Building a Small Modern Home Recording Studio – Part 3: Audio Interfaces and Microphones

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In the series so far, I gave a brief overview of the Four Pillars of a home recording studio. We have also gone more in-depth in regards to the computer and the DAW it runs. Now, let’s take a closer look at the second and third pillars — the audio interface and the microphone.

The Audio Interface

To put it plainly, your computer’s native soundcard is trash. It is a very basic device that gets a stereo signal out, and sometimes allows a single mono signal in. If you have any real interest in recording at home, you will need a much more capable soundcard. That soundcard is an audio interface — your stock soundcard’s jacked older brother that can bench-press a Fiat.

Audio interfaces come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and with a range of capabilities. Some come with a single input, some with as many as eight. Some afford you the option to purchase an auxiliary unit and chain them together, for as many as forty eight. But for our purposes, we want something with an agreeable price tag, but enough features that it would allow you to grow into it as a producer or engineer.

Ideal Specs

When it comes to an audio interface, you want something that has at least two inputs and four outputs. The two inputs should both have preamps. It should also have 48V Phantom power. Anything more is useful, but not necessary to get started. There are interfaces with a single input, but what happens if you one day want to record something in stereo? Something to keep in mind when purchasing gear is whether the gear allows you any room to grow. If it doesn’t, you’ll find yourself trading up much sooner than you may have anticipated. Here are a couple entry-level devices that would suit your needs:

Presonus Audiobox USB 96 – I’ll admit that I have never used this particular interface before, but Presonus tends to make pretty decent gear. This one in particular has two preamp inputs, two outputs (plus a headphone output) Phantom power and MIDI I/O. Seems to be all that and a bag of chips – and they go for $100.

Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 – This is a great little starter interface that meets all the criteria I laid out above. It also has MIDI ports, which will come to be incredibly useful for linking external gear. (Check out my latest article on MIDI and its place in the modern world here). This guy currently goes for about $180.

Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 – When it comes to small, portable interfaces, this is the way to go. It’s a little pricer than the Scarlett, but having extra ins and outs makes it well worth it. Audio 6 features a pair of preamps, two extra analog inputs, four analog outputs, plus two S/PDIF ins and outs for a total of 6i/6o. It also has phantom power and MIDI ports. This is what I own for my portable recording and live electronic rigs, and it works like a charm. It goes for $240.

The Microphone

The importance of a microphone cannot be overstated. That is not to say that you need to rush out and spend $2,000 on one, but you should invest at least about a hundred bucks, give or take, on a decent one. And more importantly, the most versatile one.

Ideally, you would want an array of microphones – each one uniquely suited to a job. But starting up on a budget is not an ideal situation, so you’ll likely go for a single microphone. In that case, I would suggest investing in a large-diaphragm condenser microphone. They are crisp, clear, and flattering to the voice as well as acoustic guitar, pianos and other acoustic instruments. Condensers run on 48V Phantom power, which is why I stressed your interface must have built-in phantom power. Here are a couple good choices to get you started:

MXL 990 – Quite decent starter condenser microphone. It’s a large diaphragm mic with 30Hz-20kHz cardioid response. This mic is everywhere because it works and it’s only $70. A solid first-microphone choice.

Rode NT1-A (Discontinued) – This is the same type of mic as the 990, though it’s arguably more clear with a flattering mid-range boost that works very well for vocals. It’s also a very quiet microphone, which is always a plus. This is the mic with which I record all of my vocals for all of my projects. This mic is discontinued as of updating this article (in 2024), but there is a current 5th generation NT1 model available.

SM-57 – I include this to buy in addition to – not instead of – a large-diaphragm condenser. The reason being this is a classic microphone that has been used to record guitars and drums since it hit the market in 1965. It doesn’t work as well on vocals or acoustic instruments, though. They go for $100, but if you plan on recording electric guitars out of the amplifier, this is the tool for the job.

Conclusion

The audio interface and the microphone are two of the most important pieces in a home studio setup. Perhaps not as glamorous as a mixing console, but whereas a mixer can be sidestepped in a smaller home studio, the interface and microphone cannot.

It should be noted that the build we are creating here is not sufficient capture drum kits or a live band as a multitrack. That would require a much larger interface as well as several microphones, and that is beyond the scope of this series.

Next up we have the fourth and final pillar of a small home studio: monitoring — aka: speakers and headphones.

Until then,

-AudioMunk

Interested in those larger, multitrack setups? Let me know in the comments or drop me a line on the contact page!

Here are links to the remaining parts of this series:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Computer and the DAW
Part 4: Monitoring