Short instructional monologue advising a beginner-friendly, budget-conscious approach to building a home studio. Primary recommendation order: (1) prioritize audio with a decent USB microphone (recommended price range $100–$250), (2) improve lighting using natural light or inexpensive panel lights (~$50), and (3) create a quiet, sound-deadened recording space using carpet, avoiding hard surfaces, and DIY treatments (towels, covering metal).
As you're building out your home studio to record content, this is the 8020 of what you need to know. You don't need to go out and spend thousands of dollars on the fanciest equipment and a brand new camera. In fact, I'm not even going to recommend a camera for you. The first thing I would recommend, the most important thing is that you get your audio quality right. And the best way to do that is with a decent microphone. You can get a decent USB external microphone for 100 to $250. And that is going to be a huge level up to anyone's content game. The second thing is to get your lighting right. And to do that you can use natural light. Maybe you have some decent windows in front of your desk, or you can get some panel lights off of Amazon for 50 bucks. They don't have to be super expensive. And that'll go a long way to making your lighting look a lot better. And even if you have a very simple Webcam, like a 7:20 webcam on your computer, or it's going to make it look way better by having good lighting. And the third thing goes back to the audio quality, and that is to have a quiet recording environment. If you have a room that has carpet, that's going to help a ton. If you avoid hard surfaces, that will help a ton on cutting down on the reverb and noises that you don't want in your recording. You can't see my desk right now, but I have towels draped over everything. I have metal covered up in my room. And to the extent possible, you want to deaden the sound in your recording environment. So that's the exact order that I would worry about equipment in your first home studio setup, microphone, lighting and a quiet environment.
