Mobile Recording Studio Essentials for Beginners

In another post on home studio essentials, I talked about 8-9 key items you’d need for a home studio…

But what do you do when you have an almost $0 budget for your own home music production studio?

Is it possible to just have the bare minimum gear and still make quality demo songs?

The answer is a resounding YES…

There are some insane technologies that exist today, and you only need three items to have a full mobile studio…

1. A Smartphone

I’ll make a bold assumption: you have a phone…

You are probably reading this article from your phone right now.

What if I told you, “That’s it. That’s all you need.” Well, it’s true – you only need a phone (and storage, of course, lol).

The next item is extremely important…

2. Wired headphones

You will also need wired headphones with a microphone built-in.

They MUST be wired… this is to avoid that dreaded latency of wireless headphones.

Since these are no longer in the box when you buy a new phone, you will most likely have to purchase a pair:

• EarPods (choose the correct connection) – Apple.com

3. A mobile digital audio workstation (mDAW)

What is it?
A mobile DAW (I’ll call it “mDAW”) gives you the flexibility to create, record, and even mix tracks ENTIRELY ON YOUR PHONE – people have achieved excellent results using just these tools!

There are several mDAWs on the market now, but my absolute TOP recommendation is:

• BandLab – Apple’s App Store (iPhone/iPad) | Google Play Store (Phone/Chromebook/Tablet)

It’s completely free and available on both iOS and Android. It offers a full-featured multi‑track editor, virtual instruments, effects, and loop libraries – and the list goes on…

That’s it!

If you found this article helpful, please support me with a follow in instagram:

• 338 Studios: @338studios
• Quentin Watts: @qwattsmusic