Creative Flow State: Home Studio Tips From a Pro Musician (Episode 178)

Make Music Your Business.

Your home studio is your headquarters. In Episode 178 of The Career Musician, Nomad gives you a tour of his own setup, a converted 10x10 bedroom, and walks through his home studio tips for staying in a creative flow state. He promised five essentials, then admitted he lied: there are two bonus tips.

You don't need a guest house or a big budget. You need a clear purpose, some common sense acoustics, and a room that is ready to record the moment inspiration hits.

Define your motive and set up for it

Step one is knowing what you are doing in there. Composer? Producer for other artists? Singer-songwriter? Full arrangements? Set the room up for your main objective.

For Nomad, it is guitar. He has built a career recording guitars for a lot of people, so he took the doors off a closet and turned it into a guitar station for his guitars, mandolin, ukuleles and banjo. That also added about two and a half to three feet of depth. His control station faces a corner, with another corner behind him, which makes the small room look and sound bigger. Pedals and amp heads sit within easy reach of his chair.

And keep the space for work. No TV, no video games, no distractions. Make it fun (he has a baby Yoda), but stay focused on the music.

"In order to make music your business, remember this: your home studio is your headquarters. That's where you do business."

Nomad, 5:52

Acoustics: use common sense, not science

After more than three decades as a professional, Nomad is the first to say he is not an acoustician. You don't need to be either. Put a rug on hard floors. Hang tapestries on bare walls. Build simple baffles from foam, a wood frame and fabric. Use cubicle dividers in the corners as bass traps. His favorite cheap fix: a $12 painter's extension rod across the room with big curtains hanging from it.

Set your studio monitors in an equidistant triangle with you at the point. Worried about rumble? Foam lifters, or a folded hand towel. Bookshelves and a soft chair in the corner help diffuse the sound. And one of his true essentials: a door noise suppressor, the foam strips that slide under the door. It is the difference between capturing his dog barking on a take or barely hearing him.

Optimize your workflow so you stay in the zone

You have an idea burning inside you, and then nothing is plugged in and you are hunting for an adapter. Now you are in engineer mode, and the creative flow state is gone.

Take 15 minutes and fix it once. Your laptop lives in one place, always powered. Your interface (Universal Audio, Focusrite, whatever you use) sits right next to it, plugged in. Your mic is on its stand and does not move. Instruments go on the opposite wall. Label your cables and hard drives in a set of drawers.

Get a quiet, comfy chair on wheels (guitar players, keep those armrests low). Build DAW session templates for the work you do most: multitracking guitars, acoustic guitars, a big pop session, a film score, a singer-songwriter, a 12-piece band. An adjustable desk lets you stand and play to give your back a break. When you mix, make sure the speakers are at ear height.

Add some mood

Nomad's room is full of colored lights and vibe on purpose. When he walks in, he actually wants to work. Don't make it a bare white room where the sound pings around. His house might be a mess, he jokes, but he keeps the studio nice because he works in there.

Three pro tips: always be recording

Here is what separates the hobbyist from the pro. First, always be recording. Nomad shortens it to "AB." Never sit down and start creating without going "in red."

"Never just sit down and start creating without going in red... always go in red. Always be recording. That's rule number one."

Nomad, 17:31

Second, do the technical setup first, so when you sit down you only have to do the music. Third, do multiple takes and comp them later. Play three takes, walk away for five minutes, give your ears a break, then build the best performance from the best sections. Now you are thinking like an editor, and that makes you a producer.

Nomad prided himself on being a one-take player in sessions in Nashville and LA. But he adds a pro's addendum: a lot of the time, the magic is take one, which is exactly why you are always recording. That is Savvy from the ETHOS code: preparing so the moment can't get away.

Bonus: you need less gear than you think, and you need people

His gear is 30-plus years in the making. You need one instrument or your voice, a decent microphone and something to record with. Just make it cozy.

And collaborate. No man is an island. Your favorite artists still have a band behind them. Create with others, because that is where some of the best sounds come from. Work begets work, and so does working together.

For a hands-on example, watch the one-day home studio makeover with Oksana that the episode points to.

The takeaway

Treat your studio like your creative temple. Set it up for your purpose, fix the room with simple tools, remove every bit of friction, and always be recording. Then keep refining it little by little. When you are ready to turn those recordings into work, start with the free Get the Gig guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.