Nowadays affordable computers and great audio hardware make it feasible for anyone to make great recordings. The number of soundcards available for example, is enormous. It is impossible to tell in a few words what you need to start a home recording studio, but in this article I will give some valuable advice to get you started.

Choose the right soundcard

Forget the standard soundcard that was present when you bought your computer. It lacks the features that are really important for recording. Have a look at some entry-level or more professional audio interfaces. One of the important differences is the quality of the analog-digital conversion. Decide in advance whether you want to record multiple instruments on independent tracks simultaneously. If not, a decent two-channel audio interface may be sufficient. Other things to look at are latency (degree of delay as a consequence of internal processing), bit depth, sampling frequency and the availability of preamps.
I only need to record one instrument at a time so a basic good quality soundcard works for me. I recommend the EMU-404. Visit EMU website for info.
Whether you want to record your guitar or the signal of a microphone, the sound level will be usually very low if you don’t use a preamplifier. Preamps are built in in some audio-interfaces, in most mixers and, recommended if quality is your primary concern, are available as standalone units. They offer at least a gain knob that allows you to adjust the sound signal level. A small powered mixer with mic and line inputs is the basic requirement.

Get software that suits you

You will definitely need some software to record the incoming signal to your computers hard drive, to edit wave forms and to mix down your music for burning a cd or distribution on the web. Software can be simple, and sometimes free, but advanced audio sequencing software is generally not cheep. Have a look at the cubase program, there doing a very cheap basic version (although I HATE cubase with a passion, I work with Emagic Logic on PC). Decide whether you are going to use MIDI or not and whether the availability of a lot of audio effect plugins (distortion, reverb etc..) is important. The more advances software offers many routing options, automation and an enormous flexibility, however keep in mind that you need time before you can work with it comfortably. Some learning curves are indeed very steep.

Monitors are essential

Having an audio interface and recording software is not enough. You need to be able to listen to your recordings and hear the true result. Therefore you need a set of dedicated speakers, called ‘monitors’. Although some hi fi-speakers may do the job for a while, judging sounds is ideally done using a pair of monitors due to their flat frequency response. I use Tannoy Reveal Passives. £150.

Microphones and preamps

Once you have these essential elements of the recording cascade, you can start investing in microphones and other gear. Choosing the right microphone is a difficult task, but as a simple rule, it is better to buy one decent microphone than a number of crappy ones. This also applies to preamps. I recommend the Rode NT1A large diaphragm condenser microphone, about £150 new.

Conclusion

Building a cheap recording studio around your pc is perfectly possible nowadays, but you should carefully consider your needs. Is your Pc fast enough? I recommend AMD 1.2Ghz or P4 2Ghz with 512MB ram as a minimum, especially if you want to run lots of high quality effects plugins.
I built my home studio for around £2,000 including computer.