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Setting up a home studio on a tight budget what actually matters?

danialcarter

Been getting more serious about producing at home lately and trying to figure out what actually makes a difference when you are working with limited space and a limited budget.

Right now I am running Komplete Start with a basic audio interface and a pair of studio monitors but the room is doing me no favors. I converted a small corner of my house into a workspace, basically carved out a spot between the kitchen and the living room, so there is noise bleed from everywhere and the acoustics are terrible.

I have been reading about acoustic treatment and it seems like the first thing most people do is address the reflection points and add some bass traps in the corners. But honestly I am not sure if I should invest in proper acoustic panels first or just upgrade my monitors and learn to mix on headphones for now.

A few things I am trying to figure out:

Is acoustic treatment worth doing in a non dedicated room or is it mostly pointless if the space is not properly sealed?

For someone just starting out with NI products is Komplete Select worth the upgrade or is it better to just go deep on what is already in Komplete Start?

Any advice from people who have been through the budget home studio phase would be really helpful. What did you spend money on first and what do you wish you had done differently?

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Comments

Maciej Repetowski

The cheapest option will be to invest in a closed-back good quality headphones.

Vocalpoint

100% Agreed with @Maciej Repetowski .

If you are on a tight budget, using a basic interface, in a basic room with basic monitors - there is little point to tricking out the room.

That is best saved for years from now when you have developed the skills to need a room like that. And know how a room like this should be properly built out.

I started in 1985 with a Portastudio and headphones. I finally got a treated room in 2014. These things take time. Lots of time. And lots of money too.

Rock on.

JesterMgee

I would also suggest just go headphones, you will get better focus on details and you will forgo the complexity and cost needed to effectively treat a room especially if you do not own your own home and don't have a dedicated space you can screw things into the walls. I also mixed on headphones for years and still do now. Use your monitors to when just laying out ideas and getting started and switch to headphones to do actual mixing and listening…

After several years when you start to actually 'hear' things properly you will have more of an understanding on what you hear in your room and how to best attack it. Sometimes just positioning things like bookcases, rugs, couches or the position of your desk can make huge differences and then some minimal treatment is needed. It's not about making your room "soundproof" from the outside, it's about scattering any soundwaves from bouncing off flat walls and surfaces back to where you sit but for proper sound treatment and setup, you kind of need a half decent area to start with.

For someone just starting out with NI products is Komplete Select worth the upgrade or is it better to just go deep on what is already in Komplete Start?

I started back in the early 90s before VST plugins were a huge thing and I worked using 'trackers' which used only samples and made hundreds of tracks (mostly garbage but some still stand up today) but it was about building skill and learning the software more than getting lost in plugins. Most people tend to just collect plugins and sounds with the intention to make something great someday… that day never seems to happen and I can tell you, when you have too much content to work with it can be more overwhelming to get a start than using a small hand full of sounds

Chances are to be honest and blunt, you likely won't progress further than the hobby stage and with the over saturation of sound out there and the onset of infinite garbage being generated by AI now no one will listen to what you make beyond you and maybe 3 of your friends so just have fun and do it for yourself.

PoorFellow

Right now I am running Komplete Start with a basic audio interface and a
pair of studio monitors but the room is doing me no favors.

I agree with others here that you should get a pair of quality headphones with a good sound within your budget range.

For someone just starting out with NI products is Komplete Select worth the upgrade or is it better to just go deep on what is already in Komplete Start?

I agree with JesterMgee in his statement : "Most people tend to just collect plugins and sounds with the intention to make something great someday… that day never seems to happen and I can tell you, when you have too much content to work with it can be more overwhelming to get a start than using a small hand full of sounds".

But we don't know where you are with respect to actual 'music production' or what you would like to focus on. Are you recording what you do using some 'record what you hear' software or are you using a DAW ? Are you using a keyboard or ?

E.g. if you need a keyboard or a keyboard upgrade then even the cheapest NI keyboard comes with a free version of Komplete Select so you do not even have to pay for that if you need and get a NI keyboard. And that is not all , also even the cheapest NI keyboards comes with the Lite version of the DAW Ableton Live Lite , which is a rather nice DAW to have to start with.

Anyway , then rather than focusing on if you need to upgrade then you should start with getting some basic experience with putting music ideas together with what you have. Rather than recording what you hear on your computer then it is highly suggestible that you find a DAW that agrees with you and that you find easy enough to work with so that you want to spend more time using it and learning to use it.

Of course you can start getting experience with one DAW (e.g. a cheap DAW) and then later switch to something else. If you do not have e.g. Ableton Live Lite then I think that it much depends on where you are on your musical voyage with respect to what DAW to recommend.

To get your feet wet one could suggest that you start with a free DAW or a cheap DAW (E.g. free version of Magix Music Maker or cheap MixCraft - especially when on offer) . But problem with cheap DAWs usually is that you are bound to run into plugin problems at one time or another.

But to experience few to no problems you will need a quality DAW which would be e.g. Ableton Live Lite (free with NI keyboard when bought as new) or another paid DAW , like Cubase , Reason , FL Studio , BitWig or Reaper. Ableton , Cubase and Reason I know enough to say that they are OK , the rest I do not know that well but expect to be more or less OK.

But with respect to DAWs then I think that a main point is if you like it and can actually manage (to learn) to use it. I personally find Ableton Live Lite relatively easy to learn to use and Cubase difficult. E.g. Mixcraft I think is also easy but , at least at the moment , not really in same class as Ableton Live Lite....

Accept that there must be learning involved but try to set the bar so low that you can have a good time using the software and learning.

As for investing in more software then personally then I think that one of my best investments was when I bought my Upgrade from Komplete Select to Komplete Standard because that gave me the full version of all the NI 'flagship' apps plus a lot of nice libraries to play with.

However then you should not invest in more software unless that you would like to have e.g. the apps or the libraries to play with and actually get around to ever using what you have. It is much better to actually get to know how to use what you have and then later invest more when/if the need is there.

Also then while a lot of free Kontakt libraries needs the full version of Kontakt (part of Komplete Standard) then there are also free Kontakt libraries that will run on the free Kontakt Player (these free instruments are only meant to wet your appetite to get you to buy the full version of the library but it's free to try) :

E.g. Fracture Sounds : Blueprint Collection , 27 (?) free Kontakt instruments that works with the free Kontakt Player

SonusCore have seven free items for Kontakt but more (or most ?) of them require full version of Kontakt !

There are other companies with free offerings that are not Kontakt compatible but might build on their own system.

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