Recording - The Home Recording Studio

19Nov 2025 by Jon

Black Friday 2025: The Hottest Deals on Plugins, Sample Packs & Libraries for Home Studios

Blog, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sampling, Sound Effects, Virtual Instruments

Black Friday has quietly turned into Black November for music producers. Deals are already rolling out across plugins, sample packs, and virtual instruments – perfect if you’re building (or upgrading) a home studio on a budget. Below is a curated roundup of this year’s 15 essential Black Friday destinations, including my own store Tangerine Sounds and a short “Ones to Watch” section for sales that haven’t fully launched yet. 1. Tangerine Sounds – Lo-Fi Drums, Guitars & Keys 🎛️🧡 https://www.tangerinesounds.com Boutique lo-fi hip-hop sample packs and virtual instruments created specifically for mellow beats, boom-bap and chillhop. Black Friday highlights: Cat Toy Drums sample pack + virtual instrument both discounted Lo-Fi Essentials Sample Pack reduced from £9.99 → £3 Lo-Fi Lab: free prototype instruments available alongside sale items Best for: Lo-fi…

22Sep 2025 by Jon

How to Create Your Own Virtual Instrument with Decent Sampler (Step-by-Step Guide)

Blog, Foley, Home Recording Blogs, Recording, Sampling, Sound Design, Techniques, Virtual Instruments

Are you interested in making your own virtual instruments for music production? In this post, I’ll walk you through exactly how I created my latest instrument — Cat Toy Drums for Decent Sampler. I’ll share the full process from concept and recording, to sound design, scripting, GUI design, and beta testing. By the end, you’ll have a clear roadmap to start building your own instrument with Decent Sampler. And if you watch the video I’ll also share a special promo code to save 30% on my Cat Toy Drums virtual instrument. https://youtu.be/3gjkWspZfIE Step 1: Start with an Idea Every instrument begins with a concept. Mine came from a quirky inspiration: creating drum samples out of cat toys. I was originally inspired by Lofi Sounds, who built a sample pack from…

03Jul 2025 by Jon

Cat Toy Drums: Lo-Fi Drums With Purr-sonality

Blog, Composing, Foley, Home Recording Blogs, Recording, Sampling, Sound Design, Sound Effects, Virtual Instruments

If you're a Lo-fi Hip-Hop producer looking for something fresh, characterful, and a little unexpected — Cat Toy Drums might be your new secret weapon. This unique drum collection was created using recordings of actual cat toys, food bowls, litter bags, and other feline-related objects. These quirky foley sounds were carefully crafted into usable kicks, snares, claps, hi-hats, rimshots, shakers, and cymbals — perfect for mellow Lo-fi, Boom Bap, and downtempo beats. 🥁 What Is Cat Toy Drums? Cat Toy Drums comes in two formats: 1. Virtual Instrument for Decent Sampler (Free Plugin) The Decent Sampler version gives you a playable instrument with built-in effects and tweakable controls: Individual control over pitch, decay, pan, and reverb send Convolution-based reverb featuring spring and real-world spaces Lo-fi Speaker Mix knob using small…

25Apr 2025 by Jon

Analogue vs Digital Guitar Effects: Which One Wins?

Blog, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sampling, Sound Design, Sound Effects, Techniques

It’s an age-old debate that continues to divide musicians and producers: analogue vs digital guitar effects. Does analogue truly deliver a warmth and character that digital can’t replicate? Or have digital effects come so far that their convenience, flexibility, and quality make them the obvious choice? https://youtu.be/vKmwvrjAGqY While working on my latest sample pack, Vintage Vibe Guitar Loops, I wanted to put this question to the test. So, I processed the loops with some classic vintage gear: the Behringer 636 Spring Reverb and an Akai X360D Reel-to-Reel tape recorder—the latter used as a tape delay. How I Used Analogue FX in My Workflow To create the tape delay effect, I routed audio from my DAW through a hardware mixing desk into the Akai tape machine. By putting the tape recorder…

25Apr 2025 by Jon

The Secret Sauce Behind This Hip Hop Track

Blog, Composing, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sampling, Sound Effects, Stock Music

I recently released a video about a track that brought me some real success. As a composer for Motion Array, I can tell you—it’s a tough marketplace to crack! The bar is already high just to get accepted as a composer, but once you’re in, each track you submit goes through a strict review process. There is one genre, however, that never lets me down. In the video (linked below), I break down my Upbeat Funky Hip Hop track, which earned Motion Array's highest stamp of approval: "Staff Pick". https://youtu.be/Ef-ZdSMNUyU This style of Hip Hop thrives on chopped sampling, so you'll need some sweet-sounding samples to pull it off. That’s where Vintage Vibe comes in—a sample pack loaded with over 50 soul and jazz-inspired guitar loops. These loops are perfect for adding warmth, groove, and authenticity to your beats. You can…

25Apr 2025 by Jon

Recording Acoustic Guitar – Which Mic is Best?

