Building a Home Recording Studio on a Budget with Anthony Pica

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Hi there, and welcome to Vox Talk, your weekly review from the world of voiceover. I'm your host, Stephanie Ciccarelli from Voices. How much money do you actually need to invest in your home recording studio for your audio to sound great? Joining me today is Anthony Pica from A VO's Journey. We're going to learn just how little you can spend without sounding like your studio was put together on the cheap. Welcome back to the show, Anthony.

Anthony Pica:
It's so good to be here. I love it. It's always a blast, so thank you for having me back.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Of course. I know this is an area that you have a tremendous amount of knowledge in, and I was, you know, saying, 'Hey, Anthony, you want to come back on the show? Why don't we talk about building a studio on the cheap,' and you're like, 'yeah, I'm totally in.' So to give everyone just perspective here, Anthony, like obviously home recording studios, the cost has gone down because of, you know, any number of reasons, which I'm sure you can go into dramatically, quite dramatically over time, and you don't have to mortgage your house. You don't have to get a second job. You don't have to do any of that kind of thing when you want to build a home studio now.

Anthony Pica:
Absolutely.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. Like, can you give us an idea of what it used to cost and what it costs now?

Anthony Pica:
Well, sure. Yeah. I mean, so, yeah, I mean, and then I talked to you about kind of like the progression of what I've done because I think that will help a lot of listeners learn about maybe a path to take because I always think it's always challenging with the path to take. But I think to answer your question, this home studio has been, I think, the heart of the change of everything that's happened over the last 30 years in voiceover with the availability of technology at a price point that you can afford. I mean, you know, and costs and things were so different because things were so high, you know, only studios, only, you know, large investments could, you know, pay for these types of things that, you know, you couldn't even afford to do something at home without astronomical costs.

Even from a computer standpoint, you know, we're talking, you know, tens of thousands of dollars just to be able to put something that in your home that actually could connect and that doesn't include the connections that was needed at a time where we didn't have the digital revolution that we're living in where it's so easy to share a file. I mean, before you had to have recording equipment that produced physical tapes or things that had to be sent to certain places.

So that in itself, you're talking about, you know, these days, you can have a small interface and a microphone, back then you had to have multiple, multiple pieces of equipment just to be able to record one thing and then heaven forbid, and I mean, I guess we'll go back, you know, you can go back even further, to be able to edit something. So I mean, yes, the change in the home studio has sparked all of the change that has come now through, I think, voice over, in my opinion, in art because it's accessible to everyone now.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
It is. It absolutely is. So as you're saying, tens of thousands of dollars, fewer to have a small...

Anthony Pica:
And that's conservative. I mean, that's really conservative.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Oh my goodness. And so nowadays, obviously, it's quite different. I mean, we've all seen price points come down. You know, maybe you could get going for a thousand bucks, 500 bucks. I don't know. If you've got a computer, you've got more than a half of what you need at this point, right?

Anthony Pica:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think so, so the idea with all this, I want to give you just a background about like how I set up my first studio, what happened, but what the progression and what the hope is. I always try to tell people, you know, where you start is not the end goal, right? So the idea here is for us to always be improving, for us to build a business that we reinvest what we can, when we can, in order to buy better equipment, buy better or get a better studio or something portable, better micro, et cetera, et cetera, right? You got to start somewhere.

And where you start with the amount of money in your studio also dictates where you can possibly start trying to get work.

So when I first started, and I always made the joke, my mom had given me a $200 gift card to Lowe's, and then I went to Best Buy and bought a $40 microphone, it was one of those blue snowball microphones, it was black, and I went and bought PVC pipe and packing blankets from Lowe's, and I built this four by six by, I was about six and a half feet high, hobo fort is what I called it, my hobo fort.

It basically, I was able to put it up and take it down every night, but, oh, and I had purchased plastic clamps that held the blankets up because it needed to be able to be put up and brought down.

But here's the thing, I didn't know anything about recording or understanding of what a good space or equipment sound like at the time, I was just doing the best I could, piecing things together off of a booth.

So for basically $240, I was able to start, now, again, we're talking the bare minimum of the beginning, a $40 USB microphone, and it was funny, as my wife said, if I didn't make any money, I had to take back the microphone.

