Recording & Production
How to Set Up a Home Studio: The Essential Gear to Start With
You need about seven things to start a home studio. Here's what to buy first, what can wait, and how to get your room ready to record.
From repertoire to setlist, rehearsal flow to showtime — practical notes for bands and news from BandUp.
You need about seven things to start a home studio. Here's what to buy first, what can wait, and how to get your room ready to record.
You can measure your vocal range with a keyboard in a few minutes. The real work is picking the song key from it and getting the whole band into that key.
In a studio you rent by the hour, the first half hour often goes on setup and "so what are we playing?" Here is a simple system for before, during and after rehearsal, including who does what.
A good soundcheck starts the day before the show. Input list, the right order, monitor mixes and working with the engineer, for the whole band.
Chord symbols, guitar and keyboard diagrams, slash chords and chords over lyrics. What everyone in the band needs to know to read the same chart the same way.
From finding members to your first rehearsal, from setting expectations to your first show — how to start a band from scratch, and where most bands actually fall apart.
Transposing means moving every note of a song up or down by the same amount. The semitone logic, how it works on guitar, keys, bass, horns and vocals, and what goes wrong when a whole band changes key.
A setlist is the script of a show. From reading the room to building an energy curve, timing the set and keeping a plan B on stage — a 7-step guide to building a solid setlist.