What's Your Studio Set-up?

[rparker]

I was thinking recently that we must have quite a diverse group of studio set-ups amongst us.

By way of introducing this topic, we're in a great era for home recording right now when one considers the number of options we have compared to a few short decades ago. The gear and software selections are seemingly endless. Noobs like myself are truly spoiled.

There are examples of albums made even 20 years ago have been at least partially recorded in small home studios. Tom Petty illustrates efforts made to that end in a book I read this past Winter. I can only imagine the scene of Petty, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne hanging out in a hallway because they could only fit one at a time into Mike Campbell's home studio.

So, what do you folks use? What are your plans and aspirations for your studio? How did it get to this point? Likes? Dislikes? Do you have both a mobile version and a dedicated home-use version? Are you on the digital bandwagon, or did you stay analog?

Write as much or as little as you wish. I'll chime in with mine in a while.

[Alan Green]

I have an 8Gb Windows PC running Audacity.

Tascam 2488MKII 24-track hard disk recorder

"Truth" monitors - 150W - seriously good piece of kit

Marshall amps - 50W and 10W

Yamaha Bass amp - 15W

Tascam 414MKII 4-track tape recorder/ mixer putting out to a Samsung speaker system

Boss Micro BR for portable 4-track digital recording

AKG mics and Sennheiser headphones

Yamaha keyboard

And an old hi-fi attached to the sound system in the PC

[EzraplaysEzra]

Great topic.
I have a newborn and I'm Mr. Stay at Home Mom (See where all those fancy degrees will get you, my wife holds down the 925) I have regular access to an actual analog studio, but needless to say I don't get much time over there right now. So, I was thinking about putting together a little studio in my office with what I have here just to be able to work out parts. Right now, I write something bring it to the studio, give it to the musicians and have at it. Than I get the tracks dumped to drop box, look 'em over and do the over dubs in the next session. We don't rehearse, the guys (drummer and bass) get the charts if they're lucky and we do it in a few passes. This methods got some pros and cons, pros are a "pushed" performance cons being $. So I hope to be able to get the guys and idea prior to the clock running on me.

Here's what I'm planning on:
I've got two Sony Stereo Hi-VHS with sync. Great analog comp and noise ratio, good head room and super long play.
Two track fostex reel to reel with lovely preamps for vocals.
Sony mini disk
Powerbook Pro with cakewalk, Garage band and Audacity
Soundcraft board
ARP/Fender Chroma Polaris
Iso Box, Speaker emulator, Mics, Ashely Comp/limiter, Rane EQ

What I'm planing to do is either record the tracks to VHS and dumping them to digital. Mixing them digital and dumping the master stereo back to VHS then converting back to 16 bit for duplication or tracking them digital and mastering stereo to the VHS and converting. I have had a lot of success dumping analog 8 tracks live to digital and isolating them for production there than doing dubs in both domain depecding on space on the anolag program. I hope to get to thid in the next few weeks between the end of breast feeding and the beginning of teething. Man, what has become of me, I've partied with George Clinton! Anyhow, I'll let you guys know what my less than $200 base studio produces. $200 being free digital sequencer, a used VCR and an old board and D/A converter.

[boxboy]

I have a modest setup, all digital.
No amp, the guitars go into the computer (MacPro tower) though an 'antique' Tascam audio/MIDI interface, as do the mic and keyboard, for recording in Logic Express.

All instrument 'voices' provided by Logic Express, except guitars, where I also use Guitar Rig for modeling.

Out to self powered Altec Lansing speakers and/or M Audio Audiophile headphones.

Likes and dislikes:

My Tascam unit isn't very full featured by today's standards, but what a trouper! I bought it used maybe 8-10 years ago for 180 bucks and it's still chugging away. Rugged, all metal chassis; I've knocked it on the floor more times than I can count and it's never skipped a beat.Super driver support by Tascam over that time.
Sadly, Tascam's newer stuff seems cheaply made in comparison. Compelled to compete on price I guess.


The M Audio phones were an impulse buy and not recommended. Very boomy and super uncomfortable.

Great topic, Roy. Looking forward to reading what everyone is using.

