10 Home Recording Studio Essentials For Beginners

When building a home recording studio, you need to consider acoustic treatment, musical instruments, furniture, outboard gear, and so on. You’ll also need some gadgets and gear in your studio. They make the working process easier and more fun! There are hundreds of different gears you can get for your studio. In this post, we have chosen the 10 best home recording studio essentials for beginners.

1. Soundbrenner Core 2

Soundbrenner Core 2 is one of the best essential gadgets you can have in your home recording studio. It gives you very practical features and makes practicing and recording more effective.

This sleek-looking watch has a built-in vibrating metronome, contact tuner, and dB meter. It’s very intuitive, and you can use it whether you are a guitar player, pianist, or drummer. If improving your timing is important to you, the Core 2’s vibrating metronome has received many praises for its revolutionary technology, which has helped musicians of every level improve their sense of rhythm.

Not only can you use it in your studio, but you can wear it and take it with you. You can practice in your backyard, in the park, or anywhere you want.

Price - $229

2. Sennheiser HD 280 Pro

Having good headphones for mixing and mastering is essential. But you need to have some kind of monitoring headphones and Sennheiser HD 280 Pro is one of the best. It’s very comfortable to wear, has great sound, and is very affordable. These features make it a perfect choice for beginners.

This headphone is built for music recording and has great specifications. It has a wide frequency range, a closed-back design that makes monitoring even greater, and you can fold it which is very convenient.

Price - $99.95

3. Smartphone Studio Mic

You can’t do without a studio mic in your home recording studio. The Smartphone Studio Mic is an affordable and small gadget that you can use to produce high-quality content. 

With plug-and-play capability, it features a USB and USB-C connection, which allows you to connect it to different devices easily. You can record vocals for a song, create voiceovers, or use it as a podcast microphone. If you have a YouTube channel, the Smartphone Studio Mic will allow you to record crystal-clear sound with minimal background noise, which is perfect for a home studio!

Price - $129

4. FabFilter Essential Bundle

Mixing is one of the main aspects of home recording studio. And you need tools to create great mixes. FabFilter makes one of the greatest mixing and mastering plugins for beginners.

This bundle consists of three amazing plugins - Pro R, Pro Q3, and Pro C 2. These three tools are the main mixing tools. You need an EQ and compressor to create balanced mixes and reverb to add space and air to your songs.

FabFilter offers other bundles too but this particular one is the best for beginner home recording engineers.

Price - $399

5. Spark Guitar Amp

Guitar and bass amps are one of the crucial gear for every home recording studio. You may have tube amps, modeling amps, or even guitar amp sims. But Spark Guitar Amp by PositiveGrid is a great small amplifier that comes with a bundle of amazing features.

Spark is a digital amplifier that comes with different amps, effects, and unlimited sound creation options. It’s great for recording, practicing, or playing with your friends. Another great thing about this amp is that it acts as a guitar, bass, and acoustic guitar amp.

Also, the Spark amp can be used as an audio interface, which makes it a great recording device.

Price - $299

6. Audient iD14

It’s essential for you to have a good USB audio interface in your studio. Your recording and mixing quality heavily depend on the audio interface. Audient iD14 is a great choice for beginners. It’s affordable and has great sound quality.

Audient has built-in features such as mic preamps, converters, phantom power, low latency, and more. It has a metal design and a couple of I/O which gives you more flexibility. iD14’s audio interface works with every modern digital audio workstation, and you can use it on Windows or Mac.

Price - $299

7. Roadie 3

If you’re a guitar player, you’ll recognize that one of the most boring but essential things you must do is make sure your instrument is in tune. Wouldn’t it be great if tuning could be done faster and easier? That’s why you need to get a Roadie 3 which is an automatic guitar tuner. You can tune your guitar in seconds, with great accuracy.

The technology behind Roadie is superb. You just put it on the tuning pegs and it automatically tunes the guitar. Also, it comes with built-in tunings. So, if you use non-standard tunings, you can create your custom tunings and quickly switch to them any time. 

Price - $129

8. Alesis Elevate 5

Having a good and high-quality studio monitor is a must for every home recording studio. When you start building your studio, or you are on a budget, an affordable studio monitor is the best choice. And the Alesis Elevate 5 is exactly that. The price is reasonable, it produces powerful sound, and it’s an all-rounded high-quality product.

It has a 5” speaker, and a 1” tweeter, and covers a wide range of frequencies from 56Hz to 20kHz. The Elevate 5 can produce 40 watts of power and has a very flexible I/O.

Price - $139

9. Hercules Multi-guitar Rack

One of the problems many musicians face in their home recording studio is space. And when you have many instruments, this will become a bigger problem. If you’re a guitarist, investing in a compact guitar stand like the Hercules Multi-guitar rack is going to make a big difference to your room’s aesthetic.

The Hercules GS525B rack is a perfect choice for home studios. It’s a very lightweight stand that can hold electric, acoustic, and bass guitars. It can hold up to five instruments and keep things organized around the studio. 

Price - $75

10. SE Electronics Reflexion Filter

Last but not least, an essential piece of gear for a home recording studio is a reflection filter. It is a mandatory item if you record vocals in the same room as where your workstation is. Because you don’t want to interfere with sounds when you record vocal tracks. The RF-X Reflexion Filter by SE Electronics is a great choice for beginners.

It’s a simple and modern sound filter that dampens room noise, ensuring that your vocal recording will be very clean. These filters will make a huge difference on the quality of your home recordings and is a highly recommended item for small recording spaces.

Price - $100

Conclusion

Whether you’re just starting to set up, or you already own a home recording studio, having the right gear will make a major difference. With quality gear, you will be able to produce better mixes. Add these gears to your studio and transform your recording room into a professional studio.