After over 200 videos and a few years of making content on this channel, it’s time for a
home recording studio tour.
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Let’s start the center of my recording setup, and that’s with my computer.
This is just a desktop I built about 5 years ago.
It’s got an older AMD processor in it so it’s not very good anymore, but still fast
enough for recording.
There’s 24 GB of RAM, but that’s mostly to help with the editing of the videos for
the channel, and I also have about 16 TB of storage space, plus some additional SSD storage.
There’s nothing here that’s particularly special, but one interesting thing is I can
actually manually control some of the fans in the computer with the fan controller on
the front.
This lets me reduce some of the noise from this computer, but it’s still not quite
as quiet as a laptop or a computer that was built to be quiet to begin with.
On the desk, I have a few monitors setup that allow me to spread out some of my work across
them.
That’s for convenience but it’s not absolutely necessary.
For software, I use a few different digital audio workstations.
The one I use depends on the type of project I’m working on and how heavily I’ll use
MIDI versus some other instruments, since I find some software is better for this than
others.
The digital audio workstations I usually use are Reaper, Tracktion Waveform, and Cakewalk
by BandLab.
All of these are free or inexpensive options for software that you can use in your own
home studio.
With all these free options available, I don’t see any benefit right now to spending hundreds
of dollars on a digital audio workstation, especially for a lot of beginners.
I also have a lot of free VST plugins that I’ve searched for over time.
There are some paid plugins as well, but most of those were either received with other equipment
in a bundle, or provided to me for the YouTube channel, such as the Tracktion plugins.
For more information on a lot of these different digital audio workstations and plugins, look
at some more in depth tutorials and reviews on this channel.
Next we have how our signal gets into the computer.
I have two main audio interfaces that I use to do this.
For most purposes, especially recording instruments with microphones, I use the Focusrite Scarlett
18i20.
This is an 18 input 20 output audio interface that’s setup in my rack, and we’ll look
at this rack setup a little more closely in a future video, so subscribe to the channel
to see that.
This is a really good audio interface because of all the inputs it has, plus the preamps
are really clean sounding.
It also has optical connections on the back which connects to my Behringer ADA8000 preamp
unit, providing 8 microphone inputs.
I bought this audio interface to replace my previous Focusrite Scarlett 18i6.
That was a pretty great audio interface but I wanted something with more options and that
was rackmountable.
Plus, some of the connections stopped working after years of use and beating it around.
The second audio interface is a little more specialized, and that’s the Avid Eleven
Rack.
The Avid Eleven Rack is a guitar processor that lets you plug in an electric guitar as
a direct signal, and make it sound as if it were running through a guitar amp, that way
you don’t need to use a loud amp and disturb others around you, or tweak your sound with
microphones and other equipment.
This is a USB interface, but it’s also possible to use it as a standalone effects processor
or connect it to the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20.
I do find it easier to just use it as an audio interface on its own though.
That way we can do interesting things with signal routing such as re-amping a direct
recording, and recording the processed guitar signal along with the direct guitar signal
at the same time so we can go back and change the way the guitar is processed after.
We can also access the software for the Eleven Rack on the computer which allows us to access
all its settings without have to use the knobs on the rack unit itself.
I also have some other ways to connect audio equipment, and that’s the Behringer UM2
audio interface, USB guitar cable, and USB microphone cables.
These are also for special projects that I do for the channel, and not my day to day
use since I have equipment that can do all this, but they are good for simpler setups.
In the rack, I also have a headphone amplifier to connect more headphones, a direct box,
and this XLR patch bay, which basically just brings all the inputs from the back of the
Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 to the front of the rack for easier access.
I’ve collected a few different microphones for recording as well.
Most of my recordings, particularly the voice for these videos is all done with the MXL
990 condenser microphone and that mic also came with the MXL991 small diaphragm condenser,
which I sometimes use for acoustic guitars.
I also have a similar large diaphragm small diaphragm condenser kit with the Audio Technica
AT2020 and AT2021.
For cheaper setups, I also have the Neewer condenser microphone, but I usually just use
that for demo videos.
For dynamic microphones I have a Shure SM57 for guitars and drums, and a Shure SM58 for
vocals.
Last I have a few microphones specifically for drums, and that’s the Shure Beta 52A
for the kick drum, and a complete CAD drum mic kit for recording a full drum kit.
This sort of setup here with all the separate mics on parts of the kit is the reason for
having a larger audio interface like the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20.
For a typical drum recording, I could have 2 overheads, 3 tom mics, a snare, and a kick
mic, so that requires an audio interface with 7 microphone inputs.
For my setup, I don’t actually have any monitor speakers, so I usually just use headphones.
I had a pair of Shure SRH440 headphones, but the headband kept breaking on those.
I also have a set of Shure SRH840s that are only used when I need them for careful listening
or recording.
To get into more electronic music and synthesizers I picked up a few USB MIDI controllers.
I started off with an AKAI MPD218, which is a 16 pad drum controller that’s used for
percussive instruments since I wanted an easier way to program drums and have velocity control.
After that I upgraded to an AKAI MPK249, which does everything the MPD218 does since it has
the drum pads, plus it has a lot more features.
This has a 49-key keyboard, modulation and panning wheels, and a lot of controls for
our digital audio workstation.
We have transport controls for playback, and knobs and faders for automation, so it’s
a good all-round controller.
The only thing to keep in mind with these MIDI controllers is that they don’t produce
sound on their own; they both require a synthesizer through the digital audio workstation to make
sound.
Last, let’s look at some of the accessories that allow all of this to work.
Recording requires a lot of different cables, so I have lots of XLR cables for microphones,
a few instrument cables, a headphone extender, various patch cables, and some USB cables
for direct recording.
For microphone accessories, I have a few different boom stands to place the microphones, as well
as a smaller floor stand for the kick drum.
I also have a pop filter for recording voice, which is super important with these condenser
microphones I use, and a reflection shield to help keep my voice from bouncing around
the room with these mics.
Thanks for checking out this video on my home recording setup.
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