[Nuno]

I have a modest setup, too.

A couple of MacBooks (an "old" PowerPC and the new Intel-based). Cubase and GarageBand.

Audio Kontrol 1 (I want to check its MIDI I/O). And a Studio Project condenser mic when I record acoustic instruments or I want to use the amps.

Fender Champion 600 guitar amp (5W) and EBS Classic Session combo amp (60W) but usually I use a Korg Pandora for amp emulation (or GarageBand).

[rparker]

There's already an interesting variety not to mention a few similarities. Cool!

It's interesting that some are still using Audacity. I didn't really understand digital recording all that much until I moved on to Reaper, but now I'm not sure I needed to. Good thing Reaper is cheap.

Well, here is my stuff. As you all can tell, I have too much time on my hands and a very short attention span. Oh yeah, and an adolescent's approach to GAS.

Mobile:
laptop running Windows 7, Reaper, Blue Yeti USB Mic, Guitar Rig LE, A guitar with a USB output that I pick up with Guitar Rig

Home:
- Eleven Rack(11R) for Guitar, a mic pre, line Ins for drum audio and bass audio and a M-Audio Axiom keyboard
- Several nice amps to use, but mostly use the Eleven Rack for guitar recording.
- Sans Amp DI box for bass -> 11R -> DAW.
- Pro Tools 10 DAW. (Came "free" with the 11R and I fell in love.)
- M-Audio Axiom 49 key MIDI controller / keyboard (I was using an old Casio until a couple of weeks ago)
- Shure Beta 87A condensor mic
- Studio One B1 condenser mic
- the afformentioned Blue Yeti USB mic
- Guitar Pro for drum and other instrument MIDI file generation to use with Pro Tools Virtual Instruments
- Band in a Box software for backing track generation as well as some generic MIDI file generation for similar use as the Guitar Pro software
- Mackie 8" monitors (the "cheap" ones)
- Audio-Technica ATHM50S headphones

Dislikes:
- My mobile set-up is angering me due to the flakiness somewhere in my Epiphone ES339 -> ASIO -> Guitar-Rig -> Reaper set-up is creating some intermittent static problems. I have to click on the device in the ASIO control panel or unplug the guitar to get rid of it.
- All my eggs are in one basket on the digital front, and it seems to be a popular brand to bash. (Avid/Digidesign/M-Audio) I do worry that some of the short-cuts being suggested by others that may have taken place may come back to haunt me.
- My vocals and guitar playing skills. (Had to slide that one in there again)
- My son's old electronic drum kit (Simmons) does not play well with Pro Tools (or other DAWs from what I've read), which results in having to pick up his playing with an audio signal instead of using MIDI to control the cool drum kit in PT.

Likes:
- The Eleven Rack is the bomb, even with it's limitations. (The Boss entry in the guitar processing market was oh-so-flexible)
- The Virtual Instruments in Pro Tools (and the VI expansion pack) are a blast.
- The amount of written material, You Tube videos and web sites that use my gear and software for tutorials is immense.
- tons and tons of material to learn and promptly forget. My guitar playing has improved a great deal as I become more and more immersed into the whole music making world. The downside is that I am not becoming an expert at any one particular thing.
- My office/studio room is too small.
- If I had the space, I could record drums, vocals, guitar, keys and bass at the same time with each instrument having a dedicated input. We have done three. (drums, bass and guitar)

That's about it. (MUST LEARN CONTROL)

[Nuno]

Roy, my mic is also the B1! When I bought it, the salesman did a test with the mic and a tube preamp. I have never got that tone again (he already told me I wasn't be able to get it without the preamp).

[rparker]

Roy, my mic is also the B1! When I bought it, the salesman did a test with the mic and a tube preamp. I have never got that tone again (he already told me I wasn't be able to get it without the preamp).

It seemed to me to be a bit more user friendly to sing in to. I have not done any of it in quite some time, though.

That does sound a bit unfair to me. Testing it out on a fancy tube-pre, even if you know it's not going to be the same. then you've got that in the back of your head for quite some time. I had a similar thing happen to me while guitar shopping once. The dude tried to plug me into a Fender Twin Reverb when I was test driving guitars. I called him on it and he just smiled as if caught.