And this is a true story, and I didn't even know what a pop filter was, so what I used for a pop filter was a wire coat hanger, and my wife let me some old pantyhose, and that made a pop filter, it was a really, really good pop filter, actually, and you just wrap the wire around the mic stand.

We're not talking about like 25, 30 years ago, this was about like 6 to 8 years ago, so there was clearly equipment out there, but I just didn't know, everything I had done was all live work, live audio on stage and things like that.

So anyways, that's how I started, I set up my booth with one layer of packing blankets and cut the PVC pipe myself, you buy the elbows, and they just attach together, and that's a great place to start.

The microphone, you want to upgrade from that, that was something that, you know, USB microphones have gotten so much better, but I do, you know, it's one of those things where, again, you start where you can start, but then you reinvest, but just be aware that where you start, also, don't be upset, or don't think that something's wrong with you if you've pushed the limits of what you have, right, you have to realize that there are times where better equipment will help you open doors into places where, you know, your current equipment won't, but that doesn't, you know, anyways, mean that something's wrong with you.

So anyways, so the point is, is that's how I got started with that amount, I quickly moved on to a Rode NT1, and I do recommend that microphone is a great, there's the Rode NT1 and the Rode NT1A, I think the Rode NT1A is pretty bright as opposed to the Rode NT1, which is what I recommend, I don't want to get ahead of myself, I think we've got a whole bunch of questions. Anyway, so that was how I started, and I think today for probably, yes, I think under $1,000, you could actually build an incredible, if you have a computer, but it is the hub of everything that we do.

I find a lot of people's challenges come from their computer, meaning that a simple one, you know, not to start a tech war, right, but whether you do PC or Apple, you know, it's another one because Apple computers really do mix a lot well, at least for the most part, with a lot of programs like Adobe and things like that. But anyways, I had, and I happened to have an iMac at the time, so I had a computer already. And most people do, whether it's a laptop or not. So as long as you have that, you know what I mean? You can get a great setup for under $1,000.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
I think that's music to many people's ears.

Anthony Pica:
Yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
I like hearing how you got going, that you're not married to your first studio. You can grow, you can get something better, don't feel poorly about getting one microphone over another because eventually you can save up for that dream microphone, whatever it might be. And it doesn't have to be the most expensive mic either. That doesn't mean just because it costs a lot that it's going to make you sound any better. Like, you know, there's certain mics will do you just fine. You don't need to have a U87.

Anthony Pica:
No, you don't. You don't. That's pretty true. And I do think that that is a misconception or a misunderstanding that a lot of people think is they do need to have all this super, super expensive gear. And there's also a lot of people, including me, who really do like, you know, they would kind of call, you know, gear junkies. We do like gear because it becomes almost part of a hobby of collecting things too, right? But the reality is, is that you don't need to spend all of that money. But I would like to point out that, you know, so just with the transition to my next studio, what I realized was one set of blankets was not enough. And it's amazing what the best acoustical treatment is that we have most of us have right in our home. I mean, clothing, blankets, these things are gold.

And if you are next to a thrift store, you can go get these things really inexpensively. All right. Now, I think if you're building a studio that you want to do video on and you need a background that's different, that's a different story because there is a visual aspect. But we're voice actors. No one's looking inside our studios. So the important part is to the sound. So the first thing is an investment if we're sticking to like $1,000 or under. The first thing that you want to invest the most in is your space. You want to invest the most in your space. A closet is a great place to be. The key is getting the right treatment and a good inexpensive way to start are blankets, pillows, clothing, things that you have around your house.

So that's what I did to the progression of my next studio was I just started adding and adding and adding and adding to before I bought my neck, my next studio, which was a Whisper Room, I had about eight layers of blankets, pillows, foam and just egg crate foam, anything I could find to stick up, old jackets. I had everything to the point where I could have the back opened and I could talk and you wouldn't even hear, I mean, like there wasn't any reverb because it gets hot in these.

