When you say 'home studio', do you simply mean a setup for recording and producing audio, or do you mean the kind of thing Dave Grohl has in his house? 'Home studio' often refers to a very basic set up (pair of stereo monitors, computer w/DAW software, recording interface, and perhaps some microphones). You couldn't do freelance audio work without a basic set up such as that, and I imagine it would be rare for someone to get a nine to five DAW gig without previously owning a DAW, so yeah, they would have a 'home studio' too, in all probability.

Well technically I think this is up for us to decide individually. The name of the assignment is "project studio" so to me that means it's not like a full blown studio built in your basement. The class I took previous to this one required a book that had all the info on how to build a studio like this, so if I had wanted to do that for this project I at least could have referenced something to know what I needed. But yeah. I mean some of the people in this class already have a home studio, so I imagine that their paper would be more about turning it into a professional studio. Who knows? But for me I would be starting out with nothing.

It's actually a pretty small paper (hard for me since I like to ramble), I think he said he wants it under 1000 words, and less if possible, but he has a giant list of questions we have to answer. We just have to do it as concisely as possible. Plus there is the shopping list part of it. I'm already finished (I better be, it's due in an hour and half).

If you had the nine to five job, costs of living would still seriously limit the amount of money you have left over for a home studio, at the end of the day. Based on a typical salary, you could estimate your MINIMUM income after a year, while adding a potential range of profits based on freelance, as well. I'm not sure how 'true to life' you need to be, mind you.

This definitely occurred to me recently and I scrapped the idea of a second paper to see about that. In my first paper I depended on my part time job to pay my cost of living at the very least, so that all of the estimated income from the studio could be spent on building it. So figuring out the all my cost of living expenses sounded like an annoying waste of time when I had already written it. Although it's something I would love to figure out if I had more time.

Scotland sounds like my kind of place :)

Okay, so what is on your shopping list? If the whole paper is due an hour and a half since your last post, then good luck! 1000 words is much less than I expected, and should be a proverbial breeze for you. If you aren't finished, freelance musical instrument tuition might give you a more predictable income, because you'll be dealing with clients weekly.

Scotland sounds like my kind of place

Scotland is okay, if you like rain, the charm of violent areas, plain loafs etc.:p Also, for some reason our films (like trainspotting) are subtitled in other countries, even though we speak English. It's not all bad, but I can't stay here because there's very little in the way of game audio opportunities. I'd probably be looking to relocate to the US someday, and my girlfriend is already aware that I'm dragging her along with me. I know this is slightly irrelevant, but out of everywhere in the US, she always says she'd like to move to San Francisco. You two should do a foreign exchange! Personally, I'd be too concerned that I'd end up trying to skateboard down one of those giant hills you have, and break my face on a earthquake.

So what I put on my list ended up not taking up the whole budget (which ended up being around $30,000 -- a pretty ridiculous amount of money for someone like me to picture spending) but it actually got pretty close. Here's what it included: a Mac pro (I grew up in a Mac family, don't hate me PC people), monitors and sub, Reaper, Logic, Motu ultralite mk3, Tascam dr100, Rode nt1a, Rode ntg2, Rycote windshield, some headphones, and a budget for any extras like stands and cables. Well I had hella money left over so I put a bunch of extra crap in there like Sound Ideas 6000 combo, East West Complete Composers Collection (like I would need all that right now...!), and Waves sound design suite. Then I included web hosting, and a traveling budget to take up the most of what was left.

Honestly it's so unrealistic but I just did what the project told me to. I think it might have been more geared towards musicians, since they would want so much more hardware than me. If I had maybe focused on one thing like recording sound effects I might have been able to focus more and just list a bunch of mics and a better recorder and power supply. But I had a more general idea so I put a bit of everything on the list.

1000 words is much less than I expected, and should be a proverbial breeze for you. If you aren't finished, freelance musical instrument tuition might give you a more predictable income, because you'll be dealing with clients weekly.

Yeah I finished it pretty quickly after getting over my initial hump. Heh. So true about the teaching thing, but unfortunately I'm not a musician at all. I will try harder!

Edit: I just wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who helped me out on here, and all those people I emailed who probably will never see this (don't worry I thanked them in the emails). You guys are all awesome and I can't thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to help!

Congrats on finishing the paper! :)

So true about the teaching thing, but unfortunately I'm not a musician at all.

I thought it was all hypothetical? If it were my paper, I'd have been a banjo virtuoso.

Well done anyhoo!

Congrats on finishing the paper! :)

Thanks! I'm just wrapping up the last project for this class, making a song (writing a song?), and then the final next Thursday. So glad to have time to start getting some actual projects outside of class done!

Also Ollie, I do have a banjo but I'm not good at it! But you're right, I think it could have been that hypothetical, although he definitely wanted it based in reality. Since the path I described in my paper was leaning more towards sound effects, I didn't really think overmuch about the things I could do if I focused more on music. I have sooo much more learning to do in that area :)

Also Ollie, I do have a banjo

Really? I was just having a laugh... :P

Did you include $3-6k for 1 year for networking events, travel and accommodation. GDC, E3, UK GDC.. etc U C?