Conservatories were once the most in-demand addition to our homes. But fast forward 15 years and many are left as uninsulated spaces that act as nothing more than a storage room. If you have a conservatory or sunroom that is largely unused, it’s time to consider how you can transform it into a functional room that adds style and value to your home. Many homeowners are getting creative with how they use their conservatories. If you’re a budding musician, follow this guide to turn your unused space into a handy home studio.
1.) Soundproof Your Space
Unless you want to win the award for the world’s worst neighbour, soundproofing your conservatory should probably be your starting point. This will also help ensure you’re not disturbed by external noise yourself when using your studio.
Triple glazing your windows is your easiest option for keeping external noise at bay. You’ll also need to consider your roof if it’s made of glass. A more modern option that will also help to soundproof your space is adding a tile roof for a conservatory.
2.) Improve Insulation
Most conservatories become forgotten about due to poor insulation. This means they are too cold to use in the winter and too warm in the summer. If you’re planning to use your conservatory as a recording studio, you’ll want to improve your conservatory’s insulation to ensure it’s usable all year round.
As already mentioned, adding a tiled roof will help insulate your conservatory as will adding triple-glazed windows. Other options include using foil insulation, thermal quilting or PVC cladding.
3.) Add The Latest Gadgets
Once you’ve made your space comfortable, it’s time for the fun part: creating your studio! You’ll need a computer, monitors, microphones, headphones and everything else that you’d find in a state-of-the-art studio. If you’re working to a budget, you can pick these items up for as little as $500 while a more advanced studio could easily exceed the $3,000 mark.
This should leave you with everything you need to start recording from home. Not only could this be a cheaper and more convenient option than hiring a studio, but it also adds an extra layer of utility to your home. It also offers you another way to make money, not just by adding value to your property but also by renting out your studio to other budding musicians.
Buy the PC
If you are creating a music studio, you must ensure you have the right PC for your studio. This is where you can spend a large budget on your music studio. You don’t want to spend very little on a PC or else you will create poor music. It’s like spending £30 on a guitar but if you find a £500 guitar, it will produce better music.
To ensure you have a good PC, you need a 64-bit operating system that can deal with a large number of tracks, plugins, and sample libraries. Just make sure you allocate the right amount of money to ensure you get the best quality possible.
Going further into the complexities of your PC, you can get away with 8GB of RAM with a 4-core processor. If you want a better-performing PC, consider 16GB of RAM. Additionally, storage is something else to consider. As you are creating multiple sounds and tracks, it can take up a lot of space. In this case, you will need a large Solid State Drive along with a hard disk drive.
Choose an Audio Interface
The next step is to choose a good audio interface so that you can create quality music. Apple has their own so if you are buying an iMac, you will have one that is already installed. However, if you are choosing a user interface yourself, there are some factors to carefully consider. One of those includes how many inputs and outputs that you need.
Digital Audio Workstation
Something else which you will require is a digital audio workstation. This is where it gets very complicated if you have little experience with music studios. Additionally, there are three types of DAWs such as Free DAWs, Limited Functionality DAWs and Paid DAWs. Let’s take a look at the different DAWs and what they can offer you.
Free DAWs
This means there is no fee that is required so that includes GarageBand, Audacity and Cakewalk by BandLab. Although these are all great DAWs to have, the issue with this is that they can be limited to a paid version and a paid version is far more capable.
For beginners like yourself, we recommend using these to get used to creating and recording your own sounds. Creating music is a lot harder than you think so you get yourself some practice on one of these before purchasing a DAW that can be more expensive.
Limited Functionality
Up next is a limited functionality DAWs, which will offer you a free trial period, allowing you to test its features. This is certainly recommended for the more expensive DAWs because you don’t want to spend too much on a DAW that you cannot use.
Paid DAWs
Paying DAWs is more expensive but you pay for quality. Some of these include; Cubase, Logic Pro X, Reaper, Pro Tools and FL Studio. There are many others but these are some of the best on the market.
Spend on Good Recording Equipment
The next step is to pay for the right recording equipment. Microphones are something that you cannot go cheap on. If you don’t spend a lot of money on a good microphone, expect your vocals to sound tinny and catch a lot of background noise. Yes, good recording software will allow you to edit sounds but chopping away at your audio can make it sound a lot worse.
Something to consider is to buy two microphones. One microphone will be used all the time and then the other microphone which elevates your audio. At the end of the day, you need a microphone to record your sounds constantly. Then, when you want to create the final piece, consider using your speciality microphone to give it that finishing touch that adds extra quality to your sounds.
To Conclude
There are many things that you will need to do to ensure you are creating the perfect music studio in your conservatory. It is important you create a room you can spend all day in but also one that blocks outdoor sounds and keeps the sounds inside your room to record. Don’t go cheap on your music studio and make sure you spend it on good, quality equipment that has plenty of reviews.