What do I need to record music at home?

What All Do I Need To Record Good Quality Drums At Home?

• I'm looking to record drums at home. I'm looking for better quality than I have now (which is recording through a "Rock Band" video game mic) but I'm sure I need more than just Drum Mics and cables. I would like to know, what all would I need to record at home? I'm talkin' hardware, software, mics, cables, mixers, everything. Music techies, please help me out. If you could provide links, that would be very much appreciated, but if not, a simple recommendation or brand name would also help a lot. Thanks in advance!

• Answer:

  hey Justin, well essentially you are talking about a small home studio. here is what you will need. 1.Laptop/PC with plenty of RAM to allow you to record several tracks at once without latency issues. 2.Usb 2.0/Firewire mixer I would suggest at least a 16 channel mixer(read reviews on the mixer see what issues other users have had, but mainly check to see if they have recorded on all channels at once). 3.Drum Microphones- check out these guys they are unbelievable value for money.Also they kick the hell out of a friend of mines set at nearly a grand ! http://www.red5audio.com/ the build quality and sound are just awesome for the money, I was gobsmacked by red5audio. 4.Assortment of cables- xlr cables , jack to jack cables etc... 5.Stands- you will need at least 2 boom stands for overhead mics and a mini tripod for the kick/bass drum mic.( see red5audio) 6.Monitors- for playback/producing the drum audio. 7. Software- you will need a program such as Cubase, Abelton live or Cakewalk to record multi drum tracks. You will also need a program such as Steinberg Wavelab or Sony Soundforge for mastering. Recording drums is a lot of fun but one thing to remember is that the more control you have the better the finnished drum sound can be. If you only use 3 mics on the kit you only hav three control areas if you use 7 you have 7 that can all be produced and play their role in the final mix of your drum track.With the addition of a MIDI keyboard you essentially have the making of a home studio. You are going to want to learn about production: use of gates and compressors, EQ's various effects such as reverb.... for more info feel free to mail me