Whether your a musician looking to go into production to produce/record your music or your a producer looking to make sure your sound quality is up to a high standard, this question always arises in a lot of young musician's minds, that how much (Equipments) is enough to have a good quality sounding production.
Back in the days the only way to have a good quality production was to have all those analogue, expensive gears that was not possible to have access to for everyone, therefore there were not so many producers, mix and mastering engineers, but since the development of computer softwares and its fast growth, and creation of DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations) and VST instruments and VST Plugins everything became possible to the extend that we have, famous, multi Grammy award winning mix and mastering engineers Serban Ghenea who does it all in the box (He only use software based processors to mix and master).
Now with everything going towards the digital world and diminishing the use of all those analogue expensive equipments , which makes it possible for anyone to create music, while sitting behind a computer/laptop, and learn the craft while putting the effort. There are still some differences that can be spotted with listening to a record that, analogue equipments have been used.
With that being said, the majority of society think it is easy to make songs, there are a lot more that goes into the creation of a successful the song than just purchasing a software and using some samples. Even if somebody learns the craft of the music creation from writing a song, composition, arrangement, recording, mixing and mastering , there is a lot more that goes into a successful music career.
Considering the number of songs that come out every single day, even if you make the number one hit song but you don't have a good release strategy the chances of your song not getting anywhere is very high.
Going back to our subject,
How much equipments do I need to make it/ have a good quality production?
The answer is yes it is possible to have a high spec laptop (in my recommendation I would say around £1500 to £2500) and do all the music creation in there, but it does not stops there, although it is possible but...
what if I add a good quality sound card?
what if I buy a good monitoring system?
what about midrange monitoring speakers that all mixing engineers recommend?
and a lot of other ifs and buts that makes it hard to make a straight decision.
The truth is depending on
1-What you want to do ?
2-How you want to do it?
3-How much you want to spend?
You can use different tools and equipments to get it done but, that's just one side of the story,
the other side of the story is your experience in the field and familiarising yourself with your tools and equipments.
Let me make an example just in case if it's still blurry for you
lets say you have bought a decent laptop, monitoring speakers, few hard drives, a good sound card , few VST instruments and VST plugins, is that all and enough ?
As much as this is a great start, you still need to work with your tools to get to know them.
Ok so lets say your creating a song in your small home studio and you export the file and you play it in your car and it's nothing like what you were listening to in your home studio .
As there are a lot of reasons behind that, to mention a few of the most important ones are, getting to know your speakers, your room and having a reference track.
Making another example is if you use VST instruments you have to familiarise yourself to how to process them (with different methods) in a way that they sound full, polished and clean.
All of the things I mentioned above which is the second part of the consideration as we discussed, and it comes with time that you spend in the industry behind your gear, to get to know them.
So whether your starting out in production or you have been doing it for a while you have to bear in mind that, spending money on nice gears can have an effect on your production its not gonna make a difference in your production until you get to know them and use them properly.
So my suggestion is that, start with how much you can afford and once in a while buy a piece of equipment and really try to learn it and slowly and gradually go up the ladder.
In my experience in music industry slowly and gradually is the fastest way to get to where you want to be and at the end if you have any questions please do get in touch with me and I would be happy to help if I can.
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