Blog, Home Recording Blogs, Microphones, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Techniques

In this video I test out 4 microphones for recording acoustic guitar in your home studio. All mics are budget friendly, with the cheapest just $200 and the most expensive $650. Listen and decide which one you prefer from the Shure SM7B, GAP R1 MkII Active Ribbon Mic, AKG C451 B, and the Rode NT2 https://youtu.be/rOcj9Ds7ZnQ I've been recording a lot of Acoustic Guitar lately and its something I think lots of people struggle with in home studios. Our environment can sometimes be challenging and most of us don't want to spend a fortune on microphones. Therefore, I only wanted to test budget friendly mics. It's very tempting to just give in and buy a new microphone. However, I wanted to try out my existing mics first and see if…

25Apr 2025 by Jon

Lo-Fi Vibes – FREE Virtual Instrument

Blog, Composing, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sampling, Sound Design, Virtual Instruments

Introducing Lofi Vibes: a free virtual instrument designed to elevate your Lofi, Chill, Ambient, and Synthwave productions. Lo-Fi Vibes was created after I sampled a Yamaha PortaSound 3 vintage synthesiser. The PS3 is one of the first portable home keyboards from the 1980s. I then decided to blend these sounds with my Behringer Poly D analogue synth. The result is ‘Lo-Fi Vibes’, a synth with a nostalgic character that is still useful in modern production. https://youtu.be/Zxw0acuti5g The following voices were captured from the PS3: Organ, Flute, Brass, String, Clarinet, Piano, Harpsichord, Guitar, Vibraphone. For each voice (where appropriate) you get the following patches:- – Short note (staccato)– Long note (sustained / looped)– FX (with various Lo-Fi effects added)– Hybrid (blended with analogue synth) I also created a 'Bass' patch which…

05Dec 2024 by Jon

FREE Plugin: Vocal Menace

Blog, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sound Effects, Techniques

When it comes to music production, achieving the perfect vocal sound can often feel like chasing a moving target. We stack EQs, compressors, saturators, and other plugins, tweaking endlessly in pursuit of "that" sound. Enter Vocal Menace by Chris Liepe—a game-changing, all-in-one vocal processing plugin that simplifies the process without compromising on quality. And the best part? It’s completely FREE! So read on to find out more about this FREE Plugin: Vocal Menace. What is Vocal Menace? Created by Chris Liepe, a seasoned musician and vocal coach, Vocal Menace is designed to help producers and vocalists quickly dial in an expressive, high-impact vocal tone. Whether you’re working on lead vocals, harmonies, or even spoken-word content, this plugin provides an intuitive interface and powerful controls to take your vocal tracks to…

27Nov 2024 by Jon

Lofi Sample Pack Black Friday Deals

Blog, Composing, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sampling, Sound Design, Sound Effects

Black Friday is the perfect opportunity to expand your sample library with premium lofi sounds at unbeatable prices. We've scoured the best deals from top producers like Tangerine Sounds, Lofi Sounds, Tamuz Samples, Cymatics, and Loopmasters to help you find the ultimate Lofi Sample Pack Black Friday Deals. 1. Tangerine Sounds Deal Highlights: Up to 50% off selected lofi packs, including exclusive drum loops and one-shots perfect for warm, nostalgic beats. Notable Offer: Lofi Essentials – a comprehensive pack blending ambient sounds with crisp lofi percussion, now FREE! Explore their deals here. 2. Lofi Sounds Deal Highlights: Lofi Sounds is offering discounts up to 70% on their Everything Bundle which includes over 1,500 handcrafted sounds in one bundle! Bundle Deal: 3-4 packs = -40%; 5+ packs = -50%. Get multiple packs for…

04Jul 2024 by Jon

Behringer Spring Reverb 636

Blog, Home Recording Blogs, Mixing, Recording, Recording & Mixing, Sound Effects

The Behringer Spring Reverb 636/646 is a hardware analogue reverb unit inspired by the iconic Grampian Type 636 reverb, famously used by reggae dub legend Lee "Scratch" Perry. In this post, we dive into its features, performance, and why it stands out in the world of reverb units. Watch Our In-Depth Review Experience the Spring Reverb in action! Watch my video review where I put this reverb unit to the test in a home recording studio environment. You'll hear its impact on various instruments including drums, vocals, guitar, synth, and melodica, especially in a dub reggae context. https://youtu.be/jXRWTWqieao?si=SJbSslb8VHdZYyZ0 636 or 646: What's the Difference? Originally branded as the 636, Behringer since rebranded this unit as the 646. The name change likely stems from the unit's strong resemblance to the original…

Category: Recording