Help with building a studio for hiphop music.

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Villainy

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Hi, I need some advice for building my own little studio at home. I will be making rap music. Mostly rap vocals for now, i’ll get into the beat making machine later when I have the stability and money…. unless I have everything else, already, therefore I will be planning for this next (So suggesting on that would be okay, if)

So what are some crucial things that are needed for a set up like mine? I have a microphone already, it’s Audio-Technica AT2035 Large Diaphragm Studio Condenser Microphone. Got it with a audio interface, the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2 in/2 Out USB Recording Audio Interface​. Got a mic stand and pop filter as well.

I need some suggestions for some good software as well. Some easy friendly to use, and price doesn’t matter, im sure I can find my way around it :P. The computer that i will be using, would be my only PC, a HP Envy-2012nr, laptop (Windows 8.1)

I got some nice headphones as well, a sennheiser hd 439, which might not be the best but it would do, well I hope so. Is there anything else im missing? If anyone can pitch in it be really appreciated, thanks in advance.
 
What are the dimensions of your room? Do you have only one? Do you have monitors (audio)? I will be suggesting treating the room acoustically before anything else. Then I will be suggesting another microphone.
 
Oh yeah i have thought of that actually (getting the room foamed up.) My room has a big closet where i'm planning to do all my recordings... is 8 ft long and 8ft wide.

Monitors are lacking, but i think that can wait, i have the headphones, but any audio monitors you recommend?

And is my microphone no good?
 
That is what I thought. You should do a bunch of reading here.

First off, remove the word 'foam' from your vocabulary. Research the Studio Building forum here for info about that. You will also learn there why your 8X8 closet is going to kill any goodness you may be hoping for it. Not without a shiz ton of proper room treatment.

Recommending monitors is tough. I could tell you what works for me, but that is me in my semi treated room and my personal opinion.

Your microphone is not bad, but in a room that isn't treated, for the genre you are recording, it is likely not the ideal choice.

Sorry to be a downer here, but there is much research you should do before jumping into any purchase. That is what the 'Sticky' posts are for in every forum here. They are compilations of the most pertinent information that should be read first.

Trust me, do that first. You will save a bunch of cash and gain a bunch of knowledge quickly. :)
 
jimmys69 said:
....That is what the 'Sticky' posts are for in every forum here. They are compilations of the most pertinent information that should be read first.

Trust me, do that first. You will save a bunch of cash and gain a bunch of knowledge quickly. :)
Click to expand...

+1 Very good advice.

Cheers,
John
 
While everyone has their own preferences as well as what is usually used for specific applications I can make a few suggestions. Auralex to treat your "studio". I'd get a package w/some diffusors and the isolators for your monitors. I like the krk series monitors and for starting out the Rokit 5's or 8's are fine. I'd get the AT-4040 mic unless you can afford something like the Blue Blueberry and the Presonus Eureka preamp. Also for a DAW, though I'm not a huge fan of it (at all), FL studio is supposedly easy to use, though I'd personally go with Reason, Cubase, Logic Pro-if you are using a Mac and Ableton Live. being that Reason is propitiatory, if you don't go with it any of the other three will suit you fine. You'll probably want a midi controller like an Axiom 61 as well. If you are going to be sampling I highly recommend Kontakt unless you want hardware, then I'd suggest an mpc 2000xl, 4000 or ASR-10, but that's a whole other learning curve if you're just starting out...
 
I wouldn't bother with Auralax - generally, it's enough to help with high frequency flutter, but it doesn't really do much in the way of broadband trapping.

Being pragmatic here... There's a "right" way and a "wrong" way to do this, and which you should do depends on how much time and money you're willing to invest and how much space in your room you're willing to dedicate. I'm assuming (like a good chunk of people on this board, myself included) your room is your bedroom, so right off the bat that might limit how much of the room you're willing to give over to recording - as a single guy, let's just say that few things say "romance" quite as poorly as broadband acoustic treatment all over the walls, so I've learned to make do. :)

The right way is to fully treat your room - look into the stickies about building bass traps, go out, buy a lot of Owens Corning 703, move the desk you mix in off the wall and to whatever point in the room (and forget any notion of recording in a closet) that gives you the most neutral frequency response, trap the corners and all major reflection points, spring for a good set of monitors, and then really spend a lot of time learning your monitor chain. Eventually, once you invest some time into developing your ear, you'll have an acoustically neutral room that won't have any weird echo or phase issues for tracking and will have an even enough response for mixing that you'll be capable of getting great results, assuming you have good musicians to record and a good ear to mix.