That's another thing, right? It gets hot. We all know about the heat that these things can be. So that was, but that was, you want to be able to speak and to be completely dissipated. That's what you really want. And you can do that with things around your house. And then from there, just so we to keep go back to the thousand dollars, your microphone, your interface, your headphones or monitors, whatever way you choose to listen back to your work, it really makes it easier to purchase less expensive equipment upfront and still get a fantastic sound because just remember a super expensive mic is just going to take an awful space and make it sound just that much more awful,

Stephanie Ciccarelli
Right!

Anthony Pica:
You know, so that's a key thing, but then there's also specific microphones. That's how I think you can stay to a thousand.

I like the Rode NT1, the Scarlett, you know, whether it's a solo or the two I2, these are great entry level pieces of equipment that only cost a couple hundred dollars. If you already have a computer and if you, then the rest of the money I would literally spend on getting your space treated to the nine, whatever you can, whatever you think you have, quadruple it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
So would you say, Anthony, that these pieces that you've just mentioned, like that's a thousand bucks, like under a thousand bucks, but new, like these aren't used, these aren't gently used.

Anthony Pica:
Oh, yeah, that's new.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Oh, I'm selling my studio and I need to offload these microphones. Like people can save more money than that, right?

Oh, yeah.

Well, that's, and that's good, yeah, good, good thinking. So we have such, you know, all of us in the voice over community, right? If you're in Facebook groups and you're in places, I mean, there's also a bunch of groups that, you know, have used, whether it's lightly used or used equipment too, that's even less expensive that you can find all sorts of things for way cheaper than just, you know, what it is. But these things are very inexpensive, I mean, the things I list that are very inexpensive to begin with, but you might be able to get a better mic and better equipment for the same price that's used, right, then just buying a new, so you're absolutely right, you're absolutely right.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah.

Anthony Pica:
I think studio-wise, when you get up to Whisper Rooms and things like that, you can, I've worked with people who have found, you know, them, someone's, you know, especially musicians or larger businesses that are trying to get rid of them because they bought it for something they were using, you know, always, goodness, check Craigslist, check Facebook Marketplace, check all these places constantly. If you're looking, because you could get half off, sometimes you can get these on pennies on the dollar. I mean, it really is worth constantly looking for, because if you can get them for that, those things don't ever go bad.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. Yeah. And unless they break, like they might break, right? Like one of the thoughts I had was like event, like you'll buy some tech and eventually it will go bad, you know, as in it will break, you know, or something might happen in the signal chain and it gets all messed up. So how would people know if they actually need to replace something? Like is there, as you say, there's really no expiration date on this technology.

Anthony Pica:
So unless something else new comes out and then you've got to replace it. So I always look at audio as you actually kind of work backwards. In audio, when there's an issue, we're always trying to eliminate one thing after another to find the issue. And I do want to point out, thank you for talking about that too, there is a lot of times even if you buy something new, like if something's not working and you've tried everything, it literally could be that there was something that the manufacturer messed up on or something got broken or, you know, dislodged in transit, something, these things do happen even with cords, you know, even with XLR cables and things like that. So yeah, so the first thing that you want to do whenever there's a problem and you're trying to figure out and to fix something is you want to start with the original input and go through your chain.

So input, right? That comes from who? That comes from us. All right? So then we go to our microphone. Now, this means that as you grow your bit, you're going to want backups in order to test some of these things out. Like for example, if you have one XLR cord and it's the XLR cord, no matter what you do, you can't tell by replacing the XLR code with a backup that it's your XLR cord. I do find that, like for example, I've had my 416, so I record my voice over is on a Sennheiser 416 and I do my editing videos, my podcasts and things on my RE20.

I've not had to replace these microphones. I've not had issues with them. I try to buy a little bit better cords, but there are times when something is not working and I've worked with so many voice actors where they've had to replace an interface, for example, because the interface was busted and they didn't break it. That was actually from the manufacturer and how they figured that out was by just a process of elimination, going back from the microphone to the cord to your interface, to your computer.

Many of you might use a DBX286 or something or different pieces of hardware that you plug into that are external preamps with settings that you can use that go into your... All of these things, you've got to check by eliminating one problem after the other, so having an extra set of cords is a good idea and just so you can do that.

