Who This is For

Hi everyone! The purpose of this article is to help you start building a home studio setup for podcasting or voice over.

Now, you may be saying to yourself: well, I would love to get this stuff but I can’t afford it. And that’s understandable. You might think that I’m going to recommend you spend a lot of money building a home studio, but that’s not the case. Obviously the sky is the limit when it comes to how “high-end” you wanna go. But this isn’t for those who just purchased their first Neumann microphone or have a five-thousand dollars pre-amp. And it wouldn’t make sense to spend that kind of money anyway, unless you’re at a point where you’re making that kind of money.

This list of recommendations (below) is for those who are just starting out, and want to STAND OUT. In order to do that, you will need more than a USB mic like the Blue Yeti. (For the record, there’s nothing wrong with the Blue Yeti if you’re using it for hobbies or personal use, but it’s not going to make you sound as good as you need to.)

So here’s what you need: a microphone, an audio interface, a desktop mic stand, headphones and XLR cables. You can acquire all of that for roughly $400 to $600. No paltry sum but if you think of it as an investment, one that you will eventually make a return on, it’s totally worth it. And it’s the minimum of what you need, in my opinion, if you want to work professionally and be taken seriously.

Incidentally, the jump in audio quality going from $100 to $400/$600 is far greater than going from $400/$600 to $1200.

Okay, that’s enough talk about money.