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Corbyn Besson has entered his solo career with the release of his first single “Love Me Better,” which offers just a hint of what’s to come. Getting those crisp, quality sounds don’t require a professional studio though. According to the former Why Don’t We member, an at-home studio can capture professional-quality audio if you have the right equipment like studio headphones and tech similar to podcast equipment.
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“You can go jot [songs] down professionally and kind of get the hardest part of creating your idea out of the way very quickly, which is really nice and you have access to it 24 hours a day,” Besson tells Billboard.
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Plus, he adds if you have a spur-of-the-moment idea, then you can go straight to your in-house studio and put it down rather than have to wait until you can get into a professional studio.
To help you create your own quality at-home studio, the “What Am I” singer broke down how to set up your own home studio, tips on getting started and what to expect from this new chapter in his music career.
What Are the Best At-Home Studio Equipment?
Building your own at-home studio will most likely be different for everyone, Besson says.
“Music equipment is expensive,” he says. “It’s crazy, I’ve been discovering that a lot more lately after building our home studio and me and my boys have been just really trying to budget and make sure that we need these pieces.”
If you’re looking for the absolute necessities, the pop singer recommends six pieces of at-home recording equipment that he deems are absolutely essential below.
Amazon
Shure SM7B Dynamic Vocal Microphone
$399
$399.99
The Shure SM7B microphone has gained not only Besson’s stamp of approval, but pop singer LÉON as well for its quality, versatility and handheld design that allows you to take it basically anywhere. “People use it for podcasting, live streaming, but it’s also a really amazing demo microphone — and it’s handheld, so you can walk around with it,” he explains. “You can be super casual with it, so if you do need to record a finished vocal or even a guitar or really anything, the SM7B is very processable. I’ve gotten some really great recordings out of that microphone.”
Yamaha HS8 Studio Monitor
$398.99
$572.00
30% off
$398.99
The singer also believes a good pair of monitors to be “super important because you want to be able to hear what you’re doing.”He personally uses the Yamaha HS8 Studio Monitors, which is eight inches and comes with an eight inch cone woofer to help prevent sound distortion and has a power consumption of 60 watts. It’s also been labeled as an Amazon Choice for studio audio monitors by Yamaha.
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen Audio Interface
An absolute non-negotiator is to include an audio interface. If you’re new, then the Scarlett interface is very entry level, according to Besson. “The interface is super important because you plug the microphone, the computer and the monitor speakers into it, and it becomes the hub for all of your audio controlling,” he explains. “Without it, you have nothing to plug the microphone into or the speakers into, so you can’t do anything.”
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation)
$199
$249
20% off
$199
$249
20% off
Not looking to splurge on speakers? Besson suggests investing in a pair of quality headphones as it’s important for listening to any audio your record. He personally uses AirPods, but also advises you should playback your audio on a variety of listening devices like computer speakers, headphones and monitor speakers to get a fell for how it sounds out of various music players. “When I finish a song, I listen on my AirPods, I listen on my [AirPod Max], I listen to my car, I listen on my regular phone speakers, I do a listen on just my computer speakers and then I listen on my monitor speakers,” he says. “It just gives you a lot of perspective on how your song is going to sound to a wide variety of listeners. And if it sounds good on all of those, then you’re in business.”
Fender Squier Dreadnought Acoustic Guitar Sunburst Bundle
Aspiring singers, according to the “Let Me Down Easy” singer should also consider picking up an instrument. Besson has been playing the acoustic guitar as well as dabbling in a nylon string guitar to test out sounds and melodies. Beginners can take advantage of this guitar bundle by Fender that includes a guitar, carrying strap, guitar picks and a tuner to kickstart their instrument learning. “I start most of my tracks on the guitar, I like playing acoustic, but I’ve just started experimenting a little bit more with nylon string guitars because they have a little bit of a different flavor, and they’re pretty cool.”
