I promised my friend Egor that someday I’d write out all my thoughts about my music setup in detail. And I think now is the best time to do it.

Super short for the lazy ones:

Must-haves

The rule for adding a new device

I’m a computer worm.

It’s worth saying right off the bat: I consider the "in-the-box" approach normal, sensible, and quite possibly the best solution. Sure, hardware sound has its own vibe, but I’ve never owned a fully analog setup, never worked purely on analog, and honestly, wouldn't want to start.
The tactile feel that certain hardware pieces give you is undoubtedly the best feeling in the world, but hardware constraints and the cost of that hardware are the main factors holding musicians back in a bad way. That's why, both at the start of my journey and today, the foundation and "brain" of my studio has always been computer + DAW. Everything else, including that "warm tube sound," is dialed in purely through skill. Making a convincing copy of any "analog" sound is entirely possible "in the box." That's just a fact.

First attempts

I'll start super far back, as usual. My first DAW was Cubase back in the far-off 2000s. Back then all I had was a dual-core laptop running Windows XP, which, owing to my computer curiosity, I broke so often that at some point the latest "PC repair guy" thought it'd be a cool idea to just give me an installation disc. Along with it, my PC got: Cubase, 3D Max, Delphi, a Mikhail Zadornov comedy special, and 4 seasons of Futurama. I don't remember that hero's name, but dude, thank you! That hookup largely determined my destiny.

Back to DAWs. I didn't last long in Cubase. There was no internet back then, and without guides I didn't even understand how to properly create audio tracks. So at first my audio recording boiled down to using either a couple of voice recorders or a simple editor that came with the Nero suite (the burning rom one).

Then breakdancing stormed into my life, and with it, the rest of hip-hop culture. Some guys from the scene showed me Adobe Audition. I snagged a karaoke mic at the nearest M-Video and launched a full-fledged career as an MC.

Beatmaking

I recorded my high school discography exclusively on free beats stolen from VKontakte, or even more often, searched for instrumentals by typing my favorite artists' names with "instrumental" appended. So my timid, childish early attempts sounded over legendary classics by Nas, Mobb Deep, Big L, Rakim, and others. But that couldn't go on forever, and the internet was already in full swing. And that's right where FL Studio 8 was found. Where, following tutorials, masterpieces were born using built-in VSTs—masterpieces that today seem twice as funny.

I won't dive into how hard (or easy) certain things were, since we're talking setups. But I'll highlight the main issue with DAWs as the lack of "tactility" and that ease I saw on YouTube. I was constantly watching all kinds of finger drummers, guys poking fingers into their miracle boxes. And to me, that was "Real Hip-Hop." Literally: AKAI MPC = Hip-Hop. And at some point I was ready to buy my first devices.

AKAI MP-Everything

An MPC in the early 2010s still cost an unpayable amount for a high schooler. So the choice fell on two devices—more budget-friendly, but punchier in their essence: two MIDI controllers, the LPD8 and MPK25. The first satisfied my hyperfixation on finger drumming and "beatmaking like in the videos" where I could bang on pads. The second was a tiny 2-octave keyboard, compact and convenient.
The brand was chosen strictly out of principle, as I wrote above. Today I wouldn't make that same mistake, because aside from a shiny logo with the brand name, those devices were no different.
Suffice it to say, making hardware and software play nice together turned out to be a task for patient folks, which I am not. The pads went on the shelf almost immediately, because "tapping out drums" turned out to be doable on keys too, and overall, keys proved much more convenient and functional for me back then than 8 pads. The mistake I made at this stage was that almost immediately I started dreaming of a big 4-octave keyboard with full-sized keys. Important caveat though: I didn't play piano back then, and I still don't.

Important note: mini-keys suck. They're only convenient from a compactness standpoint. For a home studio, I'd prefer full-size keys. And yeah, two octaves is generally more than enough in most cases.

By the way, I later sold both of those devices due to total uselessness and inconvenience.