That will cost you rather a lot of money (and most of us here, even the hobbyist guys, have at LEAST a grand into this hobby, often quite a bit more), take a lot of time, and leave you with a room that looks more like a studio than a bedroom (and, in turn, leave you with a celibate lifestyle). The other way to do it is to say "F it, I'm no Dr. Dre, I don't need pristine recording quality and amazing mixes, I just want to have fun making music." In that case, still don't bother with that closet, work with the room you have, spend some time trying to figure out how to get the most from your room for tracking (my suggestion would be to record with your back to the wall no more than a third of the way into the center of the room, and with the walls to your left and right equidistant, as a starting point), use the mic and headphones you have, and just have fun with it and accept the fact that it'll take more work to get your mixes to translate well and your vocals may have the occasional weird frequency resonance or whatever. You can still make good recordings in an untreated room on budget gear, it's just a lot harder. But, if the process of making music is what's important to you, rather than really honing in on the technical process of making a recording, that shouldn't hold you back.

It depends on your goals, really. Do you want to be an acoustic engineer or do you want to just make rap music?
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I wouldn't bother with Auralax - generally, it's enough to help with high frequency flutter, but it doesn't really do much in the way of broadband trapping.

Being pragmatic here... There's a "right" way and a "wrong" way to do this, and which you should do depends on how much time and money you're willing to invest and how much space in your room you're willing to dedicate. I'm assuming (like a good chunk of people on this board, myself included) your room is your bedroom, so right off the bat that might limit how much of the room you're willing to give over to recording - as a single guy, let's just say that few things say "romance" quite as poorly as broadband acoustic treatment all over the walls, so I've learned to make do. :)

The right way is to fully treat your room - look into the stickies about building bass traps, go out, buy a lot of Owens Corning 703, move the desk you mix in off the wall and to whatever point in the room (and forget any notion of recording in a closet) that gives you the most neutral frequency response, trap the corners and all major reflection points, spring for a good set of monitors, and then really spend a lot of time learning your monitor chain. Eventually, once you invest some time into developing your ear, you'll have an acoustically neutral room that won't have any weird echo or phase issues for tracking and will have an even enough response for mixing that you'll be capable of getting great results, assuming you have good musicians to record and a good ear to mix.

That will cost you rather a lot of money (and most of us here, even the hobbyist guys, have at LEAST a grand into this hobby, often quite a bit more), take a lot of time, and leave you with a room that looks more like a studio than a bedroom (and, in turn, leave you with a celibate lifestyle). The other way to do it is to say "F it, I'm no Dr. Dre, I don't need pristine recording quality and amazing mixes, I just want to have fun making music." In that case, still don't bother with that closet, work with the room you have, spend some time trying to figure out how to get the most from your room for tracking (my suggestion would be to record with your back to the wall no more than a third of the way into the center of the room, and with the walls to your left and right equidistant, as a starting point), use the mic and headphones you have, and just have fun with it and accept the fact that it'll take more work to get your mixes to translate well and your vocals may have the occasional weird frequency resonance or whatever. You can still make good recordings in an untreated room on budget gear, it's just a lot harder. But, if the process of making music is what's important to you, rather than really honing in on the technical process of making a recording, that shouldn't hold you back.

It depends on your goals, really. Do you want to be an acoustic engineer or do you want to just make rap music?
Click to expand...

I very much like this post. :)
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I wouldn't bother with Auralax - generally, it's enough to help with high frequency flutter, but it doesn't really do much in the way of broadband trapping.

Being pragmatic here... There's a "right" way and a "wrong" way to do this, and which you should do depends on how much time and money you're willing to invest and how much space in your room you're willing to dedicate. I'm assuming (like a good chunk of people on this board, myself included) your room is your bedroom, so right off the bat that might limit how much of the room you're willing to give over to recording - as a single guy, let's just say that few things say "romance" quite as poorly as broadband acoustic treatment all over the walls, so I've learned to make do. :)

The right way is to fully treat your room - look into the stickies about building bass traps, go out, buy a lot of Owens Corning 703, move the desk you mix in off the wall and to whatever point in the room (and forget any notion of recording in a closet) that gives you the most neutral frequency response, trap the corners and all major reflection points, spring for a good set of monitors, and then really spend a lot of time learning your monitor chain. Eventually, once you invest some time into developing your ear, you'll have an acoustically neutral room that won't have any weird echo or phase issues for tracking and will have an even enough response for mixing that you'll be capable of getting great results, assuming you have good musicians to record and a good ear to mix.

