You probably don’t know who Warren Huart is, but he has recorded and produced some top acts already, so gear-wise the man should know what he’s talking about.
Warren has this Youtube channel, and I was following him a while, especially during my beginnings with computer audio (and also video) recording. A time when I thought about which interface to buy, which software to use, how to place the microphones (well not really, since I have learned this in real world studios in my youth) 😉
So maybe the following short advice from Warren might be useful for you:
He’s right on all points, and he has very nice stuff (you see that big mixing console and lots of speakers and some 19″ rack beside and behind him). But now that I play with lots of musicians on Wikiloops who all use their own home studio setups I *know* that it’s not that important, and in some regards – cost-wise – I think I even do better than Warren, using the absolutely free (as in rights *and* in cost) Linux operating system and Ardour as my DAW of choice.
But like I said, it all doesn’t matter that much. Some people on the loops record with Audacity (free for all systems), some even with an iPad or some other tablet, and some surely have nice big Apple machines or something like ProTools.
Anyway, Warren’s list of what you need is still helpful. I have everything except a good pair of (nearfield) studio monitors, because even for them I wouldn’t currently have the space. So for me my nice Sennheiser headphones have to do, even if they’re open ones (have to be very careful when recording using my microphone which will pick up *anything* you might usually not even hear).
So, additionally to the very good tips in the Wikiloops forae I thought I’d (re-)introduce some of you to a pro, and let you hear his words about it all.
Hoping that this would be useful, as Warren (from Great Britain) would say, have a marvelous day recording and mixing your music!