Companies are SO good at the “this is the one piece of gear standing between you and a chart-worthy album” and honestly, people like me have fallen for that trap more than once. After looking back on thousands of dollars lost and no improvement, there is one investment I made that was…. Just. THE WORST.
What was it?
“Oh John, this isn’t the answer I wanted”…
YEA. I KNOW. I KNOW. Let’s hash this out.
1). You likely never need 8 channels.
Like, seriously. When was the last time you went above 4 inputs, or even 2? The majority of DIY musicians are recording one at a time, in their bedroom, and today when I had to hook up a 3rd mic cable I realized it had been 6 months since I needed a 3rd one.
While there are definitely cases where it can come in handy, it doesn’t for 95% of people. You’re in a band and want to have live drums? Honestly, trying to DIY drums in your living room is probably going to go very badly, and if you are serious about your music I’d recommend booking a day at a decent studio so the hard work that goes into capturing drums is worth it in the end.
For demoing at home, it’s much more worthwhile to get good at programming drums. Cheap and fast, and gives you better tones and room sounds than your living room! If you’d rather your demos sound more live and human, put up a mic in the room away from the kit pointed at the kick drum and that can serve just as well.
2. Having a larger interface makes you buy more.
I did this, and ugh. Nothing was a bigger waste of money than buying so many microphones, cables, and stands to support all of these hypothetical situations I created in my head. Over $2k later, I had a ton of equipment and nobody to take advantage of it, nor did I know exactly what I was doing in the beginning. Which leads me to…
3. Using them all at once will be chaos for a beginner.
The entire world of recording is a lifelong journey, and it gets exponentially more complicated the more variables that come into play. If you are in that initial couple years, I can almost guarantee you need a 2 channel interface, one mic for vocals and maybe an SM57 for anything that doesn’t work on your vocal mic, and that’s 95% of what you’ll do.
It’s very similar to the “walk before you run” saying. Take the time to have a solid comprehension of the fundamentals, and THEN you can start creating an audio arsenal with confidence that you can utilize it to the fullest!
In the end, I hope you can walk away being confident that an effective, minimal setup can take you MUCH further than you thought! That being said, if you are interested in this world a bit more, I have a video about “4 Home Studio Products To Avoid” if you are considering building out your home setup for recording. Not to toot my own horn but it’s already saved people hundreds of dollars!
JOHN MCLUCAS
John McLucas is a full-time pop/rock music producer, mixing engineer, and content creator in Los Angeles California. He’s worked with professionals from all corners of the music industry, including Grammy Winning Engineer Dennis MacKay (Judas Priest, George Martin, David Bowie), Joey Sturgis Tones, Unstoppable Recording Machine, and Oculus VR. His strength is in coming up with unique creative concepts in both audio and visual mediums for his clients, corporate and personal.
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