Your Ideal Recording Space

Before you start recording, you should scope out a good place to set up your recording equipment. Your ideal space should:

• be pretty quiet,
• have lots of soft surfaces like carpets, curtains, or blankets,
• have few hard surfaces like windows, hardwood floors, or tile, and
• have enough space for you to be comfortable.

DIY and at-home podcasters tend to use a couple of methods to create this ideal recording space: recording in a closet or under a blanket. Let's look at some pros and cons of each of these solutions.

Recording in a closet

• Pros
  • Free.
  • Private. A closet door is a great way to keep roommates, children, pets, or other podcast interrupters out of your recording.
  • Hanging clothes are a great form of soft surroundings
• Cons
  • Small. Most closets tend to be pretty small, and feel smaller when the door is closed.
  • Dark. Most closets don't have lights in them, and who wants to sit in the dark while they're recording?
  • Not much space. Closets typically don't have a lot of space for you to set up a comfortable recording space, like for a chair or a table for your equipment.

"Podcasting on the road in Omaha - good acoustics in Deb's closet, I hope. The new TKC is on its way soon." by LenEdgerly is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Recording under a blanket

• Pros
  • Free.
  • Portable -- you can put a blanket over yourself anywhere.
  • No hard surfaces.
• Cons
  • Hot. Recording under a blanket can get really hot.
  • Like a closet, recording under a blanket can be dark. It's already going to warm under the blanket, and adding a light to the mix will just make it hotter.

"#podcasting studio: moving blanket, Samson usb mic." by GregoryH is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Once you know what you need in a recording space, you can start putting your at-home recording space together. Go to the "DIY a Recording Space" section to get some ideas.

Setting up your DIY recording space

This page will help you set up several different DIY recording space scenarios.

Make Your Own Recording Cube

A recording cube is a portable tool you can use to capture high-quality spoken audio. You can buy a recording cube, but they are often both expensive and not very durable. This video shows you how to you can make your own recording cube.

Don't want to make your own recording cube?

You can check one out from the Studio along with a microphone or audio recorder!

What is a DAW?

A DAW or Digital Audio Workstation, is a computer software that you can use to record and edit audio, including podcasts. There are an array of them but this guide will focus on the ones available in the UTC Library Studio, if you would like help with these softwares please reach out to libstudio@utc.edu.

Audacity

This software is free for everyone and with streamlined capability offers easy entry to recording. Because it is free, it is very popular with podcasters.

Adobe Audition

Adobe Audition is a great intermediate audio editor, and offers more options and effects than Audacity. Audition is commonly used by professional podcasters.

Garage Band

GarageBand is a program that comes free with all iOS devices. It offers great help tools and may have come with your computer or phone but is designed for making music, not podcasts.

Studio Pathfinders