Need help with studio upgrades!

[Iowa Recorder]

Hi all,

Been a long time lurker but I'm confused enough this time to post.

I have mostly been working as a studio player but the last 7 years
been doing my own little projects. Lately business is booming and
I've decided to upgrade to something more professional. I have alot
of projects coming up! (At least by my standards) I have a remote
recording of a 6 piece band, a couple band demos, and several studio
CD projects. From my point of of view it was necessary to upgrade
from my old reliable 8 channel DAW and go to a 16 channel DAW. A
friend of mine who runs a studio thinks I'm crazy. I hope I'm not!

My choice is two 8 channel delta 1010-lts running on AMD 2.2/nvidea
chipset MB. I'm assembling the new system this week-end.

The problem is the interface with the 1010 cards. I have never used a
mixer board for my studio. I've also been quite limited in my monitor
mixing for my customers because of this. With my old sound card I had
an external patch bay with 1/4 inch inputs. With the the 1010s I
won't have an external patch bay. The 1010s just have a short snake
with RCA connectors. With my old DAW I've always just plugged into a
mic pres or simply ran straight into my sound card's external patch
bay. I've actually been happy with the direct sound. I thought about
building a patch bay for the 1010s but while at it I might as well
just get a mixing board and run the RCAs into the board. Right? So
for the new system I'm looking for a board to connect to my 1010s and
to mix monitor mixes. Probably a USED board as I'm limited to 600$

1. All I need is a 16 channel board? Or do I need more channels for
flexibility? So many variables...... argh...

2. Would a digital mixer work for me? I have little understanding of
them and would like to hear about the advantages or uselessness of
such nonsense. I'm very happy with the software automation in my
Sonar 2. Still I'm thinking a mixer that interfaces with sonar might
speed things up a bit. But would I have the input channel interface
with my 1010's and monitor mixing capability?

3. I have read so much about having mic pres and yet I have recorded
direct using good mics and have been very happy with the results as
well as my customers being happy. I hear very little diferrance
between using my mic pres and going direct. I have never noticed that
hard, brittle sound folkes have talked about. So if I was to get a
board I would rather it be as transparent as possible. God! In so
many ways I don't know what to ask. I do know I go for as natural of
a sound as I can. (I'm a big fan of minimal miking.) Any
recommendations on used or new boards that would fit my needs. Or if
this is the wrong course of action. I'm bugeted at around 600$

By and far this has been my favorite newsgroup to read. Proud to post
here.
Is Peter Larsen still around? Ok... I've asked enough.... ;}
Best regards to the helpful people here.

Mike

[Raymond]

(Iowa Recorder)
>wrote Date: 12/18/03 8:34 PM Eastern Standard Time
>in Message-id: >

>From my point of of view it was necessary to upgrade
>from my old reliable 8 channel DAW and go to a 16 channel DAW.

Well all the gear your listing here is great but what about the rooms your
recording in, tell us a bit about them.

[MikeOfW]

>Well all the gear your listing here is great >but what about the rooms your
>recording in, tell us a bit about them.

That was going to be my next question. I have three rooms. One is a beutiful
large basement family room with a fireplace, nice lighting and plush furniture.
The other is a large unfinished basement storage room. The other is a
basement guest bedroom. I have been just working with my DAW right in the
family room but am thinking to move the setup upstairs to a spare bedroom so I
dont have to use head phones for tracking. I know I'll need to have a good
talk back system.

I'm not really happy with the family room as it is carpeted and has alot of
plush furniture. It's a really dead room but I have gotten some great
recordings out of it. The storage room is cement floor and cement walls but
with lots of shelves with boxes. I havent used this room yet but would LOVE to
put the drums in there and work with the room ambiance. So the storage room is
nice and lively but fairly warm. The guest bedroom is carpeted like the family
room so it's a fairly dead room as well. Much like a isolation booth.

Anyway I'm planning to use these rooms and move my DAW to an upstairs room. I
guess this means running a snake down to the basement but hopefully others have
more elegant solutions.

