Funny you should ask...I'm a guitar player (26 years) and have put together a few studios of my own (ALWAYS on a budget). Without writing a novel, here's a few basic tips I hope will help you...
1. Pipe in all power anywhere even near your equipmet to avoid AC hum (EMT, well grounded of course)
2. If you have any fluorescent lighting in your house, either get rid of it or make sure it's off and remains off during recording.
3. Don't let any audio cables, no matter how well shielded, lay over concrete. This may be difficult to impliment, but well worth the trouble in avoiding hum infiltration.
4. Make sure you have enough ampacity and outlets to handle your equipment. Put extra outlets and/or 4S boxes than you need, and outlets even where you think you will not need them, because you will...
5. Use XLR balances cables whenever possible. They are designed to cancel out unwanted sound, and are far superior to even the most well-shielded single conductor cables.
6. Not related to electrical persay, but install a "phone flasher" (available at Radio Shack for around $25) and turn off your ringer permenantly if you have a phone down there. In fact, turn off all your ringers in the house. A perfect performance is sometimes hard to get and easy to ruin...
And most important, have fun and good luck!
-S Cannon
