Making music with no money: what to spend on and what to skip
· 3 min read
The order matters more than the total. Most people starting out spend on the wrong things in the wrong order.
The advice given to people starting out is usually a shopping list. It's the wrong shape, because the constraint isn't what you own — it's the order you acquire things in and what you skip entirely.
Here's a more useful order.
Spend nothing until you have songs worth recording
The most expensive mistake is buying equipment to make music you haven't written yet. Gear does not cause songs.
Write, badly, for as long as it takes. Record on a phone. The recordings will be terrible and that's fine — you're finding out which ideas survive, and a phone recording tells you that as well as a studio does.
Then: the cheapest thing that lets you hear honestly
Not the most expensive. The most honest.
A modest pair of monitors in a room you understand, or — genuinely — a decent pair of headphones you've used enough to know how they lie. Most people's first big purchase is an interface, when the thing limiting their recordings is that they can't hear what's wrong.
Then: rent rather than buy
The single highest-leverage habit for anyone without money.
The synth you need for one song, the amp for one session, the room for one day — all cheaper to hire than to own, and none of them take up space afterwards. The full argument is here, but the short version: buying against every possible future requirement is how people end up with a cupboard of things and no record.
Then: one day in a real room
If a song matters and it has drums on it, this is the best money you will spend. Small rooms cannot do drums, and nothing you buy changes that.
One day, tracking drums for several songs, then everything else at home. That's the standard low-budget path and it works.
Then: someone with better ears than you
When the budget stretches, pay for judgement rather than equipment. An engineer or producer who'll tell you which take is the one improves a record more than any purchase, because the constraint at that point is decisions rather than tools.
What to skip
Plugins beyond the basics. Diminishing to the point of irrelevance.
A second interface. The first one was fine.
Microphones before treatment. A better mic in an untreated room records the room more accurately.
Anything justified as "I'll have it forever." You'll have most of it in a cupboard.
Mastering a demo. Master things you're releasing.
Ways to make it cost less
Rehearse before you record. Studio time spent working out arrangements is the most expensive way to make decisions. An hour of preparation saves several session hours.
Book weekday daytime. Widely discounted, identical room.
Split a room with other people. Three-way sharing makes a good space affordable.
Record fewer songs properly. Three finished beats eight abandoned, and costs less.
Earn from what you already have. A room, gear, or an hour of teaching. It's the same equipment either paying for itself or not.
The uncomfortable bit
Most people starting out could make a substantially better record than they do, without spending more, by preparing more and buying less.
The thing standing between a demo and a record is usually not equipment. It's arrangement decisions, playing the parts enough times, and someone with the judgement to say which take is the one. None of those are purchases.
Find a room for the day that actually needs one.