Also, there might be times where you've got issues with feedback coming from your home. We have a lot of people who are like, I can't get rid of feedback. I don't know what's going on, like static. A lot of times there's a grounding issue from your plugs that are plugging into the wall. This is a common thing that you can't... It could be wiring that's in your house. This builds up over time and this happens all the time in live music. There are pieces of hardware you can buy to help you ground your outlets better, but these are things that you'll go nuts and you'll lose the rest of your hair like me. It doesn't have much, but you might lose your hair trying to figure out why does my sound like the... I can't figure out what's the noise.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Oh, man. Yeah. Some people, if they have those new doorbells, you know Anthony, those ones that are video doorbells or whatever, not normal doorbells, but the ones that alarm-related... Those, if you have or any kind of structures like that kind of thing to protect your home, some of those things buzz.

Anthony Pica:
Oh, yeah.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
The doorbell box or whatever the sound comes out of, it's not right at your door, it's somewhere else, and that might travel down through the wall and vibrate in there.

Anthony Pica:
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. It builds up. It builds up over the wires and without proper grounding, it just continues to build up and build up.
Yeah. That's where that static and that hiss comes from and all those things, and it can drive you mad trying to get rid of it.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. I guess I would have to also do with where on earth will you put your studio in your house, because if you know there's a noise in your house that you can't make go away, because it's like, if I turn this off, we have no heat, maybe bad idea. So you have to find a place in your house, just like if you're staying in a hotel and I don't want to stay across from the elevator. I just don't want to hear a ding, ding, ding all the time, the doors open, people come out. You got to think like that almost, like practical.

Anthony Pica:
Oh, yeah, you do. And that brings up a good point about the difference between acoustical treatment and sound treatment or sound reduction treatment, where we're trying to... One is us taking any space and trying to reduce room tone or bounce coming off the wall, reverberation, things like that. The other one is like you said, is noise, actual background noise. One does not fix the other. A Whisper Room is the perfect example of this. You buy a Whisper Room, it could be quiet, but you walk in there and it sounds like you're
in a cavern. So you have to treat it, just like you have to also treat a Whisper Room. It doesn't just come treated, right so.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah, yes, yes, that's right. Yeah,

Anthony Pica:
I mean, so but it will be quiet, yeah, so you're right, you definitely want to find a place that's the quietest place in your house or wherever you are. That's the first step, is the quieter, the better. You're absolutely right. And typically people like, we want to keep a general basis. We have a number of negative 60 dB as a general level that we look at to say, okay, that's quiet enough for all of our audio, but typically people don't just have negative 60 unless they've built something or have it where it's super quiet, you have to use plugins and things like that. But still, you want to find a place where it's quiet as possible and getting close to that negative 60 number.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yes, because it doesn't matter, Anthony, how much money you spend on your gear if your room tone, like if the whole thing, like it could all fall apart, just the space that you're in. I know we've been talking a lot about how to save money, we've been talking about specifically how to spend under $1,000 to get home studio, you've made a lot of great recommendations. Also like there's just the whole idea that you need your computer first, like the cost of computer is not included in that $1,000. So it really does make a lot of sense, like when you were saying, oh, you need to even treat a Whisper Room like, oh my gosh, I guess even though it's like a little house that you can be in, you still have to furnish your house. And I'm thinking, yeah, all those wonderful pictures I have seen of voice talent in their booths and it's so decorated and they've got the acoustical treatment. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense. But I think you have to always go by your own space because your own space will dictate what you need. It won't be the same for everyone.

Anthony Pica:
Oh, absolutely. And it's also different mics do different things. And a lot of times you can, depending on your space, you know, there is a mic for you.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah.

Anthony Pica:
So, you know, like, so most people, and I'm not sure what mic you're using right now, but you know, out here, I'm not in my booth, I'm in my editing station, so it's treated but not as treated. So I use a microphone, that's a dynamic microphone that is typically used for radio and broadcasting. It's hardy, it doesn't pick up as much background noise, and you know, it needs a lot of gain to, because it doesn't pick up that background noise, whereas a condenser microphone, right, is going to pick up a needle kind of dropping idea, right, so the point of that is, is for us to really be able to record something that picks up all the intricacies in our voice. But and also, a shotgun microphone can be very good if you have background, if you have a lot of noise and you're trying to isolate a certain area, right, however, it can be difficult then to not move.

