Home practice is apparently the best way to improve. And if you are a musician who is just starting a career or planning to have one, home recording is exactly what you need to jumpstart everything.

In the absence of a professional sound engineer, DIY home recording is the best option. But of course, you will need to prepare everything for this journey of yours.

Get The Right Gear For Your Music

Whether you are aiming to record your vocals or your guitar lessons, you will need to have the right gear for your home recording. Depending on the type of your music, the gears and equipment will vary.

So, if you are the type of musician who plays more acoustic music, then the gears will be much less complicated than those who want to record music with drums and other musical instruments. But whatever the case, it is very important for you to get the right set of gears for your music.

Get A Preamp

In order for you to accomplish your home recording effectively and efficiently, you must also get a preamp. You can also consider this as one of the gears that you must have, whatever music you will play.

As it happens, a preamp is mainly designed for the amplification of low-level signals to the line level. Keep in mind that the line level is the standard. And you will need all signals from all your music sources to be at the standard level so that it would play at the right amount of sound level after recording.

Invest in One Good Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone

If you are doing a home recording for the sole purpose of practicing your vocals, along with a single musical instrument, then you must invest in a good quality of large-diaphragm condenser microphone.

It is worth noting that condenser microphones come in two diaphragm sizes: small and large. You can pretty much use the small one in almost all cases of home recording. But it is much more appropriate to utilize the large diaphragm when you want to single out your voice, especially if your type of music focuses on acoustic or acapella.

Invest In Some Good Mastering Software

Aside from having a right set of gears, a good quality of condenser microphone, and a preamp, you will also need a good mastering home recording software. Keep in mind that without this, you cannot fully accomplish or render the output of your recording.

If you’ve taken a few music lessons before, then you probably know how to check for a good type of mastering software. But if not, here are some of today’s best mastering plugins:

• Waves – Abbey Road TGMastering Chain

• Eventide Elevate Bundle

• Izotope Ozone 8

• Ik Multimedia T-racks One

• AudifiedMixChecker

• Expose by Mastering the Mix

You may check them all first and try to consider the underlying features and specifications.

Record at 24-bit

There is actually an ongoing debate between recording at 24-bit and 16-bit as many people would consider one from the other. But even so, it has been found that recording at 24-bit has so much more benefits than at 16-bit.

As it appears, DIY musicians would essentially prefer recording at 24-bit since it makes the whole mixing and recording a lot easier. Not to mention, it also offers greater “headroom” margins unlike recording at 16-bit.

EQ While Recording

Recording with EQ is highly recommended by many tenured DIY musicians. This is because it makes the mixing and tracking a lot easier and more convenient. In fact, it works well when recording at 24-bit.

So, if you are thinking twice whether to EQ or not, try to do make a good trial and error test. See it for yourself which way would work best on your case.

Always Finish Your Mix After a Good Night’s Sleep

The quality of your output, whether it’s in the mixing stage or final one, can be largely impacted by the condition of your body and mind. Similar to how you would consider your overall state and condition when you record at home, you must also do the same when you are finishing your mix.

According to experts and experienced home recorders, having a good night’s sleep is one of the secrets to having a great mixing output. This is because it allows your cognitive functions to work better. Hence, your hearing abilities will be so much more effective if your mind and brain have rested enough.

Back-up Your Hard Drive

Lastly, but definitely not the least is to back-up your hard drive, every single time you do a recording. Whether it may be a draft or an editing output, you must always keep a backup file. You can never know what could happen in the middle of the recording or editing.

It is worth noting that with one single mistake, no matter how small or big, you could end up doing everything all over again, which, of course, is a huge inconvenience. Not to mention if you’ve accomplished a great part already that you will be forced to repeat again. So, it is really important to stress out the importance of backing up your hard drive.

Final Thoughts

All in all, home recording is relatively challenging. But with the right call and consideration, you can easily set it all up. Also, it is best that you research everything first before spending or investing your money. And with these simple tips, along with your self-learned notes, you can definitely start your home recording as an effective DIY musician.

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