Essential Music Production Equipment For Beginners

Many people aspire to be a music producer. At first, it can all seem big and scary. Where to start? What to do? What music production equipment it’s needed?

This guide hopes to help beginners and guide them on everything you’ll need at the start.

Equipment:

A DAW (Digital audio Workstation)

This is where all the producing will take place. Examples include FL Studio, Logic Pro, Ableton. Usually, DAW’s will be able to but in the £100 – £200 price range. You can download a free demo to test it out and see which one you like the most. I personally use FL Studio but it’s really just personal preference.

Also see: Best Music Production Software

Laptop / Computer

Obviously, you will need a laptop or computer to produce music. The most popular one for producing music is an iMac. All you really need is something big a lot of space and a fast one. (I would recommend at least 8GB RAM and 500 GB of memory) Having a computer with a good sound card always helps but isn’t necessary if you are buying studio monitors.

Also see: Best Laptop For Music Production (Buyer’s Guide)

Studio Monitors

Studio monitors are loud speakers designed for music production. They are almost an essential if your computer doesn’t have an amazing sound card. Having studio monitors makes mixing and mastering much easier as you can hear the sounds more accurately and hear them for their true value. However, they can be quite costly. If your budget is low, find the one that is best value for money.

Also See: Best Affordable Active Studio Monitors for Beginners

Audio Interface

An audio interface will be a very good investment; it will help you incorporate live instruments into your production. If you plan to record vocals, this will help massively in making sure that the input is high quality and not delayed or encounters any other problems. If you plan on using a midi keyboard, it will make sure there is no delay between your playing and it inputting into your DAW. You could also plug your instruments/MIDI’s into your computer but using an audio interface will make it sound more professional and will allow you to use more hardware.

Also see: 10 Best Audio Interfaces for Home Studios

MIDI Keyboard

A MIDI keyboard is another good tool to have to make your production easier and faster. It is a keyboard that will load your notes into your DAW instantly. You can pick them up relatively cheap (MIDI keyboards are available for around £50). It will increase productivity massively as you don’t have to draw notes, you can just play them. It will also help you massively if you can play the keyboard/piano.

You might also like to read: 5 Essentials For Your Home Recording Studio