Studio Equipment Project

Studio Equipment Project Instructions
Recording Studio Equipment Project Instructions



 You have just finished your birthday dinner to which all your relatives have been invited.  You would really have rather been somewhere else, but your parents insisted that you attend.  Your dear Aunt Agnes hands you an envelope that she says is a special birthday present for you.  When you open the envelope to see what is in it, you find a check in the amount of $20,000.00.  Attached to the check is a note that states . . . . .

 "I know that you would like to be able to pursue your dream of creating a recording studio, so here is a gift to get you started. I want you to take the check for $20,000.00 and buy all of the equipment you would need to create a home studio.

Needless to say, you are speechless.  But immediately your mind starts racing to all those incredible pieces of gear you have been drooling over forever.  You can’t wait to start researching all the online sources, deciding what would be appropriate gear to work with each other within your budget, then make a detailed list of all the equipment you would like to purchase.

I know that many of your first thoughts are, “How can I get adopted by Aunt Agnes?”  While this is only a fantasy scenario, the ability to put together a high quality, complete recording system to start a project studio with a $20,000.00 budget is pretty realistic.



Here are some requirements that you must fulfill when doing this assignment. Please read them carefully because your grade will be partially determined by how well you follow them.

1.  In today’s times, you must be able to record many different styles of music with varying number of musicians, whether it be a singer/songwriter, hip hop artist, rock band, jazz combo, or small classical music ensemble. Therefore, you must have sufficient equipment and capabilities to record all of these different styles of music in order to stay in business.

2.  You must create a complete list of equipment you will need to purchase for your studio on a spreadsheet (template provided). It must give the exact brand, model, price, and URL of the source where you got the price for each piece of gear you plan to buy.

3.  You must use five different sources/companies where you will purchase your equipment.

4.  Your budget is exactly $20,000.00. You must spend all of the $20,000.00, no more or less.

5.  You MUST remember everything you will need to set up your studio. This might include a mixing console or control surface, monitor system, all outboard gear, microphones, mic stands, cables, wind screens, computer, software, power conditioners, pop filters, direct boxes, audio interfaces, software, plug-ins, sound modules, blank media, etc., etc.

6.  You must also specify the cables you need. You should list prices for all the expensive cables or those that you need multiples of (ex. Microphone cables).  Then you should always have a “Miscellaneous Cables” category where you list the remaining odds and ends cables you need, but simply put a single dollar amount to cover them all.  You should determine an appropriate amount based on your specific equipment.  You can get to the exact amount of $20,000.00 by tweaking this lump sum a bit. (ex. $396.12 instead of $400.00).

7.  If you choose to get a software subscription rather than a perpetual license, you must figure the cost of at least one year’s subscription.

8.  You are not to include furniture or music instruments (guitars, basses, drum sets, amps, etc.) other than perhaps a reasonably priced keyboard controller ($500.00 or less) to trigger software samples and instruments.

9.  You are not to include any acoustic treatment or infrastructure items, just equipment and software.

10.  You must list all of your chosen equipment using the spreadsheet template provided on our Canvas site.

11.  If you wish to include something from e-bay or other online auction site, you must list the final price, not a current bid! You are also allowed to use student discounts, or other discounts as long as any student in the class can also use the discount (i.e. no employee discounts, etc.)

12.  You will submit your project by the due date using the provided link in Canvas under the “Studio Equipment Project” module.