If you're a move around, like if you followed what we did this January, this past January with the, you know, on Voices with the physical movement, right, movement with physicality to voice act with, well, that's hard if you got to keep your head completely still in one spot the whole time. So you know, there's also different polar patterns. So I will say that as I'm going through all of this, your education is so paramount to this whole process too. You learning what all this stuff I'm saying, I realize as I talk now, it might be overwhelming to some people who are listening who are just starting, because when I first started, like I said, I didn't know anything, I didn't know what a pop filter was for a long time, I didn't know any of these things. Now it's the life I live every single day, so it's become second nature. But that's why it's so important that you understand these things, the vocabulary, because that will allow you then to work through your own issues in your own space and where you set everything up and what you buy, et cetera. So.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right on.

Anthony Pica:
So that's, yeah, so that's my thoughts on that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Wonderful. And I know we didn't talk about software today, maybe that's a whole other show, but Audacity is free. Like if people are just trying to find something to get themselves going with, if you have a Mac, then GarageBand will already be on there. Obviously as you grow, you may want to use more multi-tracking, depending on if you're doing production, music, all that kind of thing or working in video, might be working with something else. But all of this said, yes, the microphone we're using actually right now for me is the AKG C214.

Anthony Pica:
Okay, cool. Nice.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah, that's the one we've got going on and it's our trusty mic, it's been, I don't know how many episodes of Vox Talk I've done with it, but it certainly is a good one and happy to be using it. So yeah, it's so cool. But I was just thinking, I think if someone were to buy something new, like let's say that they're like, I can only get one thing that's new, what would the most important piece be? Like, is it, I don't know, something personal like headphones or what would you think someone would want to have that's just their very own, they're the first to use?

Anthony Pica:
Okay. So, and assuming that they, well, because the first thing honestly, which will probably shock people that I would say is a computer. And the reason why is because, and it's the right size computer, most people struggle so much because they have a laptop with a screen size that's so small that it's a nightmare to try to edit, record, switch between screens. It's a mess. You want to get, I'm not saying you need three screens, but you want to get at least something closer to like a 27 inch screen, right? And you want, because you are going to be living on this thing, editing, recording, reading scripts, everything goes off of this screen. You want something in a computer that can also process this. This is another thing that's important too. Your processing speed, all right, is very important with your, coupled with your interface. And then the, you know, the next thing I would buy would be an interface, your computer and your interface. And those are probably the two most vital pieces of equipment, all right, besides your space because they control the speed in which your analog signal turns into a digital signal and the clarity and how much it's picked up within the Hertz range, like 44,000, 48,000. The speed, all right, moving into your, and that's at the point where each recording of your voice is picked up. That's where if you don't have fast computer, if you don't have a good interface, there is, you'll get artifacts, which is what we call noises and all these things. So yeah, so I would do that.

Now, that's the smart Anthony.

The not so smart Anthony would be, I want to buy a microphone that's really cool and, and, you know, nifty and looks fancy and all this stuff. I mean, so that's like the crazy Anthony.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Right? And everyone is so concerned with getting things done faster, being more productive or more efficient. And if you have an old computer or refurbished one or something, you know, like your, oh, my brother's finished with this one. He's going to give it to me now because whatever, it may be a nice gift, but it might not be the best way for you to run your business, right?

Anthony Pica:
Oh absolutely. There's a lot of people out there right now who, and I coach, I coach many of them, bless their hearts. They struggle with the processing power of their computer to move quickly, right? And they record and it could have some sort of artifacts because the lag time from which, you know, it's recorded from which, what you speak, it misses stuff. It's jarable. It's we, and then you got to go back and rerecord and you got to go back and do this. And then saving things. And then heaven forbid, you're doing an audio book or you're doing long form narration and you have to edit that. You could be there for, I mean, people are literally going through that right now. So it is so important to have processing speed for efficiency. We're all about, we talked so much about efficiency last month. We're all about efficiency because I'm always one of those things where, you know, kind of like Field of Dreams. You know, first you got to build it and they will come, but you got to be able to handle all the work before you can get it as part of, at least that's what I believe. And so this is definitely one part of that. Yeah, I agree.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Perfect. I think that is an excellent place to leave it. 'If you build it, they will come.' You got to have a great recording studio, people. You got to feel comfortable in it. It's got to work. It's got to be affordable. Don't go out and like buy something, you know, that costs three times as much as what Anthony is saying just because you think it's the cool thing to do because that is not cool for your bottom line and maybe not even great for your room if you haven't treated it yet.

