When it comes to spec’ing out studios, Sweetwater has no shortage of experience. Our Sales Engineers have wired up tracking and recording rooms for thousands of our clients — those with million-dollar budgets and those who are just purchasing their first set of studio monitors.
And in our spare time? We like to keep our skills sharp. This time around, we challenged ourselves to put together an epic home studio on a budget of $6,000. What would it look like? Could it deliver competitive results? That’s what we set out to discover.
Sure, we have multiple content rooms here on our Sweetwater campus, and our Russ Berger–designed Sweetwater Studios is just around the corner. But as Mike Portnoy with his Ringo Kit can attest, making music on new gear can unlock different parts of the creative mind.
And guess what? We're super pleased with the results. If you need a springboard for your next home studio setup, then feel free to use the items listed here as a jumping-off point.
- Studio Monitors
- Acoustic Treatment
- Microphones
- Interface & Mic Preamps
- Desk & Controllers
- Other Studio Essentials
Studio Monitors
Every great studio starts with great monitoring. For our setup, we chose a set of 8-inch ADAM Audio TV8 powered studio monitors. Part of the ADAM T series, these nearfields succeed in being easy on the budget without compromising on accuracy.
The TV8s feature flat-response accelerated-ribbon tweeters and advanced waveguides similar to ADAM Audio's pro-level speakers. These have been hallmarks of the brand since day one. And, thanks to their 8-inch woofers, the TV8s had no problem reproducing those crucial EDM kick and sub-bass frequencies down to 33Hz.
We noted that the TV8s maintained extremely low distortion characteristics even at their max paired output level (118dB) — which proved plenty loud for our little studio. Additionally, the U-ART tweeters and S-series waveguides gave us a smooth off-axis response, allowing multiple engineers to audition mixes from the desk.
For the cleanest sound and optimal positioning, we paired our TV8s with a set of IsoAcoustics ISO-155 isolation stands for studio monitors. These adjustable monitor stands employ a floating pillar design to decouple speakers from the studio desk and raise them up to our listening sweet spot.
Acoustic Treatment
Even on a budget, there is no overstating the value of acoustic treatment in a recording studio. We recognized that investing early on would pay dividends down the road — from choosing the right mic placements for the tasks at hand to being confident in our mix decisions without running out to our cars to check every bounce.
Since our studio is a combined tracking room and control room, we opted for a ProSoCoustic WaveRoom Pro Mini 8-pack. This set of wall-mounted, foot-square sound panels helped to reduce flutter echoes from clouding our mix decisions and drywall "zing" from creeping into our recordings.
WaveRoom Pro Mini panels are sustainably made from quality UltraStock FR MDF frames and feature high-NRC ROCKWOOL Rockboard insulation to effectively neutralize frequencies above 1kHz. They sport internal diffusion to scatter soundwaves and give a sonic impression of a larger room overall. Plus, they mounted easily to our walls and gave our room a polished look.
For extra isolation on key sources like vocals and guitars, we doubled up treatment with an sE Electronics Reflexion Filter X portable vocal booth. This shield surrounded the rear and sides of our microphone to prevent room reflections from re-entering the capsule, leading to a tighter, more focused sound.
Microphones
Microphones are where recording engineers really get to leave their mark on a production. Being on a budget, we opted for just a handful of exceptional mics that would cover lots of sonic ground.
The Austrian-engineered Lewitt LCT 540 S large-diaphragm condenser microphone is a relative newcomer to the pro audio world, but it has quickly made a name for itself among music producers, voice-over artists, and sound designers — including many of us at Sweetwater. Its 4dB self-noise is among the lowest on the market. And with its tuned 1-inch capsule and stepped highpass filter, this mic conveyed a neutral, flattering image of whatever source we threw it in front of.
This might be a bad analogy, but from our experience, tracking with the LCT 540 S on lead sources is sort of like shooting in LOG format — you end up with a neutral, full-frequency representation of the source that's very responsive to shaping tools and compression to suit the final product.
For faster sources, such as percussion and acoustic instruments, we reached for a factory-matched pair of Lauten Audio LA-120 V2 small-diaphragm condenser microphones. These mics deliver a lifelike stereo image with a high, 130dB SPL handling to sit capably above a drum kit or inside the soundhole of a screaming guitar. Each mic features onboard highpass and lowpass filters, along with swappable cardioid and omni capsules to tailor pickup for a given source.