Audio Interface

Years later, I started playing guitar and was super bummed that I couldn't record my acoustic. Later I bought an electric guitar, and was equally bummed I couldn't record that either. On top of that, my projects grew, plugins got heavier, and ASIO4ALL simply couldn't handle reasonable latency anymore. In those years I was actively collaborating with a local studio. My workflow essentially boiled down to 2 steps: assemble a viable demo at home, rent studio time, record everything there. It was way too expensive for me. The main takeaway from that setup: I saw how a sound engineer works. That became my favorite part of studio sessions: quickly spit out my verses, and spend the remaining time watching how the mix engineer works. What plugins he inserts, what knobs he turns. Asking questions about why he did it that way. Trying to replicate it at home.

The studio where I worked used PreSonus Studio One as its DAW. Eventually I dropped FL and switched over. That allowed me to bring demos not just as rendered trackouts, but as actual project folders. It gave me the flexibility I needed and allowed real magic to happen.

Right there at the studio, they advised me to get an audio interface. It would solve a whole cluster of my problems at once: high latency and inability to record. The choice fell on the M-Audio Fast Track Pro. The old lady cost a ridiculous amount on the used market, and by that same evening it was at my place.

An audio interface is a must-have for any studio. The very first thing I'd recommend buying, right after buying a computer (since you probably already have one anyway).

Main pro: $50 price tag for two combo XLR inputs, phantom power, and a whole bunch of outputs on the back: multiple monitoring pairs, including TRS connections—hell, this card is deservedly considered legendary in the community.

The card brought its share of trouble too, mainly because Avid dropped support for it. So there were no new drivers compatible with Windows 10. Random BSODs, dropping audio, cracks and pops—those were the conditions I worked in for several years. And yet, even so, I got a massive skill boost largely thanks to that M-Audio card.

Guitars

Actually, the desire to play guitar came out of nowhere. Originally, I wanted a ukulele. My mom talked me out of it, saying "Maybe a real guitar would be better?", and then a neighbor offered his old acoustic in exchange for me setting up Skype and cleaning viruses off his PC. It was the deal of the century, thrown at me by the universe itself.

An acoustic guitar is a fun instrument, super cool. But recording it is tricky. Plus, naturally, when learning another Nirvana song, I wanted to feel that same overdrive and fuzz as in the original, which an acoustic simply couldn't do. That's how an electric guitar entered my life as well.

I'm including it in my already dragged-out monologue about studio setups mostly because the guitar is an instrument that's extremely difficult to convincingly recreate with VST plugins. It's one of those rare cases where it's genuinely easier to learn a few chords than to spend tens of hours micro-adjusting MIDI timings. I bought my first electric guitar second-hand too. It turned out to be a Chinese Jackson, and ever since, I've loved their guitars. My current guitar is also a Jackson. Probably the only thing I overdid was swapping a superstrat for a full-on "hard rock" monster with two humbuckers. Sometimes my guitars lack that transparent chime that only single-coil pickups can deliver. Keep that in mind if you decide to follow in my footsteps.

Microphone

Earlier I only mentioned karaoke mics that I used for my bedroom production and rap recording. They are not fit for purpose. The quality is just awful. Classic dynamic Shure models can still be a compromise option. But a $3 Philips is definitely not your pick.
From 2014 onwards, I used the equipment at the studio I rented to record vocals. That's where I got introduced to condenser microphones, which delivered a completely different sonic picture. Crisp, full, detailed. That's when I started dreaming of getting myself such a miracle someday.

That didn't happen until 2020. My girlfriend gave me an AKG P120. And it is, without a doubt, a great mic in its price segment. Low price tag, pretty high quality. And damn it, I've seen studios charging around $600/hr where this mic was the headline vocal mic. And the material came out great!

The main problem with a condenser mic lies in its main strength—extreme sensitivity. In a treated studio room, that gives you a rich capture of timbre. In a concrete apartment in a residential neighborhood, you'll hear your neighbor sneezing, dogs barking, and all sorts of other sounds creeping into your mix.

MIDI Attempt 2

After selling my AKAI gear, I worked purely with a mouse for a while. But my progress on guitar brought with it the weight of music theory knowledge (still not as strong in it as I'd like to be). Music stopped being a "chaotic" process and started taking the shape of a system. Along with that, I hit a wall: spending way too much time trying to lay down "imperfect" timings and using all kinds of tricks to achieve a humanize effect on recorded parts. So I started looking at MIDI keyboards again, but this time I learned from my mistakes and got a Nektar SE49—with full-size keys and 4 octaves. I still have this keyboard today. And essentially, most of the music I've written over the last couple of years was made on it.
What would I change? Fairly cheap key action (like the keyboard itself), poor velocity response, no aftertouch. Plus, as I eventually realized, I don't need 4 octaves. So the ideal here would be 2 octaves, full-sized keys, good action mechanism, and precise velocity response.

