- Diagnose before you spend. Record thirty seconds of speech and thirty of silence. Normalize both and listen on headphones. Hiss is a gain problem. Traffic and fans are a noise problem. Hollow or boxy is a room problem. Knocks and creaks are a mount problem. These are four different purchases and only one of them is yours.
- Fix the free things. Get a hand's width from the microphone. Move out of the room's center. Stop facing a bare parallel wall. These cost nothing and they are larger than your next purchase.
- Fix gain, if that was the diagnosis. Check your interface's published maximum mic gain against your microphone's published sensitivity. Short means a booster or a higher-gain interface.
- Fix the room. Two thick panels at the first reflection points, then two corner absorbers. This is the largest available improvement for almost every home studio, and the one that gets postponed indefinitely. How to treat a room for recording.
- Fix the mount. An arm or stand rated for what you are hanging on it, with damped springs. Boom arm vs desk stand.
- Only now consider a better capsule. With gain, room and mount handled, a better microphone finally gets to show you what it does. Before that, it mostly shows you your room in more detail. Microphones.
The reason microphones come last is not that they do not matter. It is that a microphone's job is to reproduce faithfully whatever arrives at it, and a better one reproduces your problems more faithfully. Fix what arrives first.
The diagnostic table
Where each hub sits in the path
- [Audio interfaces](/audio-interfaces) — step 3. Gain, and what it costs you when it is short.
- [Acoustic treatment](/acoustic-treatment) — step 4, and the biggest one. Also step 2's free version.
- [Studio setup](/studio-setup) — step 5. Mounts, cables, filters.
- [Microphones](/microphones) — step 6, deliberately last.
- [Monitors and headphones](/monitors-headphones) — a parallel track, because you cannot fix what you cannot hear. In an untreated room, headphones first.
What to buy at each of the three real decision points
The three purchases this path leads to
The cheapest way to close a gain gap, the DIY material with the best published low-frequency absorption, and the interface that makes the gain question disappear if you have not bought one yet.
Triton Audio FetHead
Top pickTriton Audio · The most gain in the smallest package
The pick for most people boosting an SM7B or PodMic: more gain than the alternative, in nothing. Choose the Cloudlifter instead if the mic is on a long unsupported arm or if you own a ribbon.
Why it is here
- 27 dB is 2 dB more than a Cloudlifter, from something the size of a cable barrel
- 22 kohm input impedance lets a dynamic capsule behave the way its designer intended
- No desk space, no second cable
What it costs you
- Hangs off the back of the mic, adding weight and leverage to your boom arm
- Nothing to see — no LED, so a phantom-power mistake is silent
- Not for condensers, which need the phantom power it blocks
Owens Corning 703 (DIY panels)
Owens Corning · The most absorption per dollar, if you build
The right choice if you have a weekend and want the most low-frequency absorption your money can buy. If you want it to arrive finished, buy the ATS or GIK panels and accept paying for the labour.
Why it is here
- 0.53 at 125 Hz is more than double what foam manages, and 125 Hz is where small rooms go wrong
- A fraction of the cost per square foot of any finished panel
- Cut and frame it to whatever depth your corners need
What it costs you
- You are building the frames and stapling the fabric
- Rigid fiberglass needs gloves, a mask and a plan for the offcuts
- Bare board must be covered before it goes on a wall you touch
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 (4th Gen)
Focusrite · The most gain per dollar in a two-input box
The default answer for someone buying an SM7B or PodMic: it supplies enough clean gain that you never need a booster, which makes it the cheaper total purchase even when it is not the cheaper box. Look elsewhere only if you need MIDI or four outputs.
Why it is here
- 69 dB is the most gain of any interface at this price, and enough for an SM7B with headroom to spare
- 120 dB dynamic range means the converters are not the weak link
- Two inputs, so a second person does not mean a second purchase
What it costs you
- Air mode is a fixed voicing, not an EQ you can dial
- Plastic-and-metal build feels less solid than the SSL or Audient competition
- No MIDI, which matters if you also play keys
When to stop
When the thing limiting your recordings is your performance rather than your equipment. That point arrives earlier than the gear industry suggests, and recognizing it is worth more than any purchase on this site. A treated room, a matched chain and good technique produces recordings that are limited by what you say into the microphone — which is where you want to be.
If you are starting from nothing rather than diagnosing, what you need to record vocals at home is the checklist and home studio on a budget is the same thing ordered by cost.