How To Set Up a Home Recording Studio

List the available work surfaces in your studio, such as desks, stackable shelves or even milk crates and two-by-fours.

Set up a U-shaped area by arranging a desk and a secondary work surface in an L-shape, with a rack or shelves making up the third leg.

Place a swivel chair in the middle of your workspace. Test your ability to easily access all of the workspaces from the chair.

Position your recording equipment on your work surfaces. Put frequently adjusted things within arm’s reach.

If your studio faces a noisy street, hang the thickest drapes you can find.

Cover wood, tile, or cement floors with carpet remnants or heavy rugs to reduce echoes and reverberations.

Mount speakers at ear-level, spaced so that you can sit centered in the sound stream during playback. This may involve building a platform for the speakers on your desk, or hanging them on a wall or from the ceiling.

If you are creating a podcast, you may want to have “bumper” music at the start and end of each broadcast, so you’d need to have a CD player handy.

Position any instruments you may have at the open end of the workspace, where you can access them easily. Ideally, you want to be able to begin recording and playing without much time or effort devoted to moving from one task to the other.

Begin recording your future hit!