Why Having A Home Studio Is Best For Preparing For The Real Studio

What makes NBA athletes the best basketball players? What makes those top of the line guitarists top of the line? They have one thing in common. Practice.

Why should being in the studio be different? Back 30 years ago, average people didn’t have access to any studio without shelling out the big bucks. And in those days, it was one take and that was it. In order to know what you were playing, you would have to play with your band before tracking, without just winging it. It actually cost money on top of the engineer’s rate to record; tape costs can add up!

Nowadays there’s no excuse not to have a home studio. The ease of access to quality equipment has gotten so abundant that you only need a few things to get started. And you probably already have most of them! In this article we'll go into why having a home studio can be the best thing you can have for preparing for the real deal.

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Know What To Expect

First and foremost: you know exactly what to expect coming into the studio by having your own home studio. You’ve already gotten everything laid out in front of you, now it’s time to focus just on getting the best performance you can!

No need to worry about miking, having the right settings, you can be fully immersed in feeling good and letting it all out. Since you recorded it at home beforehand, you know exactly where everything is, including the difficult parts; because you know where the difficult parts are, you can plan to record those parts first or last, whichever makes the experience smoother!

Not only does it help you know exactly what you’re doing, but you can send the files to your bandmates so they can know what to expect as well. Make a last minute change? Export it out and let the drummer listen to it on the way to the studio!

Home Studios: The Best Way To Practice

The coolest thing about having a home studio is you can basically make your own backing tracks. Need to practice your soloing? Find a drum loop and add some chords over it. Bam now you have a 24 hour backing track you made in 15 minutes!

Don’t have a metronome? No worry, your home studio software has one built right in! You even have the flexibility to change the tempo mid song. This can be great for improving your timing!

Is the song your bandmate gave you too fast to play and you need to slow it down to practice? You can do that too! You can even pull a little cheat and record with the song slowed down and then speed it back up so it’s like you played it fast in the first place! :)

Home Studio Demos

The most notable thing you have access to once you have a home studio is demos. You can use these for landing shows and show your audience some stuff you’re working on without going to the studio first!

As an engineer, having these with ample time before a session is invaluable. Most of the time, we’re just going in blind at the start without any sort of idea of what the song is calling for without a demo. I’d be able to plan out your session to the fullest extent by choosing mics, possible instruments if I have one better you can use for the session, help out with arrangement and direction of the song or album, the possibilities are nearly endless!

For this reason, from now until the end, I offer 10% off recording if you come to me with a fully recorded demo for each song you’d like produced. There are certain conditions that apply to make sure you’re getting the most out of the demo, so make sure you contact me!

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Over time through these articles I’ll be showing you my most valuable tips in setting up a home studio. I’ve set up three home studios now in my musical career, each one getting better and better. So stick around, and before you know it you’ll have a home studio to spend all your time at in no time!

-Michael