A good DI Box is well built using quality parts and especially a high quality conductor. Cheap DI Boxes tend to muddy your signal which is not desirable and something which can not be fixed later in the production. If you want something great and that will last your whole life then invest in something like a Countryman 85, the Rupert Neve DI or a Radial JDI. The DI signals of a Kemper also work pretty well but you have to know how to set it so that your DIs are not clipping.

The Recording Interface is the heart of your home studio. A good Interface for home recording has clean preamps and high quality transformers with enough headroom for hard picking and high output pickups. An example for a very good home recording interface is the Audient ID14. And even if this is a hot topic to touch... After in depth testing: The Focusrite Scarlett Interfaces are not good for home recording with a professional aspiration. Especially if you want to record metal guitars.

The quality and length of instrument cables has a high impact on the quality of your sound. The longer and thinner the cables are the more highs you will lose in your recording. The higher the wire cross-section the longer of a cable you can get away with. Best would be to use a cable between instrument and DI Box that is as short as possible. The Sommer Cable The Spirit XXL 3 m is a great cable for recording. It is short, has good connectors and a high wire cross-section.

Microphone cables use symmetric wiring and because of this they are not so extremely affected by length like an instrument cable. Just use a cable with good connectors and you should be good to go.

1. Drums are the hardest instrument to record. If you are not 100% sure about drum recording and/or you don't have a good room please consider to use midi drums. 2. The key to a great drum sound are the performance of the player, the tuning of the kit and the mic technique. 3. The investment into a good studio and a good drum tech will always repay in sound quality.

1. Always take care of the intonation of your instrument. A bad tuned instrument is not fixable and will always sound bad. 2. Fresh strings are the key to a crisp and clear sound. The number of sets you will need depends on many factors. My general approach is one set per song. It will repay in sound quality. 3. Use a fretwrap or tape to mute the parts of your instrument which you are not playing like the strings between the nut and the tuners and at the bridge. These will vibrate and create sympathetic dissonant resonances which will become apparent especially with high gain guitars. 4. Hardtail guitars are best suited for rhythm parts especially in heavy music because they keep the tuning better. 5. Try not to tune between two takes when you are recording doubles. Otherwise there is a good chance that you will get a chorus-like effect. 6. The sound is in your fingers. If you want to sound hard, play hard, but not so hard that you kill the tuning. Tune accordingly => Tune while you hit the string the way you would hit it while recording. 7. Different guitars for different parts. It will sound much better if you use a different guitar for lead and rhythm parts.

Most of the guidelines which are applicable for guitars are also applicable for bass. Additional to that: 1. Good tuning is absolutely mandatory. A out of tune bass will destroy the whole production. 2. The argument "Old bass strings sound better" is invalid 90% of the time. It just limits the possibilities in the production because of its tone. You can give fresh strings this kind of sound with an EQ but you can never let dead strings sound clear and crisp.

1. A good mic technique will make it much easier to mix your vocals because they will be more consistent in their sound. 2. Don't smoke or drink sparkling stuff before recording. 3. Still water is your best friend while recording. 4. Use a mic that fits your voice. Some voices might sound great on 10.000€ microphones but there are also voices which sound horrible on this and sound great on a 500€ SM7B.