[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by FlyWilde

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1. Pick space: Inside the house (16’ x 16’) or in the extra garage (30’ x 30’) . Both areas are climate controlled and can be dedicated full time to being set up properly. There are no concerns about neighbors hearing noise and such. External noises such as cars, barking dogs, etc. are non-existent for all intents and purposes. Either space can be modified however I wish. Current thought is that a small space for just recording is all that is needed for the one person, one guitar nature of what I want to do. I am no longer looking at my ‘wood shed’ type practice space, hanging out space, and recording space being the same area.
2. Room Treatment: Once the location and dimensions are determined the room treatment is going to addressed with a full blown ‘what ever it takes to do it right’ mentality. Budget for this aspect of the project is ‘what ever it takes’, short of construction a separate building. Currently exploring the idea of portioning off a small area, probably a corner, of a larger area using panels to create a booth type area.
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The 16' x 16' space is likely more than adequate.

Recording acoustic guitar and electric guitar are quite different animals. For acoustic guitar it is fairly simple...place a couple of mics out front, set levels and hit record. In addition, the bass energy from an acoustic dissipates rather quickly over distance and, other than some first reflections, the returned amplitude is much lower than the level the mics are receiving directly from the source. This is particularly true for mics with cardioid or hypercardioid poler patterns. Omni or figure-8 patterns will be different.

For electric guitar, much will depend on the volume you set for the amp, as high volumes will generate more room sound. If you get into reamping, there are other considerations.

You will be using your room for live recording and for mixing. You will have two places (perhaps more) from which "hearing" will occur.

The first "hearing" location is the monitoring location, involving an equilateral triangle among the location of each monitor and your head (i.e., ears). That location will be static. Don't place it in the corner of a room. That's the worse place to put it. Usually the best place is centered with respect to the short wall (you won't have any short walls as both of your rooms are square), and moved into the room a bit, perhaps as much as 20% to 30% from that wall. Your room treatment needs to address this location.

The second "hearing" location is where the mics are located with respect to the source being recorded. Obviously, this location can change. Generally, it should not be near the center of the room. There are more factors involved here, but again your room treatment also needs to address this (these) location(s).

Originally Posted by FlyWilde

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3. Set budget. This is currently a very wild guess for me. Based on the advice I’m being given I’m going to just plant the flag at up to 10K and go from there. This is based on incomplete research and some major ‘Kentucky windage’ type guessing.
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That's a healthy budget. You will have many choices available, perhaps too many. That being said, that amount can easily be spent getting all you need. Be assured that you can populate your entire studio with quality gear with that budget.

Originally Posted by FlyWilde

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4. Gear: The quality of the monitors is the 1st priority. Don’t know enough yet to be more specific about mics. Seems like using an iMac is the way to go.
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Yes, monitor quality is a high priority. Still, given what you are going to record, and considering your budget, you don't need to go overboard here. A balance of quality among all parts of your tracking and mixing/monitoring signal chains is a worthy goal. Thus, you needn't spend your entire budget on a pair of soffit mounted Quested speakers. Consider something in the price range and quality of the Neumann KH 120, or equivalent.

You will also need (or should have) headphones. They come in two basic types, (i) open-bak and (ii) closed back. The former is used for mixing and the later is used for overdubbing or if you want to listen to yourself while you are recording. Spend more on the open-back ones as they will involve more critical listening.

As to mics, I would suggest looking into a pair of small diaphragm condensers (for acoustic guitar), a robbon mic (for your electric guitar amp) and a large diaphragm voice over mic (for your voice overs). Again, you don't need to go overboard here, as there are dozens and dozens of good choices.

Yes, an iMac is a great choice, but so is a quality built PC. ProTools runs on either.

Originally Posted by FlyWilde

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5. DAW: Current concept is to go with ProTools.
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I've used ProTools for about 20 years, since version 4.xx. I just upgraded to version 2019.5. For what you will be doing, it is rather easy to learn. Put another way, there will be about 500+- features in ProTools that you will never use or care about. You can use it to sync your videos and your recordings, although I have little experience with that.

Hope that helps.