[jwmartin]

I have a Windows 7 PC running 64-bit Reaper. Currently using USB as my interface, would love to go to Firewire so I could do more than 2 tracks at once. I have a 10 channel Yamaha mixer that I use for input/monitoring along with a Samson 4 channel headphone amp. Mics: AT2020 large diaphram condensor for vocals, a couple of SM-57s, an AT2021 small diaphram condesor I use for acoustic guitar, a pair of Behringer C-4 small condesors I use for drum overheads, and a couple of Shure dynamic vocal mics for live stuff. For guitars, I either mic my Peavey Bandit with an SM-57 or I use my Line-6 Floor Pod directly into the board. Bass, I usually mic with the 57 and run the DI into the board and blend the tracks during mixing. I want to get a better bass mic that can double as a kick drum mic too. I also have a cheap little ART TubeMP preamp that I use sometimes for vocals or guitar. Monitoring is through a pair of KRK Rockit 6's. Sometimes I use my Behringer BCF2000 MIDI controller with motorized faders while mixing.

My wife just got a new laptop, so if I can get her older laptop's USB ports working again, I'm going to put together a mobile studio with Reaper, a USB sound card and my little Behringer 6 channel mixer. Currently, I just use my little Zoom H2 digital recorder.

[rparker]

Jeff, have you ever done the mic every piece thing with your drums? (either real or digital) My digital kit (Strike) has the seperate mix window as I'm sure most do. I've read off-hand comments regarding EQ'ing individual components' tracks as needed before sending the group of drum tracks to a Reverb or something. Looks pretty complicated, but I bet it makes it easier during mixing to adjust levels than to have to re-generate (or play) the whole thing.

[jwmartin]

Jeff, have you ever done the mic every piece thing with your drums? (either real or digital) My digital kit (Strike) has the seperate mix window as I'm sure most do. I've read off-hand comments regarding EQ'ing individual components' tracks as needed before sending the group of drum tracks to a Reverb or something. Looks pretty complicated, but I bet it makes it easier during mixing to adjust levels than to have to re-generate (or play) the whole thing.

Never have with real kit, most was snare/kick/2 overheads. With Addictive Drums, I can go 16 separate channels but I rarely do because I don't tweak the drums too much. I have messed with doing what you are talking about, but I usually just find a pre-set I like and stick pretty close to it. Maybe throw a compressor on the whole kit and send it to the reverb send.

[rparker]

I've been exploring my Strike VI drums this week. Quite fun. I did a smaller 5-track thing as my machine started to object due to total track count getting up there in a song I'm doing. I love all the control one can have, but I'm not there yet. I'll explore for a bit while trying to get the beat down in there that I've got floating around in my head.

I ended up doing lot of PC clean-up and software updates. I still need somme RAM, but it's behaving a bit better.

[Alan Green]

I ended up doing lot of PC clean-up and software updates. I still need somme RAM, but it's behaving a bit better.

I upped my PC to 8Gb RAM the other week. it makes a big difference even if you're "only" working with Audacity.

[rparker]

There was a big sale on it. $22 per 4gb stick. I went ahead and went all in and maxed out to 16. It's lightening now. No burps and hiccups. A little slow still on app load, but that's a load of disk re-write and cpu.

My biggest bust was gatting my USB keyboard synced back up. It didn't like where I put it when I put things back in the ports. 15 minutes change RAM, 45 minutes to key keys sync'd up again.

[TRGuitar]

My setup is modest. Audacity is free. Big plus there. A PC, a Behringer USB interface to connect a mixer. I have a tiny 4 chanel Behringer Eurorack one that fits on my desk nicely but I do have a 12 chanel Mackie I can use if I want. I own a variety of outboard gear that any of can be used. Compressors and effects and the like. I have two SansAmp guitar amp emulators for direct recording and a variety of microphones.

How about a acoustic guitar and a mic in front of my face? I hadn't recorded in ages so after reading this I was moved and did this last night.

http://soundcloud.com/wickedfester/astronomytr

It works