I'm a bedroom music producer — here's how I'd set up a cheap home studio for Mac with Prime Day deals

The 2024 MacBook Air M3 on a wooden table in front of a bookshelf.

(Image credit: Gerald Lynch / Future)

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Amazon Prime Day 2024 — (Image credit: Amazon)

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Creating music is an incredibly freeing process. A great way to both get your feelings down and cheer yourself up, it can be nice to have a finished product that expresses yourself better than words can. With a good music production setup, you can not only hear songs back as intended but show them to the rest of the world.

Apple gear is some of the very best in the world for music producers, thanks to excellent software like Logic Pro and Garageband, but also because of how nice Apple’s hardware is. As well as all of this, the Apple ecosystem means that you can work on projects across multiple devices with ease. Once you have one piece of Apple hardware, you can immediately start making music.

Now that Prime Day 2024 is almost here, there are already some excellent deals to get a full music setup for much cheaper.

From a studio interface to cables, there are lots of little bits of equipment worth picking up if you want to produce certain types of sounds. If you just want acoustic guitar and vocals, we recommend picking up a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 to get started. If you want to overlay that with synth and programmed drums, we recommend some keys below, too. These are the best deals out there right now.

Produce at home for cheap

Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 | $169 $135.99 at Amazon

I’ve used many USB interfaces over the last few years, which are pieces of hardware you plug into your device to run a guitar or mic into it. The Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 3 is by far the easiest to use. It’s a simple interface – you can tweak small things like gain and input but, for the most part, it’s a great plug-and-play device. If you want to record vocals or guitar, this is one of the best ways to do so. As it has two different inputs, you can even record from two different input sources at the same time for more of a “live” feel. If your MacBook doesn’t have USB-A ports or you don’t have a USB-C hub, you will need a USB-A to USB-C converter, though you can get one here for $7 off too.

Fender Deluxe Series instrument cable (15ft) | $42.99 $22.78 at Amazon

Fender is one of the most recognizable guitar brands in the world, and for good reason. Producing products that look great, sound even better, and last a long time, they are well worth the money. This 15ft instrument cable has a custom-made tweed jacket that makes the wire immune to kinks. This means it won’t wrap and contort itself into weird angles as you put it away. It also comes with 24-karat gold-plated connectors that help carry sound without diminishing it. You only need to buy this once as it comes with a lifetime guarantee, too. It’s a bit more expensive than other cables but well worth it for those features.

M-Audio Oxygen Pro Mini | $119 $99 at Amazon

Though the M-Audio Oxygen Pro Mini is somewhat limited in its 32-key range, this makes the midi keyboard easy to carry around and allows for more space on the board for super precise controls. Above the keys, you can store banks of chords with programmable buttons and it even has faders to get just the right tone from your music production software. With assignable knobs and buttons, you can activate arpeggiators, modulate the pitch and tone, and control effects on the fly, making for a much more dynamic sound. This is an excellent keyboard if you want to put synths or drums over your tracks.

MacBook Air (M3) | $1,099 $898.99 at Amazon

The iPad Air is a great music production choice but a MacBook Air just gives you more options overall. It’s more powerful (this particular model features an M3 chip) and has access to software that isn’t on the iPad App Store. Mac has its own App Store with unique apps and can run non-Apple applications more easily. This Mac also comes with 256 GB of SSD storage, 8GB of unified RAM, an HD webcam, and a wonderful screen. This is all helped by the fact it currently has a very nice reduction of $200 off its usual asking price too.

James is a staff writer and general Jack of all trades at iMore. With news, features, reviews, and guides under his belt, he has always liked Apple for its unique branding and distinctive style. Originally buying a Macbook for music and video production, he has since gone on to join the Apple ecosystem with as many devices as he can fit on his person.

With a degree in Law and Media and being a little too young to move onto the next step of his law career, James started writing from his bedroom about games, movies, tech, and anything else he could think of. Within months, this turned into a fully-fledged career as a freelance journalist. Before joining iMore, he was a staff writer at Gfinity and saw himself published at sites like TechRadar, NME, and Eurogamer.

As his extensive portfolio implies, James was predominantly a games journalist before joining iMore and brings with him a unique perspective on Apple itself. When not working, he is trying to catch up with the movies and albums of the year, as well as finally finishing the Yakuza series. If you like Midwest emo music or pretentious indie games that will make you cry, he’ll talk your ear off.