Acoustic guitar and one voice, spare bedroom with a carpet and a wardrobe, and I want to release the songs rather than make demos I apologise for. I already own the laptop and a pair of closed-back headphones I like. I keep reading lists that assume I also want to record drums and a band, which I do not. Itemise what you would actually buy at this budget and what you would leave until later.
The mistake I made was buying software first because it was cheap in sales and felt like progress. I had a very impressive plugin folder and a laptop microphone. Everything I released from that era is unlistenable because the source was bad, and no amount of processing fixes a bad source. Buy the chain that gets sound into the computer, then stop.
Three years of receipts, and what I would undo. Total spend was more than I want to admit. The things that earned their money: the interface, the dynamic mic, the stand, one set of panels, and a subscription to a sample library I actually use. The things that did not: a second condenser I have used twice, a MIDI keyboard that has been a monitor stand for two years, and about six plugin sales I bought because it was Black Friday. Roughly a third of my spend did nothing for the records.
I will take the unpopular side. For one voice and one guitar, at 900, I would spend the money on the microphone and worry about the room second. A great mic in a mediocre room still sounds like a great mic. The wardrobe and the duvet get you most of the way on treatment for free, and you can add panels next year when you know what your room does wrong.
I tested this because I believed the same thing. Recorded the same vocal take with a 90 mic and a 700 mic in an untreated bedroom, then hung four moving blankets and did it again. Every listener I played it to picked the cheap mic in the treated room over the expensive one in the bare room, and it was not close. The room is printed onto the recording and you cannot remove it later. The mic difference is real, it is just smaller than the room difference until the room is fixed.
That is a fair test and better evidence than my opinion. I would still put the boundary at a serviceable mic rather than the cheapest one, but I take the point about ordering.
Interface, one dynamic mic, one stand, one cable, a duvet. Record fifty songs on that. Then buy the thing that is actually stopping you.
Add a small line for the unglamorous stuff: a second mic cable, a spare pop filter, a cheap stand clamp, and something to stop the chair squeaking. I lost a genuinely good vocal take to a chair. Also do your recording in the smallest soft-furnished room you have rather than the biggest room, which is the opposite of what feels right.
@coldsoak_kim · 6mo ago · 3 replies
My first setup that produced something I still stand by, itemised:
That is under your number with room to spare. The panels were the single biggest change in how the vocals sounded and they were the cheapest line after the cables.
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@budget_bruno · 6mo ago
The DIY panel route is the right call at this budget, but do not use foam from a marketplace listing. Mineral wool or rockwool slabs in a timber frame with breathable fabric. Foam tiles do almost nothing below a couple of kHz, which is exactly where boxiness lives.
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@slowtrainjo · 6mo ago
Two panels built this weekend for less than a mic cable each. The difference on the guitar track is not subtle.
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