Four steps to create your own home studio 

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Level one is the most creative one i think. Most of the people are satisfied with it most of the time. It took me 7 years to pass this level. The reason wasn't the money. I lived with 5 of my brothers and sisters, and everyone had their own thing going on. Headphones and laptop were my studio. I started investing in plugins, audio analysis tools and so on. But i learned that you have to connect your sound in different ways to increase options for utilities and live showcase. Seven years after i am level 2. I have a DAC conector, very expensive headphones, and so 100€ speakers. Nothing impressive, but for me thats level 10..

As someone who is been at stage 4 for many years, it’s always good to hear the basics again. I really enjoy how you explained in more human terms. Someone like me tries to get too technical too quick 😂

A controller would already come in quite handy at the audiophile stage (2). If you're going to spend considerable time in a DAW, then it's a sensible investment that doesn't have to cost you all that much.

I started at an even more basic level, all i had was a synthesizer and a laptop. It was so basic that i didn't even have an audio interface, i somehow found a way to get the synthesizer's audio into my laptop's microphone input jack by using a special cable. It worked surprisingly well until i got an interface, which really improved things.

Best vulgarisation video Ive seen. Lvl 3 here but Producer.

nice vid, love your enthusiasm oscar! i would recommend every dreamer to go from laptop with headphones to add a midi keyboard. Next level would be to upgrade to monitor speakers but with acoustic treatment of the room last level add external synths

Seen a lot of new producers playing their own tunes at festivals and their set up is still Stage 1. This comes from a Stage 5 producer - all the gear no idea!

I'm kinda in between level 1 and 4, I have a cracked Ableton on my Mac, headphones and pair of tower speakers hooked up to my amplifier and a midi keaboard as well. Still missing the interface though. Odd thing is my speakers are setup behind me cause their to big to go next to the desk. Really enjoy your videos btw keep it up 💪

Oscar I love how you hold the midi keyboard as a boombox. Big thing if you buy a piano keyboard instrument. Make sure it has a midi port. I bought mine (Yamaha p125) before I knew I was getting into this realm. I have to use a midi USB host to control a synth. It's extra steps.

Is it bad if I am still at the dreamer stage after producing (on and off) for about 15 years? 😆

This was a funny one, Badankt Oscar !

Hey Oscar, I watch these videos religiously now and have come to the conclusion that youre the master of turning confusing concepts into easy to understand videos. I know you do techno so it isnt really your thing so much but id love to see your take on vocal processing. I'm learning to make electronic music but I really love Vocoders and want to incorporate some robotic vocals into my songs similar to Daft Punk, I have a Digitech Talker and its amazing but processing the vocals to sound good in ableton is really hard! Anyway, thank you for all you do!

Funny aside: when plugging in a USB cable to a PC/laptop, it sometimes makes a difference which port you use. Some ports are noisier than others, due to the inner signal flow of the boards. You simply need to try this out for your machine.

I have achieved level 4 on the Oscar scale, yay!

4:50 ayye gx49 i got the same one

I need the monitors and hardware synth and would like to get a mixer but I have the rest I have aquired over the years but I have only just started doing it seriously in September, this hobby is very addictive lol

The soundcard will help with processing vsts creating sound etc rather than using internal cards?

Hi there, I have one question. In the pass I buy a little mixing table (Xenyx 802s from Berlinger) to plug my monitor speaker with my pc. Still today I'm wondering what is the difference between a mixing table and an audio interface. I hope that someone have the answer I don't manage to find it internet

I've been on stage 3 for a while and I did not get a keyboard because I wanted to understand drawing chords on a DAW which I think I have. Do you suggest to move to level 4.

I think I don't really fit into your levels as I come from a band background and thus have things like acoustic guitars and drums as well as a piano. I do have a keyboard I connect to my laptop via USB for Midi Input and I have some studio monitor headphones but I rely on my internal soundcard which is fine for me at the moment. I also do not have a copy of Ableton, I was using Waveform 12 and Audacity, which worked fine for my needs. Do you think I would get an advantage using Ableton over these programs?

So True

Level 5 (the acoustician) should be about acoustic treatment then :))

level 2: You vs the headphone connector she tells you not to worry about

Hello, sir! What is your monitirs? Is it 3 way speakers?

What level am at I if I've been making music for 2 decades, have been using both computer and hardware sequencers and synthesizers for years...but have never bought studio monitors?

The beginner lessons are always appreciated, thanks. Today I have two tracks with some breakbeats: “James Shinra - Hold On” and "RIOT CODE - ANGEL GAZE”. Enjoy and have a great week y’all.

I've got to say that I was hoping this would cover the old school midi cable vs the headphone-ish midi cable vs USB midi and how you can get them to work together, if at all. (Eg, I've got a korg nts 1 and want a cheap midi controller, but not one that's a dead end...) I was also hoping for a bit of opinion on modular gear, but perhaps that's too far away from your interests. Thanks :)

My two cents: get a digital piano that produces sound and has a MIDI output instead of a MIDI controller. It’s nice to be able to quickly bang out ideas on the piano without having to set up the whole workstation and whatnot.

Hobbyist here and there is some hacks had to discover throughout my journey like just using a synth to double as midi keyboard can't wait until they find about 500 series and routing external gear

Even with a laptop running i5, you can get a great track out on beat port 😂 if you don’t have expensive speakers or decent headphones and treated room, analysing software is the way forward, Sonarworks etc…

I can't play an instrument, what do i do at level 3

in my opinion MIDI keyb should come at step 2 or 3, as a producer im feeling it helped me create better music, and also its much more comfortable.

stood for yeeeears on lvl 1; now at lvl 2 I start out with 4x turbosound iq18b & 4x turbosound iq15! well, the whole setup is aimed to make parties and is waay to much for a studio. so, starting lvl to using: 2x iq18b & 2x iq15.. :D

Damn you Oscar. I'm a level 1 dreamer and I think you might have just cost me a few quid.

I'm all of them😂

Oscar , I'm not interested at the moment to use external instruments, but I wonder if it's better to use an external sound card than to use drivers like Asio4all...What do you think?

I'm the audiophile, still for my situation I'd rather get a midi keyboard before trying to play with my voice into the daw directly, as a piano player I would really like to start having the touch and instinct to decide my compositions

🎉

My current plan is to sell everything I own except my dog and get a DFAM + Subharmonicon

Hey, it's a great description. But where am I, when I have a launchpad and some other stuff too 🤣

Make no mistake: an XLR jack/cable is by far superior to a "normal" TRS jack! Especially for recording. Think of XLR as "stereo with noise reduction". It's important to use XLR wherever possible! 😎👍

audiophile 🤦‍♀

Are external soundcards really better? I've always been skeptical. You can listen to the best albums ever through the headphone jack... they sound amazing... why would you mixing your music be any different?