When it comes to protecting the gear in your home recording studio, it’s a no brainer that you’ll want some kind of surge protector to prevent electrical surges from frying your equipment -- which also is your investment. Though there are tons of power strip models that range from a few bucks up into the thousands of dollars, the question you should probably be asking yourself is not ‘What kind of power strip should I buy?’ but ‘Should I buy a power conditioner for my home recording studio?’.
Here we want to look at the advantages of choosing a power conditioner rather than a traditional power strip. There are two primary advantages to choosing a power strip.
1. Electrical Noise Reduction
You’ll be able to tell that many power conditioners are made specifically for recording studios when you see that they come as rackmount units. And one of the things that they do for specifically for studios is cancel out noise created by all of your equipment.
These filters are designed to eliminate the noise generated by each piece of equipment you have, as well as by noise interference caused by multiple types of gear. If you've had many pieces of gear plugged into the same electrical circuit without any kind of power strip at all, you've likely clearly heard this interference in your recordings. With a power conditioner, this noise will likely be reduced significantly if not eliminated completely.
2. More Effective Surge Protection
Another advantage of going with a power conditioner is that it offers much better surge protection than inexpensive power strips. Any strip is of course designed to stop surges, though less expensive models can only stop smaller surges, and larger surges will pass through to your equipment.
The price of your power conditioner will likely determine how effective your surge protection will be. While less expensive models will stop nearly all surges from going through to your equipment, some of the conditioners themselves be destroyed in the process. At that point, you’ll have to replace or repair the conditioner, though your equipment will likely be safe.
More expensive models, however, can handle nearly any type of surge, and not only will protect your equipment but also will continue to be effective.
How Much Should I Expect to Pay for a Power Conditioner?
Like any other piece of studio gear, this will vary greatly, though there many models that offer great protection are around the $200 mark. Those that will protect your gear at the expense of themselves may be around half that price.
Should I Invest in a Voltage Regulator?
Voltage regulators essentially do the same thing as power conditioners, while at the same time insuring that exactly 120 volts are being passed to your equipment at all times. This number, of course, is for the U.S.
While this is obviously the ideal situation, regulators get pretty expensive, and tend to start around the $2,000 mark. While this may be the easy choice for larger studios, this typically is not within the budget of most home studio owners, and a power conditioner will usually do the job just fine.
So, Why A Membership?
Let’s face it — trying to create professional mixes without the correct knowledge, tools, services, and network is like playing a concert with a broken instrument to an audience of no one.
That’s where the Sage Audio membership comes in — the membership gives you everything you need to create professional mixes consistently.
The membership is the secret to your success — it’s the difference between the 1,929,999,999 of poor-sounding mixes and the .00000002% of mixes that make people say 'WOW!"
There are 7 unique value-points included in your Sage Audio membership.
Let’s go over each one so you can decide if the membership is right for you.
1. Sage Audio University
- SAU Flagship Mixing Course: 23-video in-depth mixing course that reveals the little-known secrets of mixing and matches the needs of the new music industry.
- SAU Flagship Mastering Course: 19-video in-depth modern mastering course that dives into every nuance of making professional-sounding masters.
- SAU Pre-Mastering Course: Concise pre-mastering course that details the latest industry standards for preparing your mixes for mastering.
- SAU is designed for every experience level, ranging from budding mixing engineers to advanced engineers. The techniques and concepts taught can be applied to any DAW to create industry-leading mixes without expensive software or plugins - and free plugin alternatives are suggested throughout each course.
- Each SAU course includes Start-to-Finish session walkthrough lessons for multiple genres so you can follow along with your preferred genre.
- SAU Certification Document, which can be downloaded and showcased on your website and social channels.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
2. Private 1-on-1 Mentorship
- The Sage Audio private 1-on-1 Mentorship gives you direct access to us for advanced mixing feedback, in-depth discussions, and customized guidance that's tailored to your specific needs.
- Unlimited private access to us for advanced mixing feedback, where we provide detailed suggestions for improvement.
- Unlimited private access to us for in-depth discussions to help you improve every aspect of your mixes and masters.
- Customized guidance that’s tailored specifically to your needs.
- Fast communication so you can improve your skills quickly.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
3. Unlimited Mixing Feedback
- Unlimited professional mixing feedback directly from us so you can consistently improve your skills and create professional mixes.
- Mixing feedback is invaluable, and the Sage Audio membership gives you continual direct access to us for real-world feedback so you can improve every aspect of each of your mixes while you're in the process of mixing.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
4. 50 Free Mastered Songs Per Year
- 50 free mastered songs per year with your own dedicated professional mastering engineer so you can get all your mixes sounding like professional songs.
- You get your own dedicated Sage Audio mastering engineer to create custom masters that are specific to you and sound exactly how you want.
- Unlimited revisions with your dedicated mastering engineer. As a standard of our service, we are not happy until you are happy with the sound of your masters.
- All masters are delivered as commercial, industry-standard high-resolution 24-bit HD WAV masters so they will sound clean and clear on every platform.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
5. Community
- The Sage Audio community is a tight-knit community of passionate audio engineers who can provide you with additional real-world mixing feedback, meaningful discussions, networking, collaborations, and more.
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6. 70+ GB of Curated Sage Audio Downloadable Content
- 36 multitrack sessions spanning multiple genres for mixing practice.
- 57 un-mastered mixes spanning multiple genres for mastering practice.
- 62 Recommended Free Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 39 Recommended Paid Plugins List (vetted, tested, and approved, so you don’t have to).
- 71 Sage Audio custom plugin presets to improve your mixes and masters.
- Sage Audio Membership Badge to showcase on your website, social channels, and portfolio.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
7. 800+ Video Catalog
- Access 700+ in-depth Sage Audio mixing and mastering videos - curated and organized into categories so you can easily take a deep dive into all aspects of audio engineering with thousands of hours of concise, expertly crafted Sage Audio videos to continually improve your skills at your own pace.
Yes, I want to join the membership now >