Apple 2023 MacBook Pro
$1,399
$1,599
13% off
Investing in a computer is also a must-have for Besson as that’s where song files and mixing lives. In his opinion, a MacBook is easier for iPhone users to send and transfer files with ease. “I think the MacBooks are just super powerful and super easy, especially if you have an iPhone,” he says. “My favorite thing about working on a Mac with the iPhone is how easy it is to sync files and final bounces and final masters of stuff. I save all of my songs in my files app, and it’s all synced to my iCloud, so if I save something on my computer I can leave, go get in my car, and it’s already on my phone. I can go listen to my car, and I don’t have to do anything else. I think with PCs sometimes it gets dicey because you got to email yourself links.”
What At-Home Recording Equipment Is Worth the Splurge?
If you’re looking to really spend money on one piece of equipment, the “Fallin’” singer has two tech essentials he would recommend picking from.
“Having a powerful computer really makes it easy to create without having to worry about your computer exploding,” says Besson. “The second, for singers, is investing in a great microphone. A great microphone can make all the difference in the world for a singer, because recording is all about confidence, and if your microphone sounds great, and if you think you sound great coming through that microphone, it makes your performance so much easier.”
Where Is the Best Place to Set Up An At-Home Studio?
Besson emphasizes that anyone can set up their own studio even if you live in a small space. The
“I’ve set up studio equipment on kitchen tables, I’ve set up studio equipment on the kitchen island, I’ve set up on an outdoor pool table,” he explains. “Really anywhere that your laptop can fit because nowadays, what’s really cool about just music creation software and just technology in general is companies are doing their best to make creating music easy. We live in a time where, as musicians, we’re very lucky to have the technology that we do because a long time ago, it was not possible and it was very expensive. Nowadays, you can make really great music for pretty cheap, which is really cool.”
Any Tips for Beginners Just Starting Out?
The biggest piece of advice the singer has for both aspiring and more experienced artists is to not take your in-studio moments too seriously.
“I think the more that I create, and especially now as I create from a much more personal place than I had in [Why Don’t We], is it can be very easy to get lost in the moment,” he says. “And if lyrics aren’t coming to your mind or if you’re singing a bunch of melodies, but none of them really feel good, it can be really easy to kind of fall into this, like, ‘oh my gosh, am I even good at music? Should I keep doing this? Do I suck?’ I’ve had this kind of philosophy for a long time, and it’s that no idea is a bad idea. In my experience, some of the objectively worst ideas have turned into some of the best ideas, because you just never know what you might say or think or sing into the room.”
Who Are Your Biggest Music Inspirations Right Now?
As a pop singer, Besson has a mix of current and classic artists that continue to influence and inspire his music.
“I’ve always listened to Justin Bieber. He was, like, my biggest inspiration growing up,” he says. It’s like, how do I be that guy? I listen to a lot of Post Malone — huge influence, he’s amazing. Then I’ve been listening to some more R&B music to kind of find what’s popping these days and what people are making that’s new. The new Justin Timberlake records are really cool. Been listening to some Ne-Yo classics, even some Troye Sivon — and then SZA is one of my favorites forever. She’s just so incredibly good, it’s ridiculous.”
How Does It Feel to Have Your First Solo Single Out & What Can Fans Expect Next?
“I’ve had [‘Love Me Better’] in my vault for almost two years, so it’s just been sitting there and I’ve been waiting for the people to hear it,” Besson says. “It’s been a little nerve wracking because the project I’m building now is much more personal to me than really any of the Why Don’t We stuff was. When you’re in a group, you’re storytelling from a different perspective. It’s very tailored to be like, you’re the boy band and you’re writing love songs for your girlfriends. Although we did write from personal experience a lot, it’s just a different perspective. Now being solo and writing from a place that’s 100% just me, my opinion, my stories, my words, there’s a vulnerability to it that I hadn’t experienced in music before.”
And in terms of new music, the “Just Friends” singer teases fans can expect his songs to express his maturity as an artist and person as he shares his real-life experiences.
