I spent weeks meeting strange people from craigslist in parking lots all over town, searching eBay and cruising garage sales to find the best (read: whatever I could afford at the moment) equipment for putting together a sound recording studio at home. I don’t know exactly what prompted me to set up a studio. I guess initially I had thought I wanted a voice studio to read some of my own writing into an audio file for fun. I also mess around playing the banjo, Irish tin whistles and various other instruments and thought it would be interesting to see what I could do with a microphone and free audio mixing software.
When I wasn’t trying to buy equipment I was trying to figure out what the next piece I would need should be. I read plenty of how-tos on the subject of how to set up a studio at home. There were as many opinions about equipment as there were discussions. For that reason, this post is not about what to choose or how to choose it. Of course I will list out what I got and what I hope to replace it with, but I am just a hack at this so don’t take what I did as a serious recommendation. So here is what I have:
- Old Dell Inspiron 6000 running Audacity on a Win XP OS
- M-Audio Firewire Solo recording interface
- Quik Lok mic stand
- Audio Technica AT2020 Condenser Mic
- Primacoustic Voxguard Nearfield Absorber
- Neutrik XLR cable
- No name pop filter
Along with those purchases came a Radio Shack dynamic mic and an MXL 990/991 condenser mic set. I might try to use the MXL 991 to pick up the banjo. I decided to put it in the closet under the stairs since it is a small space and wouldn’t take too much to soundproof it. I can tell there is a little echo off of the closet door so I might have to get some egg crate foam or something to glue to the back of it. I only hope now that I won’t lose interest in the project before I get something recorded. Since I originally bought all of this stuff six months ago and only just finished setting it up, that is a distinct possibility.
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| M-Audio FireWire Solo Interface |
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| Dell Inspiron 6000 with M-Audio Interface |
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| MXL 990/991 Microphones |
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| AT2020 with Voxguard |
If I do get something recorded I will put it on the blog.