What music gear do you actually need?

hey it's andrew huang if you've seen my videos you've seen me make music with everything from banjos to balloons from rubber chickens to boutique synthesizers there's a lot of weird gear on this channel i even have a series called weird gear now gear is fun but it isn't necessary to have a whole ton of it so in today's video i want to break down the basic home music studio setup the handful of elements that should work for most people to be able to create most types of music also i'm going to mention some of the specific equipment that i'm using but just remember that there's lots of options out there and i will also link to a lot of budget friendly options in the description and if you know of stuff that isn't in there please leave a comment because i will keep updating that like you can even check back on this description in the future and learn more that would be dope so the center of your setup is gonna be your computer i'm using a macbook pro from five years ago look you can see like my nails have just chipped the keys off this thing is still running just fine for me it was maxed out specs in 2013 so it's probably far from the best you could get today but uh apparently you don't really need it i'm gonna be honest i'm not a major computer specs guy but i'll put on the screen here what this is running and maybe if you have any recommendations in the comments you can let us know this has been what's allowed me to produce pretty much everything you've seen on my channel all the music i've released over the past five years on your computer you're going to be running your digital audio workstation or daw i use ableton live 10 but again there's lots of options out there there will be links in the descriptions to a bunch including free ones [Music] next up is headphones and by the way i'm doing this all in the order that i would recommend you get these things if you're kind of saving up and doing this one at a time i've collected a bunch of headphones over the years and controversial opinion i don't care about them at all just get over-ear headphones rather than earbuds so that you can actually get a fuller frequency spectrum some people like really flat response reference headphones and that can be really good of course but i find that when i'm mixing i'm gonna check my material on so many different systems so many different ways of listening to it i'm gonna ask other people what they think as well i just haven't found that i've ever needed to swear by one pair of headphones next on the list would be a midi keyboard i use the complete control s61 from native instruments but there are tons of options for this there are much smaller ones you can get there are ones that have drum pads on them and this is one area where going cheap probably matters the least these don't make sounds on their own they just connect your computer usually via usb and trigger sounds in the computer in the computer and so if you get the most basic one out there it's still gonna tell your computer which note you're pressing and how hard you're hitting it some feel nicer to play some have features that make them integrate really well with certain kinds of software but if you're just starting out it really doesn't matter which one you get and regardless of your experience level with keyboard instruments this is going to help you with your music because it's so much more intuitive to play notes like this than by trying to click them in on your computer next up a microphone and an audio interface these kind of go hand in hand you can't really have one without the other because you need the microphone to be able to pick up sounds and you need the audio interface to be able to send those sounds into your digital audio workstation the staples that i work with are the shure sm7b which is a really versatile microphone and relatively speaking pretty affordable and my audio interface is the universal audio apollo twin which is a little bit of a higher end one but um again description and this probably goes without saying but you'll need the cables to connect all this together so microphones are generally xlr that's like the three pin guy here male to female audio interfaces are commonly usb or thunderbolt and some of them will come with the cable so uh check for that we should also talk about microphone accessories so you probably want to stand to put it on i'm using this rode boom arm thing that attaches really easily to any desk if you're recording vocals you'll also want a pop filter to prevent plosives which are the p and b sounds that can be really uh they push a lot of air into a mic and create a sound that's not really desirable the sm7b comes with one on but it's also really common to see these kind of circle ones that you can put in front of a microphone and a tip for those really on a budget it's not quite as good but you can get away with putting a pencil right here when you sing in between you and the microphone does break up a lot of the air that would cause those kinds of problems let's test it right here the next item you'd want to get is a pair of studio monitors i've been using tenoi 802s a lot of consumer speakers you get will have some built-in hype they might boost the low end or the high end they might try to make the music that comes out of them a little more exciting or they might just be really bad speakers and not be accurately representing everything across the frequency spectrum so that's what you're looking for in a pair of studio monitors they're not going to bass boost they're not going to emphasize anything to suit a specific genre they're just going to play back whatever you're feeding them as honestly as possible so hopefully what that means is that you won't be over compensating for anything as you're mixing and that will allow what you create to translate better into just about any playback system and the last thing for your basic setup is your room treatment and i've left this for the end because it is the hardest thing to do you can't just go out and buy something you do have to figure out what's going to work both for your budget and for your room so even though i've left this to the end it does really help if you can do this in tandem with either your microphone or your studio monitor purchases sound waves bounce off surfaces so every room is going to emphasize different frequencies and of course that compromises what you're hearing back when you're playing stuff through your monitors also it changes what gets picked up in your microphone when you're recording sometimes you might want the sound of a room if it's got a really nice reverb to it but mostly you probably don't i'm currently still working out of a home studio it's just a spare bedroom so hopefully this can be helpful for you i'll show you exactly what i did to dampen everything so that i can record and play back without any echo happening actually let's do a comparison here's what it sounds like in my treated room and here's what it sounds like right outside the door pretty massive difference so here's what i've done i've tried to cover a lot of every surface with soft materials there's a plain old rug covering most of the floor above my desk the wall has some foam panels i've also got the same ones on the ceiling they're a little more spread out on the ceiling on the opposite wall from my desk i just have these two blankets hung up these are specifically sound blankets but i have had plenty of luck before with just normal blankets from around the house actually there's a hashtag on instagram called huang mobile studio if you go there you can see all the random pillow forts basically that i've built while traveling to still be able to record and the other two walls don't have much there's two panels on my closet door and then just a thin curtain across my windows and then the last thing is in the corners of the rooms i've got these base traps stacked up these are just big chunks of foam i'll link to all this stuff in the description but that is how i treated my room and all this stuff that i just showed you would be sort of the basic setup that i would say you could work towards all other gear is gravy it's just more fun to use or a specific flavor you want or maybe better for your workflow but that's the basic setup but also having just gone through this i really want to say work with whatever you have this is a setup that you would build to over time if all you can do is play with an app on your phone right now start there get really good be the best person using that music app if you've got a ukulele play that every day while you're saving up to get your computer my first experience with recording was on a boombox just like a cassette player that my mom had and i just filled up tapes and tapes of stuff starting with just my voice and the piano that we had at home and then eventually the guitar that i got i think it's really great to work with your limitations and learn and grow and enjoy the process and eventually get to something like this maybe there would be no sense in dropping a beginner into the middle of a studio you need to put in the time and go on your own journey lots of helpful links will be in the description so check that out thank you so much for watching thanks for subscribing and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: ANDREW HUANG

Views: 1,680,620

Keywords: andrew huang, andrew, huang, music, musician, producer, song, AndrewHuang, producing music, how to, how to make music, music producer, making music, ableton, making a song, sing, songwriting, learn music, keyboard, midi, midi controller, computer, laptop, daw, mic, microphone, beginner, starting, basics, setup, home studio, music studio, equipment, macbook, headphones, boom, rode, stand, speakers, monitors, cables, pop filter, soundproofing, sound proofing, sound panels, sound absorption, audio, interface

Id: 2JBOgJ0lTJo

Length: 8min 2sec (482 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 28 2018