Home Studio/Recording

[Moonoffruits96]

Quite a few of you have home studios and or recording studios. I would love to see your studios and maybe give some advice here on how to setup a home studio or recording studio like for i.e. what mics to use etc.

[jtmckinley]

It depends on what you want to do and your budget as far as any advice on home studios goes moono, but I'm happy to put up my setup if that's useful.

[cplj1885]

Consider me a blank slate moono and all you other recording aficionados.

[jtmckinley]

OK, here's what I currently have, though I'm not recommending any of this equipment, tech changes too quick and I'm out of date:

DAW: Cakewalk SONAR 7 producer edition
Computer: Dell Dimension 8250 with 1 GB RAM
A/D/D/A: MOTU 2408 mkIII with PCI 424 card
Preamps: Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro, Focusrite TwinTrak Pro
Mixing Board: Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro
Guitars: Strat Plus Deluxe w/ lace sensors, USA Strat, USA Tele, Epiphone Dot (Gibson 335), Ibanez student classical, Martin D41, Ovation Adamas full bowl barritone, Dobro Duolian, Monroe banjo, Kentucky mandolin, Ibanez SDGR bass
Saxophone: Yamaha Student Tenor
Congas: 2 LP Aspire
Bodhran: Custom 12" that I bought whilst in Ireland and tuneable via allen wrenches
Harp: small Celtic Harp received as a gift
Guitar Amps: Fender Cyber Twin, Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue (complete with stupid distressing, but it sounded good so I hadda buy it), Fender M80 with 4x12 closed back Fender cab that works with all (obviously)
Digital Guitar Processors: POD xT w/ FBV shortboard
Keys: Kurzweil PC2x 88-key weighted Fatar board and orchestral upgrade, used Roland JP-8080 rack mount module, Roland PC-200 midi controller
Drums: Roland TD-20 BK kit w/ a couple extra e-cymbals, SPD-6 drumpad
PA: Bose PS-1 w/ sub
Nearfield Monitors: KRK V4 powered
Cans: Sennheiser HD280 pro 64 ohm
Other Software: Reason 3.1 with all the PH free sample libraries, various plugins for SONAR, one of my fav plugins is the Lexicon reverb plugin that comes with SONAR PE, cakewalk continues to add new plugins in each release, they have several useable ones
FX: Line 6 Delay Modeler Pedal (big green), Ibanez Super Chorus, Ibanez Tube Screamer, Cry Baby Wah, Alesis Microverb and Multiverb
Mics: Shure SM58, Beta 87, 2 SM 57s, 2 AKG C1000S, Neumann TLM103 w/ shockmount
Disk: as much as you can afford after buying the rest

[drgeorge]

Wow JT, lets jam!

[OverHillandDale(Admin)]

Well, JTM, we certainly can see where all your money goes. Quite impressive.

[progzealot]

casio keyboard
magnavox cassette player
1 microphone

[PeterG]

Macintosh.

[GORT]

WOW jtm, impressive. Is your dobro electric ? I've been looking for one.
Electric dobros are hard to find in my parts.

[thehealingroad]

Depends on what instrument you play, Moono!

I started with a small Mac, GarageBand software and a cheap keyboard. The results were impressive. Now I use a M-AUDIO keystation pro 88 Keyboard, a small set of Roland V-Drums (incredible possibilities), Apple's Logic Pro and an iMac. My V-Drums are still connected to the old Mac Mini. It's all an awful lot of learning by doing. Logic Pro (or the new Logic Studio) is good if you want to work not only with Midi but also with real instruments. If you have to integrate real guitars, basses or drums, you need good software with filters, compressors and all that strange stuff. ;-)

hans

[Borfus]

My two bands have a rehearsal/recording studio in which we have intalled a mid-level recording system which consists of:

Mac G4
Digidesign 002 interface
ProTools LE with producer's pack extending it to 48 tracks
PreSonus digimax 8 channel mic pre w/lightpipe output
Yamaha 01V digital mixer (which we also use live - best music equip purchase I've ever made, hands down!)
Mics: AT 4030;Shure SM57s and 58s; pair of cheap Nady pencil-type condensers (they sound pretty good, actually...); Shure Beta 52; AKG D112 (the egg); Audix D2 and a couple of Audix condenser Beta 98 knockoffs; other misc. mics
Some old Bose monitors
other sundry music equipments as needed by the bands.

I've got to say that I just love ProTools.

Borfus

[jtmckinley]

Originally Posted by drgeorge

Wow JT, lets jam!

Sure drgeorge, if you're in Detroit sometime let me know.

Originally Posted by OverHillandDale

Well, JTM, we certainly can see where all your money goes.

Hehe, true enough Dale, although I've been playing guitar since I was 15 and am now 43 so I've had 28 years to collect stuff. Actually I haven't bought any new music gear in over a year, my house and my new TV have sucked up all my disposable income recently

Originally Posted by GORT

Is your dobro electric ? I've been looking for one.
Electric dobros are hard to find in my parts.

No GORT, it's acoustic, chrome metal body with a Hawaiian kinda motif on it. I don't think I've ever seen an electric Dobro Duolian although they might (probably) exist.

Very true about the learning curve for the recording/engineering stuff Hans, but from what I've heard on the Moon it sounds like you've gotten it figured out pretty well

Sounds like a cool setup Borfus. I don't have any, but I have read those little pencil mics work pretty good for drum overheads.

[Borfus]

Originally Posted by jtmckinley

Sounds like a cool setup Borfus. I don't have any, but I have read those little pencil mics work pretty good for drum overheads.

Yeah, they are OK. Been getting good response using them for cymbal mics rather than overheads - with the larger sound sources, they tend to kind of be a little britte and not as distinct as I'd like. I'd really prefer some higher-end mics to replace them, but I've got some other priorities first...

Here's a picture of the studio in action - the keyboardist is my co-engineer: