflections from walls and windows. I recommend installing acoustic foam panels on all the adjacent walls in your room. Refer to the image for better understanding.

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3) Placing Rugs and Carpets:  Rugs and carpets offer an excellent way to dampen floor noise and reflections. While you may be unable to place rugs in every corner of your room, it is best to place them under the studio desk and right below your recording area, especially where the mic is placed.

4) Installing a bookshelf: Due to its distinctive design, a bookshelf is an excellent soundproofing material. Furthermore, books act as excellent sound diffusers and absorbers. You may have noticed the soundproofing effect from books in a library.

5) Adding sound absorbing and diffusing articles: This point is self-explanatory. The goal here is to place sound-absorbing articles in your home studio. An example of this is placing plants in corners of your room to prevent sound accumulation. Moreover, it also makes the studio look fresh and lively.

4) Setting up Studio Gear & Instruments

Now that all the tedious work has been done, we can move on to exciting work of setting up different instruments and studio equipments/gear.

Unboxing and placing fresh pieces of studio gear and instruments is one of the fun parts of building a home recording studio. It makes you feel super rich and excited for the journey ahead.

Below is a list of all the essential studio gear you need in the initial stages of building a home recording studio.

1) Audio Interface: An audio interface is an input and output device that acts as a central hub to connect different instruments and record them in high quality into a DAW. Below is the list of best audio interfaces in different price segments.

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2) Microphone: A mic is necessary to record live sounds from instruments, vocal artists, and other sources. Hence, it is one of the must-have studio gear to have in your home recording studio. Furthermore, I suggest buying a dynamic microphone in a home studio setting as they pick up less background noise than condenser mics.

When picking a microphone for the home studio, I recommend only one dynamic microphone, and it’s the industry standard Shure SM7B.

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3) Studio Headphones: Studio headphones are perfect to use in a studio environment as they offer a flat frequency response for careful audio listening and monitoring. One of the best studio headphones that I recommend is Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro.

Also Read: Can you mix on headphones?

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4) Studio Monitors: Studio monitors are loudspeaker units for careful monitoring purposes. They offer a flat frequency response and accurate audio reproduction necessary for studio use. Here is a list of studio monitors in each budget category that offer a high value for their price.

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5) Investing in powerful PC or Laptop

When it comes to making music through a software, you need a decent processing power. Hence, the more the processing power the better.

Powerful processing helps because DAWs and VST plugins are becoming more resource-hungry. The need for a powerful unit becomes evident when you have numerous instances of plugins loaded in your DAW.

You can easily confirm this by going to the plugin website and see what are their plugin’s technical requirement.

However, the bottomline here is to invest in an above-average laptop or PC.

The below table shows minimum Laptop/PC specifications for music production.

COMPONENT	MINIMUM REQUIREMENT
RAM	8 GB or above
CPU	6 or more cores / 12 or more threads
GPU	doesn’t matter much
STORAGE	256 GB or more
SCREEN SIZE	at least 13″ or more
OS	64-bit

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These configuration are enough for effortless music production and to handle resource-hungry plugins.

On the other hand, if you do not want the hassle of assembling a PC, the other option is to invest in a laptop, get an external SSD, and invest in a secondary display for work efficiency. This dual setup is what I use daily for music production and to learn new mixing techniques.

Below is the Laptop, secondary display and SSD setup I currently use for music production. It’s an easy, portable and space-efficient way of producing music.

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6) Recording Software

Now, most of the space optimization and utilization have been completed. You can see your dream studio becoming real and taking shape. What seemed like a big task is now a reality where you can experiment with a million ideas.

However, the task is not yet completed. We still need to cross-check a few points from our list. Let’s cover them.

This section will show how and where you can start making music after changing your room into a home recording studio.

Most audio recordings, production, mixing, and mastering nowadays take place on a Digital Audio Workstation, also known as a DAW.

Also Read: How to get studio quality recordings in a home studio?

Before DAWs, tape recording machines and big studio spaces were used to record audio recordings and apply effects to the production process, such as reverbs and delays.

Here is a list of the most popular DAWs that are supported by most operating systems.

• Abelton Live,
• Logic Pro X,
• FL Studio,
• Steinberg Cubase.

You may ask how to pick the best DAW as per your requirements?

Here are a few things you can do to select the best DAW for your home studio and production requirements.

• Go over the website and browse different features,
• Watch Youtube reviews and DAW workflow videos,
• Try the demo version hands-on,
• Check AU and VST plugin compatibility.

I recommend quickly choosing a DAW as per your choice and then diving deep into it to learn its different features. The best way to learn and get used to a DAW is to watch Youtube videos and use it extensively.

7) Studio Furniture

Setting up furniture in your home recording studio can have several advantages other than adding pleasing aesthetics to your studio.

Firstly, if the furniture like sofa, chair, stools, etc. are made up of cushion material, it will add a layer of soundproofing material to your room. Not to forget, a comfortable chair will make long studio sessions more bearable and comfortable.

Secondly, well-chosen furniture placement can enhance the look and feel of any studio. This differentiates between a boring studio and a studio that inspires creativity and ideas.

Thirdly, it allows artists to relax after extended vocal or instrument recording sessions when collaborating.

All in all, setting up good furniture that complements studio aesthetics or inspires creative ideas is something you can always set up in later stages of the process. It is not an absolute must but somewhere down the road, consider investing in good furniture for your home studio.

8) Advanced Studio Equipments

After your studio is up and running for a while, consider adding new equipment or upgrading the existing ones.

There is a comprehensive suite of instruments and studio gear but get all the essential tools and equipment first. These may include a MIDI Keyboard, launchpad, guitars, guitar amps, etc.

You can also invest in VST and AU plugins, as they can become convenient when you do not have enough space to keep all the hardware instruments in one place.

Related: Should you record music at home or professional studio?

Investing systematically will help your studio grow slowly but progressively, which is quite a beneficial approach as you will get enough time to research different products.

Additionally, you can bring in advanced studio gear like compressors, EQ strips, or a mixing console if your room allows.

Moreover, keeping the process fun and simple will take pressure off your shoulders and guide you toward the right decisions.

9) Separating Room for multiple uses

Another cool thing you can do with your room is to partition the space into two parts. One part of the room can be used for setting up instruments and studio gear, while the other can be acoustically treated to record live instrument performances and vocal recordings.

This way, you can set up different hardware units at a dedicated place and use them without worrying about installation and connections. In the above image, a space-optimized room can further be divided into areas for dedicated activities.

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Furthermore, having a separate acoustically treated part helps to record crystal clear audio, especially if you live in a noisy environment or room with bad sound acoustics. Additionally, a partition will help you further block background noise and an isolated space only for recording instruments or vocals.

Separating your room for multiple uses is recommended if and only if you have ample space in your room. Otherwise, it can give your room a congested look which can feel very tight and intimidating.

10) Next Steps

In this last section, let us take some time to discuss the next steps of setting up and upgrading your home recording studio.

Notably, in this section, I want you to think of expanding your studio space. For this, you can use other spare rooms in your house, and the other room can be designed and optimized only for live solo or band recordings.

Also Read: 15 Recording Studio Tips for first timers!

A great advantage here is that you can start renting your home recording studio to bring in extra cash, which you can re-invest in to brighten up your home studio.

If you do not have an extra room or space, try moving your studio to another place if you have a lot of quality studio gear and instruments at your hand.

In a spacious studio, it is easier to set up all the instruments and studio equipment efficiently. Most importantly, it is pleasing to see your priced possessions stay and work in harmony with each other.

This second approach works quite well when you consistently get good money and have loyal clients.

Conclusion

These ten steps will help you turn a room into a home recording studio. Moreover, this will help you understand how to optimize space and set different equipment to maximize output.

However, remember that making and renewing a studio is a continuous process. These points will lay the foundation of your home studio on which you can set up different studio gear and begin your music career. Also, I highly recommend you try out other things with the space you have.