I mostly plan to use the family room so the bands can have eye contact. It's
large enough for a band and I can still get fairly good isolation.

I can't do alot of mods on these rooms as it is a really nice house which we
plan to sell in a couple years. My fondest hope is in a couple years to get
some off site space like a basement in a downtown office building to remodel
with barn board paneling and oak flooring but that depends on the income raised
from recording projects...

I'm right now apprenticing in carpentry just for that goal...

Kind regards
Mike

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> That was going to be my next question. I have three rooms. One is a beutiful
> large basement family room with a fireplace, nice lighting and plush furniture.

How about a pinball machine, wide screen TV with surround sound, and a
wet bar? Sounds like it would make a good lounge and place for the
musicians to hang out, rehearse, tune, and snack.

> The other is a large unfinished basement storage room.

Great machine room. Put your noisy computers in there.

> The other is a basement guest bedroom.

Probably too small for a band, but might be OK for a control room or
an isolation room.

> I have been just working with my DAW right in the
> family room but am thinking to move the setup upstairs to a spare bedroom so I
> dont have to use head phones for tracking. I know I'll need to have a good
> talk back system.

Having a separate studio and control room is a good idea, but consider
how inconvenient it will be to move a microphone if you have to trot
downstairs, move the mic, then trop upstairs again to listen to what
it sounds like. This (or you) will get old fast.

> I'm not really happy with the family room as it is carpeted and has alot of
> plush furniture. It's a really dead room but I have gotten some great
> recordings out of it.

I think this is the second time in as many days that I've seen someone
express the sentiment "It really sounds great but I'm not satisfied
with it." What do you REALLY mean? What part doesn't sound great? Or
would you just rather not have to clean up the mess after a session so
the rest of the family won't get after you?

> The storage room is cement floor and cement walls but
> with lots of shelves with boxes. I havent used this room yet but would LOVE to
> put the drums in there and work with the room ambiance.

So try it. The boxes will probably act at least somewhat as diffusors,
but you might find that you have annoying slapback echos or get some
comb filtering caused by close reflections nearly as loud as the
original sound getting into the mics.

> Anyway I'm planning to use these rooms and move my DAW to an upstairs room. I
> guess this means running a snake down to the basement but hopefully others have
> more elegant solutions.

You might consider using the spare bedroom as your control room and
using an upstairs room as an isolation room. It might work out to be
more convenient, and make for less running up and down. If you have a
singer upstairs, rather than having to go up there yourself to move a
mic, you might just have to ask him or her to move a couple of inches
one way or the other.

> I mostly plan to use the family room so the bands can have eye contact. It's
> large enough for a band and I can still get fairly good isolation.

Eye contact is a good thing. Another approach when tracking is to have
a singer in the control room with you so the band and singer can have
eye contact. It might not be the keeper vocal track because of leakage
from the monitors into the vocal mic (or maybe you decide it's a great
vocal take and you can live with the leakage, but don't count on it)
but having eye contact between the singer and the band will help keep
them together. But how do you get this eye contact? Is there a window
between the family room and somewhere else? If you're looking through
an open door, there goes your isolation between the studio and control
room.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[MikeOfW]

>

>How about a pinball machine, wide screen TV with surround sound, and a
>wet bar? Sounds like it would make a good lounge and place for the
>musicians to hang out, rehearse, tune, and snack.

Your post really flipped my head around. Yes, this is a great idea!

>
>> The other is a large unfinished basement storage room.
>
>
>Having a separate studio and control room is a good idea, but consider
>how inconvenient it will be to move a microphone if you have to trot
>downstairs, move the mic, then trop upstairs again to listen to what
>it sounds like. This (or you) will get old fast.

Time to hire someone... hehehe... Yes, I realise this . I just don't see any
other choice unless I want to modify the house with a centraly located control
room. Right now there is NO control room. One good thing about the house is
it is a split foyer and the stairs are centrally located so getting up and down
isn't too hard. Hey I'm still in shape... hehehe

>

>I think this is the second time in as many days that I've seen someone
>express the sentiment "It really sounds great but I'm not satisfied
>with it." What do you REALLY mean? What part doesn't sound great?