Anthony Pica:
No, that's true. Yeah. And I do, I do, I'm sorry. I don't want to say one more thing too, because I think this is, this is not every microphone is meant for every person either. You might buy a microphone and you might get it. It might not actually sound well with your voice. That doesn't mean the microphone's bad or your bad. It might be that there's other microphones that will mix better with you. And the best way to do this is when you buy a microphone, whoever you buy it from, look at what is the return policy.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah.

Anthony Pica:
Seriously, right? Because if you get a microphone and they have a 30 day return policy and you try it out and you don't like it, return it. With all that being said, it'll be a good idea to have someone that you trust or someone that you believe has some knowledge to help you just in case you're just starting because you might not even know what you're listening to and it could be your editing or whatever. But that's something too that I've learned over time. Not every mic fits every person, but it's not the mic or them. It's just their voice and the microphone.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
And does it also matter, Anthony, the location of them, like they need to have it tested in their own studio versus being in shop? Because I know years ago, Voice Talent would talk about doing a mic shootout. They go to a store and they just like try a whole bunch of them all in a row. And then I guess they found the one they liked and they went home, but is it better to actually do that activity in the home, is that why you said the 30-day return policy?

Anthony Pica:
Oh, of course. Of course.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
That's your friend?

Anthony Pica:
Well, so if I go into my space, so at this point, my last latest studio is I built because I bought a home and renovated it whole thing. So since I had my house down to the studs, I was able to build a whole studio, right? So I've built a place where it's just really great. And if I go in there and take a microphone and record with it, it might be, it could sound completely different than someone whose space isn't built like that. It probably will, no doubt. And it's so important exactly that you, same thing we were talking about earlier about whether you need a shotgun microphone or a large condenser, you know, large diaphragm condenser microphone or, you know, a dynamic microphone or all these things have to do with your space and your voice style.

Like, for example, if you have a high pitch voice, you might want, you know, a microphone that's not super, super bright. I particularly like the 416 because of how it makes my voice sound, the warmth in it. Not that the TLM 103 doesn't do that as well, but it's always specifically about you, your space and how it makes your voice sound, you know? So yeah. So that's why return policies are great. Sweetwater is great. I love the people at Sweetwater. Amazon does have some return policies, but you've got to watch and really be careful about that.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
Yeah. Well, the Sweetwater people, I love them too. They will support you every step of the way with their gear. So that's just another thought for anyone who's other. But I think that that's amazing. We're going to have to have you come back, Anthony. We've obviously just scratched the surface of something here, right?

Anthony Pica:
I don't shut up. That's the problem. See, you kept me talking. I don't stop.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:
That's all, right! You know, I think we've all learned so much today, and I know that at avosjourney.com, your website, there's ways for people to learn more about what you do and all of that. So it's a very exciting thing. And thank you for providing such great resources. Your coffee time on LinkedIn every day, and I know that it's probably across other channels too, but I catch it on LinkedIn. It's so much fun because you talk to the people who happen to be, oh, hi, so and so, and you go on about something important for a good 15, 20 minutes, and sometimes it's just more about the visit. So, but anyway, everybody knows I love LinkedIn, and I also love what you do on there too, Anthony. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Anthony Pica:
Thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie Ciccarelli:

And that's the way we saw the world through the lens of voice over this week. Thank you for listening and for sharing your precious time with us. Thank you also to Anthony Pica for his insights and ideas for how to build a home recording studio cheaply without your studio sounding like it was cheaply made. So to learn more about what Anthony does and all the great coaching that he offers, you can go to avosjourney.com.

And thank you, Mama Pica, for giving that certificate to Lowe's to get him going. That's awesome. And from Voices, I'm Stephanie Ciccarelli. Our producer is Geoff Bremner. You've been listening to Vox Talk. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.