Interface & Mic Preamps
Whoever coined the term "garbage in, garbage out" must have had audio interfaces in mind. Sweetwater has made it our mission to rep only top-quality interfaces in every price range.
Here's a perfect example: the Focusrite Scarlett range has made it easy for producers of all budgets to get professional-level results at home. We stan these interfaces for a number of reasons: (1) the preamps and conversion are in a class all their own, (2) the driver stability is second to none, and (3) even the instrument DIs have gotten rave reviews by some gilded-ear online producers.
We built our interface ecosystem around the Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 3rd Gen USB audio interface, which was connected by Lightpipe to an 8-channel ADAT Focusrite Scarlett OctoPre microphone preamp. Together, this gave us a whopping 16 mic preamps for drums and live bands, along with a ton of I/O for summing, MIDI, and more.
The 18i20 3rd Gen's eight preamps all feature Focusrite's switchable all-analog Air circuit. This circuit simulates the punch and presence of Focusrite's ISA 110 Studio Console preamps — all without introducing extra latency. It's a very cool feature for sweetening lead sources and giving vocals that instant radio-broadcast effect. In our mixes, those even-order harmonics helped keep instruments like the bass guitar and darker voices from getting buried in a busy arrangement.
Desk & Controllers
A desk is the focal point of any sweet new studio setup, so we knew we didn't want to cheap out to save a buck here. The Gator Frameworks GFW-ELITEDESK-BRN Elite Series main desk has been designed from the ground up with production professionals in mind. Its two 4U rack bays keep workhorse outboards — preamps, modelers, EQs, and interfaces — within arm's reach for on-the-fly adjustments. A monitor bridge elevates screen and speakers up into one's workspace sweet spot. There's even a pullout tray that fits a 49-key MIDI controller. It was more than we needed at the time, admittedly, but we dig the atomic-chic look and integrated cable management for a clean workspace.
We stuck a PreSonus Central Station Plus rackmount monitor controller (remote included) in our rack bays and fired up a session. Even though our studio runs on a single set of monitors, we knew the Central Station Plus would guarantee us the cleanest monitoring signal path and the highest resolution control of our ADAM Audio TV8s. The speaker trims helped us achieve perfect LR balance in a variety of seated positions.
In our clients' studios, the Central Station Plus offers even more bang for the buck. It can toggle between three sets of monitor speakers without skipping a beat: nearfields, midfields, farfields, and even active bookshelf speakers. The included CSR-1 remote puts these commands and more at your fingertips, along with a handy mono-fold down switch and a cool integrated talkback mic.
Since we knew we were going to be tracking and mixing through SSL plug-ins, we splurged on a Solid Stage Logic UF8 advanced DAW controller. We've been hooked on this unit's hands-on mix approach ever since Chris Lord-Alge dropped by and remixed Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" in about 20 minutes on one. To no one's surprise, the UF8 worked great with SSL 360° and mapped easily to Avid Pro Tools, PreSonus Studio One, Ableton Live, and Steinberg Cubase.
Other Studio Essentials
Of course, you can't forget the essentials! We made the most of our remaining budget by taking advantage of some cash-saving accessory bundles at Sweetwater. A mic stand and cable bundle from our friends at On-Stage and Pro Co gave us three lightweight On-Stage MS7701B Euro Boom microphone stands and three lifetime-guaranteed, 20-foot XLR Pro Co EXM-20 Excellines microphone cables, so we knew we were getting consistent placement and a clean signal into our interface with every take.
For power management, we racked up a filtered 11-outlet Radial Power-1 power conditioner in our Gator desk and fired up our full studio — outboards, laptop, and all — from a signal outlet. What convenience! We appreciate that Radial left us multiple outlets on the front and rear spaces for wall warts, which came in handy for headphone amps and our guitar players' pedal power supplies. Campus power here at Sweetwater is already fairly clean, but the Power-1's high-rejection RF filter gave us added peace of mind while tracking and mixing.
Let Sweetwater Help You Build Your Home Studio
We hope you enjoyed this look at our $6,000 home studio! If you have questions about any of the gear on this page, or if you're interested to learn how Sweetwater can help you build the studio of your dreams, then contact our qualified Sweetwater Sales Engineers at (800) 222-4700.