Home Sweet Studio: 11 Considerations When Building Your Ideal Home Recording Space

Back in 2021 my wife and I were looking for a home to purchase. We had been renting in one of the nation's most expensive areas–Los Angeles, CA. More accurately, a town in the San Fernando Valley called Burbank. Yep, that's the one! Home to famous television show sound studios, post-production houses, major record labels and mega-TV studios, all within a less than 5 mile radius...you can imagine the outrageous rental prices. 

🏡 Our first single-family rental was right around 3k, which to be honest wasn't bad. However, keep this very important note in mind, there was NO CENTRAL AC! 🥵 In "the valley", where summer temps can exceed 100ºF on a regular basis, this is NOT optimal to say the least. 

Picture it, 2021, amidst the post-pandemic / semi-pandemic cultural landscape, 🤒 the real estate market was insanely bloated! I'm sure I don't need to elaborate because if you're reading this blog, you get it, you were there, and yes, you even bought the t-shirt. 😒

Our second rental home was literally a stone's throw from Disney Studios, Warner Bros, NBC, Nickelodeon, yada, yada, yada.... 🤩 This basically means, rents were high. Astronomically high. Like 4k was a deal and the average was $4,500 and even upwards of 7k. OMG, dare I type these numbers, 5 figure rentals were abounding! 💸

What does this mean for a self-employed professional musician family such as my wife and I? We gotta have a home studio and fast! I've been blessed to have a wonderfully rich resumé with names that fill out the A-Z celebrity musician roster. But that doesnt mean I have their bank accounts. What I've learned over my 3 plus decades in the biz is that you MUST, and I mean MUST, have a killer home studio space that is not only comfortable to work in for umpteen hours on end, but that sounds just as good as any commercial studio when it comes to sonic quality! 🖥🎚🎛

Enter, Redfin. If I could show you the browsing history of my wife and I's laptops, tablets, and phones, it would literally clog up all of cyber-space. I mean, no really...we were cuckoo for Redfin! With the amount of filters, hyperlinks, geographical parameters that were adjustable and so much more, we were able to pinpoint the home and neighborhood of our dreams. Ok so what's the catch? We had to move 30 miles north of "the valley", into another "valley", but it was all good as this was now the HOME in which we owned! 😃

Now, one of the key factors to be considered with this move was the fact that the Burbank home we were renting had a guest house. Yes, a guest house. I know right? Craaaaaazy.... But that's the thing about LA, aside from the ridiculously inflated rental and purchase prices, the amenities can sometimes outweigh the bad. Not to mention the incredible weather, mostly year-round. ☀️

In this guesthouse, I had the most tricked out home studio space one could imagine, plus a separate bathroom and entrance, which was AMAZING for clients. Too good to be true? Perhaps, as I should mention, the landlord aired more on the side of "slum-lord" and we had a horrible rat infestation to which he denied and often times refused to fix. 🐀 Okay, I digress...let's get back to the point. 

How was I supposed to move my 400+ sq ft guest house studio into a 10x10 bedroom in the downstairs of our new home purchase? Easy. Well, if you know a few little tricks and tips. That's where this blog comes in... 🤓 https://www.redfin.com/blog/at-home-recording-studio-tips/

I'd like to give a shout out to Ryan Castillo from Redfin for reaching out to me with The Career Musician to speak on this very subject. My mission is simple, "to empower musicians all over the globe with strategies for a successful career". 🙌 And honestly, perhaps the most important variable in achieving this goal is to have an awesome home studio that you just can't get enough of!  ❤️🤍💙

In solidarity with musicians wishing to pursue their dreams, I say "thank you" to Ryan and the team over at Redfin for making the house hunt a little bit easier and curating amazing resources for homeowners all over the globe. 

#careermusicianforlife 

- Nomad 🤘🎶🙏

https://www.redfin.com/blog/at-home-recording-studio-tips/

🤝 Other cool resources from this informative blog piece include: 

https://www.myhouseradio.fm/?doing_wp_cron=1705464235.0137259960174560546875

https://www.loveplusone.com/

https://www.timberacoustics.in/

https://dj.studio/?utm_source=redfin&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=studio

https://evergreenrecords.com/

https://www.lincolnschoolofmusic.com/

https://www.smartboystudios.com/

https://www.soundproofyourstudio.com/

https://www.vampr.me/

https://audiosorcerer.com/

https://www.stonecutterstudios.com/

https://www.soundproofatlanta.com/

https://www.prismdjs.com/

https://www.tracklib.com/

https://www.awesome-guitars.com/