However, the sample chopping process and lack of tactility in the workflow kept nudging me to ogle hardware beatmaking. So I picked up another device: the Avatar EPD 16—an MPD16 equivalent with identical functionality. Paired with the Serato Sample VST, it worked decently enough, and my beatmaking got a little bit better thanks to that setup.

Hardware

Teenage Engineering PO-33 K.O.

Still, the unfulfilled childhood itch to be like "those guys on MTV" kept gnawing at my brain, so somewhere around 2021 I bought my first sampler: the portable Teenage Engineering PO-33 K.O. An amazing little toy. I picked it purely for its portability. At home I already had a comfortable, fully stacked studio, but the ability to make music on the go, at the office, or anywhere else—that was an invaluable opportunity I grabbed onto.
The PO-33 has tons of limitations. Just 40 seconds of memory, only 4-voice polyphony. Just 16 patterns, 1 bar long each. Only 16 effects. Lacking a bunch of useful features. And yet, it's one of my best purchases.

An almost "authentic MPC" workflow. Even the limitations kind of echo the classic models. 12-bit sound adds a lofi grit that comes in very handy. Plus the PO-33 has a built-in mic, allowing you to dive into field recording—capturing sounds in the subway, at work, on the street. And its modest size and COLOSSAL battery life (several months on two AAA batteries) is simply a killer feature.

However, the inability to carry around somewhat intelligible samples or projects took its toll. After playing around with the PO-33 to my heart's content, I started dreaming of something bigger again.

Roland SP-404 MKII

That something bigger came as a gift from my girlfriend for my 30th birthday (damn, I've been making music for more than half my life)—the highly coveted and long-awaited SP-404.
This was the final resolution of a 15-year itch. No "compromise options" in the form of MIDI controllers gave me the feel that the Roland delivers. Right now, it's the second most important piece of gear in my setup after my computer. This is where I got ultimately convenient sample chopping and that exact tactility I wanted. Without losing (almost any) portability. All the PO-33 limitations were smashed: a full SD card slot, projects, polyphony—plus, the Roland can act both as a MIDI controller and an audio interface for your DAW.

The 404 became my sketchbook, my bridge from an idea to a rough draft. A way to quickly "catch a sound," whether an idea from my head or a sample slice from a movie.

I won't criticize it for one simple reason. The developers themselves printed "creative sampler" right on the box, and in that role it's 100% effective. All its drawbacks are directly linked to people trying to mix on it or use it as a full DAW, which it isn't. The SP is great as a link in the chain, but critically poor if you try to replace the whole chain with it.

Monitoring

For a long time, I made do with consumer audio: gaming headsets, home theater speakers, or plain SVEN desktop speakers. The gamechanger was another gift (Overall, huge thanks to my girlfriend for investing in my creativity—Katya, you are simply wonderful!): Fluid Audio C5 studio monitors. These are 5" speakers; I deliberately picked this model, worried that Yamaha HS5s wouldn't suit me because of their bass response. Paired with them, I have closed-back AKG K132s and semi-open Sennheisers that are as old as my hobby.
Studio monitors are a complete gamechanger for mixing. It was thanks to them that I started actually hearing the results of my work. I even took on mixing gigs for a while—music you can hear on an indie label of independent hip-hop rebels. This is the third "most important" must-have I'd recommend to anyone into music recording.

Summary

My current setup:
- Laptop
- Audio interface (currently a brand-new Arturia MiniFuse)
- MIDI keyboard
- Roland SP-404 MKII
- 5" studio monitors
- A pair of good cans for detail work

In my view, hardware and new gear, beyond feeding your ego, must strictly serve their purpose. If you're more into electronic music, synthesis, and all that, there's probably no point in buying a sampler. Let alone expecting full DAW features from a sampler (which is why a lot of folks sell their gear in the communities I'm in, by the way).
Sorry this turned out so wordy, but I feel like I managed to thoroughly convey both my journey and the pitfalls along the way.