“There will be some love stories, there will be some stuff about feeling the pressure of the world,” he says. “I really want people to feel good when they listen to my music. A lot of this stuff is pretty positive and happy and just fun. It’s going to feel a little more mature than some of the stuff that the group had done in the past. I’m working on a couple of moments to tug on the heartstrings and also just tell the truth about growing up and feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders and trying to figure it out. I think a lot of my fans, and even the group’s fans, have gone through a lot in the last seven, eight years.”
For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best portable recording booths, best speakers and the best over-ear headphones.
Universal Music Group (UMG) is proposing a $250 million music and educational complex in Nashville‘s Berry Hill area at a site covering 4.15 acres, including several buildings on Columbine Place and E. Iris Place. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news A rendering of the mixed-use development shows […]
Three years ago, the pandemic temporarily turned Nashville recording studios into miniature ghost towns.
The business looks a whole lot different in 2023.
“Every engineer out of work in 2020 is so slammed now that they can’t take a vacation,” says producer Trent Willmon (Cody Johnson, Granger Smith). “I was talking to somebody — I can’t remember who said it — but booking a session, he said he called seven steel players before he found someone available. That means country music is badass, baby. Four years ago, all the steel players were just like, ‘Hey, man, you got any work?’ And now they’re just all overwhelmed.”
A year or two ago, the bulk of that workload would have been a result of artists bringing new material created during COVID-19 isolation to the studio. But the volume of recording work in Nashville hasn’t subsided since that first postcrisis wave, and it appears that another development from the pandemic era is behind the ongoing studio traffic.
Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album rode 30 tracks to a record-setting run atop Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, which reflects streaming and sales data compiled by Luminate. Following its success, now albums — which were typically 10 to 12 tracks in the past — have become much more robust. A dozen have hit No. 1 since the beginning of 2021, and only two have fit the historic range: Carrie Underwood’s 11-track holiday album, My Gift, and Luke Combs’ 12-track Growin’ Up, which was later revealed as the lead-in to the 18-track companion Gettin’ Old.
The rest of the No. 1 albums have spanned from Underwood’s 13-track gospel album, My Savior, to Wallen’s 36-track One Thing at a Time. Those larger albums obviously utilize more songs, but that also means they require more hours from the artist, producers, engineers, musicians and other crew members. Thus, the country studio business is booming.
“I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my life in terms of workload, and at the same time, it’s fewer artists,” says guitarist Derek Wells, one of country’s first-call studio players. “The reality is your big, premiere artists kind of gobble up weeks and weeks and weeks of your year. And there’s just no room left for some of the newer stuff. It’s not an unwillingness to do it, or lack of a desire to go be amongst some of those things. It’s just kind of first come, first serve.”
While supersized albums are an aggressive way to compete for chart superiority, they also serve as a digital-era method of satisfying artists’ superfans. The maturation of streaming has given consumers quicker access to music by their favorite artists for a set monthly price, rather than compelling them to buy albums. Artists’ biggest fans have always wanted more music. And with home studios and digital recording techniques providing more flexibility, it’s easier than ever to satisfy that hunger.
While the leading acts are supersizing albums, artists with smaller fan bases are releasing EPs with greater frequency, putting out more music than their predecessors often did at a similar career stage to satisfy their own strongest supporters’ demands. The combination of supersized albums and more frequent EPs is stretching the resources in Nashville.
“Work is definitely surging,” Nashville Musicians Union president Dave Pomeroy says. “We’ve more than gotten back to where we were before the pandemic, in terms of [recording contracts] we see coming through the building,”
That makes booking a recording session something of a Rubik’s cube. A producer’s top musician choices will likely not all be available at the same time for a session that wasn’t booked far in advance. That encourages even more overdubbing, with producers doing bare bones tracking dates and hiring musicians to layer on parts at home.
