Going from hobbyist to serious?

It doesn’t need to be a huge step to start out “serious” if you do it gradually. I guess it’s more important what you wan’t to achieve and where to start honing your skills. Also understanding your needs can help set the basis regarding daw and interface that might serve you years to come as a foundation to build on. Not taking classical instruments in account, building a studio and studio gear in general is the most expensive path. For the money you can fill your garage with an awesome guitar collection and what not you will still not have a lot to show on your mixing desk. The first you probably need to figure out if you are going to start out itb, hybrid or analog. That will determine plenty. What you will need whatever u do is a decent mic locker and a decent set of pre’s. When you find out what you want to sound like you can pretty confidently lay down some serious bucks on those and still keep the doors open for future development.

Some 8 or 16 channel pre with maybe 4-8 pre’s for toms and stuff and 4-8 line ins for external pre’s, adat in, will be a good starting point. Leaves plenty of room to grow and add one unit at the time and still have enough pre’s to do some serious recordings meanwhile. Logic will serve you well to begin with and maybe all the way, who knows, depends a lot on what u use it for. 

AVB is still somewhat of a viable option. You can go MOTU and add more gear as you go. I think that today I believe that any significant interface is plenty good enough. No need to jump to big names unless you plan to buy into their ecosystems. What you do want from an interface is USEFUL features like plenty of I/O of various types that can be adapted to work in your space.  You also want more I/O than you think you'll need because there will always be a time when you "just need another input" to keep the session moving.

I think the biggest thing is that a pro studio will have a tracking room that is treated acoustically. I don't mean a few panels on the wall, but a concerted effort to make it sound *good* or at least neutral. A pro studio will also focus on making the sessions move quickly. Patchbays, plenty of cables and an organization system of some sort so that you don't have to spend a ton of time swapping everything around to do things. Nothing says amateur like an artist watching you burn their time and money away while you try to rearrange your cables/mics or figure out a problem somewhere.

Everyone has an interface and access to mics and gear these days. It's cool to have it, but it's also kind of expected to have as well. What will set you apart is having a space that is better than others acoustically that also feels productive.

These are great replies but some of the info seems like a step or two more advanced than my current knowledge.

I agree wholeheartedly with all the comments about mics, room, and time in the chair. All good reminders and totally accurate.

To answer one of the questions, my ultimate goal is to get to a point where I’m recording bands. Professionally.
But that’s a ways off, I know. Right now I’m practicing and learning and researching. I’m not looking at this being a quick process. Still learning. Still collecting gear as I can find it (ideally used).

One thing I don’t quite get yet, is the analog to computer options for more serious studios. I’m used to all-in-one things for just light recording. Like my Zoom or focusrites and whatnot. Someone mentioned ADAT. Is that like the PreSonus Studio 1824c? I’m sorry for the noob-y questions.

And, is it possible to start with something that’s like, say, 8 channels, and then add modules as i go to expand? Is that where ADAT comes in?

I guess I need an ILI5 (or, more like ELI15).

Thanks again!

As an example of simplicity, my setup still runs from an apollo twin. 8 nice pres and a couple of comps running into it thru adat. I am not doing this professionally, but I have a small studio space that used to be a pro studio. At the moment what I produce I don't need to track full bands. But the space works for nice drum recordings and the rest overdubs. I could pull off live drums, bass and one guitar if needed with my setup. But with this rather minimalistic setup I do record full albums and mix itb. What I keep investing in is mics, instruments and at some point a larger i terface and more pres if I move into a bigger space that allows for full band trackings.

First, I don’t want to dissuade you. But. Just to get up and running, it will be very expensive. Beyond the space itself, acoustical treatment, electrical, hvac,security, insurance. And we haven’t even started on recording equipment. Cables will cost more than you expect. Headphones, and headphone amps. Mic stands. Goboes. Microphones. Instruments? And amps? Outboard gear like eqs, compressors etc. Monitors. Mic pres. Interface(s). You will need to budget for all of this. Then think of how to attract, build and retain a client base. How much can you charge in your area? Can you afford to eat if it takes a few months to begin to get busy?

I wish you luck.

Cheers,
Geoff

Ha!

Only 3.5K? 😁

If you specialize mostly in Singer/Songwriters...

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot is a good Studio name.
Chris

Do you have to be a Wiz at that?

Very very frightening 😁

If you're looking to do drums, I'd say to try to work up to 16 channels. Easiest way to do that would be any number of interfaces that have 8 preamps built into the unit with an additional lightpipe/ADAT input. You could start off with the 8 built in pres and purchase an 8-channel preamp with ADAT optical out down the road. Cheapest option would probably be something like the Behringer ADA8200, but that can scale up to many thousands of dollars on top of the line converters too. The "problem" with a set up like this is mostly that it's probably pretty baseline in terms of conversion, the preamps are pretty plain, and you're usually pretty limited with the input/output options. That said, a setup like a MOTU 8pre or Focusrite Clarett/Scarlett or Presonus whatever the frig and a Behringer ADA8200 is more than enough for you to sink your teeth in and make some awesome recordings. Bumping up to something like a Universal Audio Apollo would potentially offer more flexibility in the I/O, offer moduled preamp options for more "character" than just a plain interface pre would usually offer, and you can chain pretty much any of their interfaces together via Thunderbolt to expand.

I think it's very easy to get carried away with worrying about the fancy shit when a lot of the time, those lowly prosumer pres and interfaces are more than enough to make some fantastic music.