Top 3 Challenges of Producing Your Own Music at Home

Producing your own musical recordings at home is easier than ever before thanks to sophisticated computers and software. However, it is still no walk in the park. A quality recording takes a lot more effort than running a piece of software, playing a song once, and saving the file. You have to record, engineer, and produce – all from your home studio.

Producing great music at home is possible, as evidenced by so many indie musicians who do it. But for every musician who DIYs an entire project, there is another who works with a company like Supreme Tracks. Based in New York City, Supreme Tracks offers an online recording studio, full music production services, and the ability to purchase prerecorded drum, bass, and guitar tracks.

The question for any home studio owner is this: how much money and time do you want to put into it? Get a handle on that and it is easier to decide whether to work with the pros. To that end, here are the top three challenges of producing your own music at home:

• 1. The Financial Cost

It is completely possible to record and engineer music on a cheap laptop using little more than an entry-level microphone and a guitar. But as with anything else, quality is commensurate with financial investment. Doing it right requires investing in high-quality computer equipment and software. Spending several thousand dollars to get up and running isn’t unusual.

In terms of hardware, you ideally want a desktop PC with enough muscle to handle complicated wave files without any hiccups. As far as software is concerned, you need a package capable of managing full audio engineering and production. A good software package can easily run you $500 or more.

• 2. The Learning Curve

Producing high-quality music is a challenging task. There is a lot to learn. Just with the software alone, the learning curve is steep enough to discourage musicians who do not have the commitment. More than one has thrown up their hands and given up because learning was too difficult.

The nature of music production makes it impossible to learn even the basics overnight. Mastering a good recording suite can take months, if not years of steady work. Patience wins the day.

• 3. The Time Commitment

The third challenge is the time commitment. Even after you have mastered your software, it takes time to produce high-quality music. You may spend all day laying down two or three tracks. If you are putting together a song with ten tracks, you could spend three or four days just doing the recording. After that comes editing and engineering.

Assuming you are trying to do all of this while holding down a full-time job, putting together just one song could take several weeks. An entire album could take more than a year. But that is the way this works. Even the professionals don’t spit out full albums in a few days. Good music takes time.

The point here is not to discourage you from home studio recording. In fact, recording at home might be the only practical option for you. That’s okay. Just be prepared to spend some money, learn some software, and take your time producing each and every song.

If you are willing to make the commitment, you can do some great things in a home studio. If you are not, consider going straight to a recording studio instead. Investing a lot of time and money in a home studio, only to give up and walk away, is both unnecessary and discouraging. You would be better off paying for studio time.