“A lot of the times I’m not doing a full session on my songs,” says Alana Springsteen, who co-produces her music. “We’ll start [recording] things in the room sometimes the day we write the song, I’ll lay down an acoustic, lay down a vocal, one of my co-writers might play the electric, and we’ll lay down a path. Sometimes it looks a little different than a traditional session.”
While it’s possible to record musicians one at a time, many artists still want to use a larger room with the players all working in unison. Many of the established studios have shuttered since 2000 as home recording increased, so now that recording is in a boom cycle, it’s increasingly difficult to find an available large studio. As a result, many individual tracks are recorded in three or four different locations, and a full album may be pieced together at six or more sites.
“It used to be when we’d do a record, if we did three or four different tracking days, it was all going to be in the same room,” says producer Frank Rogers (Scotty McCreery, Frank Ray). “At the end of the day, I put the players first, because if you have the right players, you can go and set up in a living room and still make a really good record. If you got the greatest studio in the world and C [grade] players, then it’s just not going to be what it needs to be.”
Chris Young found a previously untapped studio when he booked Sony Music Publishing’s upgraded facility for the master tracking session on his new single, “Young Love & Saturday Nights.” At the same time, he also has a home studio, and his output there is using engineer hours beyond the traditional venue. Multiply that phenomenon by dozens of artists, and the ramifications become much more apparent.
“It’s sort of insane,” Young says, hinting that his next album may be larger than a traditional project. “I have seven songs for my next record already. And part of it is, I try and write all the time when I’m home [from touring]. I usually write, every single year, 100 songs on top of what I find outside… I’m [taxing the system] a little bit.”
The engineering sector may be stretched thinner than every other area of production.
“With the ease of recording, everybody — half the songwriters in town, and every musician, every producer — is an engineer,” Rogers says. “But the ones who know how to track really, really well or know how to mix really, really well, there’s not a whole lot of them that are great. There’s a lot of good, there’s not much great, and so those guys are as busy as they’ve ever been.”
At the other end of the music chain, the increase in the number of tracks is stretching the infrastructure with radio and digital service providers (DSPs), too.
“There’s always too much music — it’s not manageable on any of the platforms,” says artist consultant John Marks, a former programmer for broadcast radio, satellite radio and Spotify. “Wherever you are today, you cannot manage that traffic, the amount of releases, regardless if you have an album of 12 tracks, or 36 tracks, or 50 tracks. Whatever it is, you are treading water in the ocean.”
The DSPs get thousands of new tracks every week, and while they can make educated guesses about what to playlist from new albums and -individual -singles, fans’ choices will ultimately require programming adjustments. Similarly, traditional country radio stations — which have drawn their playlists primarily from major labels — are increasingly auditioning songs from sources they would not have considered in the past, thanks to digital consumption.
“If Zach Bryan’s new song gets streamed 20 million times, why would I think that radio listeners wouldn’t feel the same way about the song if they were exposed to it?” Cumulus vp of country formats Charlie Cook says. “So then it’s incumbent on me to expose it. When you get 20 million streams on Oliver Anthony or 13 million on Tyler Childers, why am I smarter than them? I’m not.”
Traditional radio still plays one song at a time, no skips, so instead of trying to satisfy every artist’s superfans, its business still requires identifying the songs that fit the widest number of individual tastes. Even if it means sifting through more music to play the same number of songs.
“It’s radio’s opportunity to find the strongest songs and play the heck out of them,” Cook says. “We had a liner for a while that said, ‘We’ll cut through everything that’s out there and find the best music for you.’ And I think that has now become radio’s position.”
The new, longer albums are likely to continue as the artists, and the media that exposes their music, attempt to superserve their most ardent fan base.
“I think it will last, and it will permeate the lower rungs of artistry,” Marks says. “Really, the only way to get to your fans these days is a continual release pattern, keeping in front of your audience and not letting them rest. Listeners and fans want more of whatever they’re finding, and they want it now.”
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