 This is my home studio. I've spent countless hours here having fun Making music and while there's a lot of great gear to play with here You don't actually need all of this to make fantastic professional quality recordings. So what do you need? Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you well. Let's get out of this studio and start from scratch The first thing you'll actually need is a computer a PC or Mac is just fine And it can either be a desktop or a laptop in fact You can probably use the computer you already have but I would recommend a minimum of eight gigabytes of RAM and Something like an i5 processor. The next thing you'll need is some software to record your music This type of software is called a digital audio workstation often abbreviated to DAW and pronounced door Now there are a lot of choices of door available on the market at the moment Many of them very very good and costing up to a few hundred dollars But a few hundred dollars is a lot of money when you're just starting out, right? Well, the good news is I've got some excellent choices of free software to tell you about now If you're using a Mac you can start off by using the free Garageband you can get excellent results with that and then if you get more advanced and you want to update You could move to logic pro or personas studio one But the news on the PC is even better You can download and start using the free cakewalk by band lab today And this is a great application for beginners, but it's also great for advanced users as well In fact, you could completely record a commercial sounding piece of music in cakewalk by band lab and release it Now it's been around for about 30 years It's got a host of free instruments and free plug-ins and the great use is it uses the industry standard VST type of plug-in so you can expand your library of effects and instruments later on are you going to be recording? Electronic music or maybe you're going to be recording vocals guitar or some other instrument the answers to these questions Determine what else you'll actually need for your home studio, but before we get into that I just want to mention the final Absolute need in all circumstances and that is Knowledge you don't have to be a genius to record music at home these days, but a little bit of knowledge is absolutely Required now compared to 30 years ago when I started out You have an incredible amount of resources available to you today here on YouTube If you're determined to search hard enough, you'll usually find the answers to your questions usually now for those of you Who are PC users and you're going to be using the free cakewalk by band lab? I suggested earlier. I've made a course for absolute beginners with this course You'll be learning the key skills you need to know for recording your first song no searching no ads lots less Frustration and you can follow the link in the description down below for that But before you do I urge you to watch the rest of this video because later on I'm going to be showing a secret code Which is going to get you a nice little discount on check out if you do go ahead and use my course It's my way of saying thank you to you for watching this video if you're only going to be recording electronic music Then that's all of the equipment you actually need however Programming in virtual instrument parts by hand quickly becomes tiresome and uninspiring So I highly recommend you get yourself a MIDI controller keyboard Something like this keystep 37 from Arturia is a great choice for beginners now whilst these keyboards don't actually make any sound in themselves They can be used to control the sounds of drums bass synths and other instruments from your computer This is not an absolute need, but it does make things a lot more fun If you're going to be recording actual sounds like vocals acoustic guitar electric guitar or some other instrument I highly recommend using an audio interface. The one I'm using here is the Scarlett 2i2 from Focusrite Probably the most popular audio interface used in modern home recording studios This device makes it much easier to connect up things like electric guitars or microphones and also does the heavy Lifting required for complex multi-track recording It does a much better job of this than your on-board audio on your computer Now as I say, this does make it much easier to connect things up like electric guitars But it also provides the power required for modern studio condenser microphones and talking of condenser microphones If you're only going to buy one microphone for your home studio, then I'd recommend a condenser mic These types of microphones record high quality detailed sound and they're great for vocals guitar and all kinds of other Instruments the one I'm using here is the popular Rode NT1A and it comes with this pop filter handy for reducing plosives That sounds like puh and buh. It connects to your audio interface using a standard XLR connector now you can get condenser microphones that connect directly to your computer using a USB Connection, but I don't recommend you buy them for music recording The reason is they're great for single sources when you're just recording a voice for say a podcast But they really fall short in terms of being able to play back the backing track and have you record over the top of that At the same time, so I definitely don't recommend a USB Microphone in this case now if you are using a microphone Then you'll definitely need a pair of headphones You need to use headphones when you're recording with a microphone So that the sound of your backing track doesn't come out from the speakers and back into the microphone itself Now you can start off by using any headphones the ones that you already own But do be careful with this because most consumer headphones are designed to make things sound nice This means that your mix may sound great to you, but may not sound so good on other people's systems So I do recommend that when you can afford it you go ahead and buy some studio headphones Now some of them are good for recording and some of them are good for mixing So I'm going to keep it simple and recommend to you one pair, which are a great all-rounder. That's the Sennheiser H 280 pros and the good news is they won't break the bank check the link in the description down below Many people these days mix music using headphones and with the right choice You can get some great results, but the fact remains we do hear music differently with headphones than we do with speakers So some people still prefer to mix using speakers Now you could go ahead and use your home hi-fi speakers But you'd be faced with the same problem we had with consumer headphones Your mix may sound great on your system, but not so great on other people's systems That's why I'd recommend using some studio monitor speakers The ones I'm using here are some inexpensive ones from JBL and they're great to get started with but in case you have the budget I'll also recommend some more expensive ones in the description down below back here in my home studio I have a whole bunch of gadgets which make the process a little bit easier and perhaps a little bit more fun But you only actually need the things that I've mentioned in this video to make high-quality professional sounding recordings My greatest wish for you is that that music which is currently in your head will eventually be heard by the world Created in your home studio Don't forget to check out the link in the description down below for my absolute beginner's guide to cakewalk by Bandlab where I run through the essential skills that you need to record your first song Also, check out my cakewalk Facebook group where people from all around the world are helping each other out in a fun and friendly Way now if you want to learn more about some headphone choices Check out the video on the other side of the logo here where I went through a few that you really need to hear about