That will cost you rather a lot of money (and most of us here, even the hobbyist guys, have at LEAST a grand into this hobby, often quite a bit more), take a lot of time, and leave you with a room that looks more like a studio than a bedroom (and, in turn, leave you with a celibate lifestyle). The other way to do it is to say "F it, I'm no Dr. Dre, I don't need pristine recording quality and amazing mixes, I just want to have fun making music." In that case, still don't bother with that closet, work with the room you have, spend some time trying to figure out how to get the most from your room for tracking (my suggestion would be to record with your back to the wall no more than a third of the way into the center of the room, and with the walls to your left and right equidistant, as a starting point), use the mic and headphones you have, and just have fun with it and accept the fact that it'll take more work to get your mixes to translate well and your vocals may have the occasional weird frequency resonance or whatever. You can still make good recordings in an untreated room on budget gear, it's just a lot harder. But, if the process of making music is what's important to you, rather than really honing in on the technical process of making a recording, that shouldn't hold you back.

It depends on your goals, really. Do you want to be an acoustic engineer or do you want to just make rap music?
Click to expand...

You are right, I have no intention to be serious and I have 3K easy (and I watch what I spend)

I agree with Jimmy, this puts the home back into home recording. Great response.
 
Villainy said:
I need some suggestions for some good software as well. Some easy friendly to use, and price doesn’t matter, im sure I can find my way around it :P.
Click to expand...

I have a feeling Jimmy missed this or else he wouldn't be so willing to help.

How do "find your way around" buying software?
 
Finding your away around buying software is easy....use free software. There is plenty out there that can get you started.
 
Right. Too bad that's not what was said. What was aid is this:

price doesn’t matter, im sure I can find my way around it :P.
Click to expand...

Not too hard to understand what that means. For most of us, anyway.
 
To the OP - just do the right thing and buy Reaper. It's cheap, as good or better than anything else I've ever tried, and while the stock plugins are only average, there's a ton of freeware stuff out there that's excellent so that you'll be fine.

Also, to everyone else in this thread - I don't disagree that we're right to call attention to the fact piracy is wrong. I DO think, however, that the better way to do it is not to say, "no, F you, get out of our forum" whenever someone alludes to piracy, but rather to point out what they're doing is wrong, that there are real world consequences to their actions, and that furthermore there are plenty of free and cheap alternatives to using a cracked copy of Pro Tools. Encourage good behavior rather than having a simple knee-jerk condemnation of bad. If the poster STILL thinks piracy is the way to go then by all means, then take off the gloves and go to town, but when someone posts up here looking for help, explaining that pirating software is not a good answer could very well be part of the form the help we give takes. :)
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I DO think, however, that the better way to do it is not to say, "no, F you, get out of our forum" whenever someone alludes to piracy
Click to expand...

Ok, but who said ""no, F you, get out of our forum"???

All I said was I don't think Jimmy would have been so helpful if he caught that sentence, which he didn't. From there, all Jimmy said was "I'm out". Where did anyone tell the OP to F off and leave the forum?
 
RAMI said:
Ok, but who said ""no, F you, get out of our forum"???

All I said was I don't think Jimmy would have been so helpful if he caught that sentence, which he didn't. From there, all Jimmy said was "I'm out". Where did anyone tell the OP to F off and leave the forum?
Click to expand...

Right?!?
 
New monitor speakers will help train your ear on what your mixes need. dont let your headphones fool you, you can buy decent monitors for about $300- a big investment at first but WORTH EVERY PENNY!
 
New monitor speakers will help train your ear on what your mixes need. dont let your headphones fool you
Click to expand...

If the room lies it's a moot point. Unfortunately, I'd venture to submit, an 8x8x8 space is almost impossible to tame below 200hz, which is really where Rap/beat/bass needs a truthful room. That's NOT to say you can't learn to compensate once you learn how your recordings translate. And this is where GOOD monitors come in. However, they are no substitute for a room that lies.
 
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