Good point and I have read this as well. What I mean there are rooms you play
in and you find yourself saying it sounds great in here! Then there are rooms
you play in that are too lively and your 1/4 notes end up being 1/79 notes -
that sucks. Then there's the dead rooms that are ok but not alot of character.
This room is dead - not alot of character - and for the most part for
recording that is what I need.
What I'm mostly unhappy with is the carpet and wish for a wood floor.
>
>You might consider using the spare bedroom as your control room and
>using an upstairs room as an isolation room. It might work out to be
>more convenient, and make for less running up and down.

This really turned my head around. I walked upstairs and clapped my hands a
few times. That's how I test rooms. There is ALOT of room upstairs with the
living room/dining room/kitchen in one connected area. Lots of sunshine too.
Plenty of room for a band and better character in the sound of the room. The
only concern is the high vaulted ceiling. But by clapping my hands I did'nt
hear any boominess.

But how do you get this eye contact? Is there a window
>between the family room and somewhere else? If you're looking through
>an open door, there goes your isolation between the studio and control
>room.

This is well thought out Mike. If I have the control room in a bedroom the
singer would be in the main room with the band doing a scratch vocal and then
doing vocals later as overdubs. I almost always do this for CD projects as I
like to give the vocals alot of time and attention.

What really got me thinking is I can use ANY room in the house according to the
needs of the project. I think I'll use that approach for any upcoming
projects.

On a side note I'm sure there are a few who would read this thread and go -
this guy is doing this for money??? Yes, I would love to have the 100,000$$ to
build a dedicated studio that would look good in pictures in a brouchure. How
much business would I get from a brouchure? I don't know. Somebody tell me.
How much business would I get from someone reading a list of expensive
equipment? I don't know. I hope someone can cue me in on that. I quite
curious about it.

I do know the best studios in our area get alot of business by referal and
repeat customers. That's what I focus although I do hope in the future to have
a snazzy brouchure. Every customer that comes in gets the very best I can do
because I want them to be nothing short of thrilled with the product. Whether
its a cheap demo or a lengthy CD project. I want them to come back and
definately want a positive buzz going around about what I do. I go overboard
in making every recording the best I can do of my ability. May charge them for
20 hours but I usually end up putting in 40 hours making sure everything is
perfect. I want repeat customers and want the word to get out. It seems to be
working.

I have seen several guys in the area invest large bucks in building really cool
studios but only getting little cash flow. I have decided to only enlarge my
studio according to the cash flow. Right now cash flow is increasing so now
I'm upgrading - again! Hopefully I can upgrade some more.

Thanks for your help.

Mike

[DJ]

I have tried the workarounds (different rooms with no visual communicaiton)
you are talking about. My experience has been that when tracking a band,
they are going to line-of-sight to you and to each other in order to be
most comfortable and you are going to want the line-of-sight also just to
stay in the loop. At least in my situation, when I'm tracking a band or
performer, I'm as much of a player as the musician(s). I'm playing the gear.
Withoutme and my gear, tey and their gear doesn't get recorded and it often
works better if I've got a visual of for what's happening. Sometimes, just
looking at a performer's body language can tell you what you need to do to
change something for the better. Running up and dow stairs to reposition a
mic will introduce a disruption in the flow of a session that incrementally
creates a higher level of stress into the equation each time it happens.
There's a big psychological factor to running a session. Smooth and
glitchless is good. I like to keep the musicians focused on the music (and
if it's a band the inevitable internectine jealousies and insecurities that
make them fucntion as they do) and handle the rest of it so that they don't
really have to think about logistics. Remodel the basement if you can.

Doug Joyce
Animix Productions
Durango, CO




"Raymond" > wrote in message
...
> If it where me Mike I'd remodel the whole basement and start from scratch.
It
> sounds like you've got a lot of square foot space down there so you can
plan,
> construct and set things up the right way.
> This will be costly, time consuming and you (and others) may not think
it's
> necessary but the key to a great pro recording is with the right rooms.
>
>