How can I make a home studio?

[tweeksound]

Not sure what the next step of making your own recordings would be?
It's probably simpler than you think.
Just ask.

[Otto]

Well, where are you now? Do you have any means to record anything? What's your budget?

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Matt,

What’s some of the good freeware you mentioned before? I’m using Audacity right now – fine for the price, but a bit clunky.

Regards,
Wayne

[garyatalchemy]

What is the purpose of your studio? Personal music projects, professional music & voice recording, audiophile listening, mastering, foley?

As identified by Otto, your budjet will ultimately drive your efforts. What are you trying to accomplish? If you have a budget, what are your priorities?

[tweeksound]

Sorry for my delay in reply. I seem to have come down with a bad case of food poisoning
Never eat sushi from a buffet on Sunday!

What’s some of the good freeware you mentioned before? I’m using Audacity right now – fine for the price, but a bit clunky.

Reaper is the best freeware I've seen yet.

Portable - supports running from USB keys or other removable media
64 bit audio engine
Excellent low-latency performance
Multiprocessor capable
Direct multi-track recording to many formats including WAV/BWF/W64, AIFF, WavPack, FLAC, OGG, and MIDI.
Extremely flexible routing
Fast, tool-less editing
Supports a wide range of hardware (nearly any audio interface, outboard hardware, many control surfaces)
Support for VST, VSTi, DX, DXi effects
ReaPlugs: high quality 64 bit effect suite

http://www.cockos.com/reaper/

I'll post some more cool links when I feel a little better.

Well, where are you now? Do you have any means to record anything? What's your budget?

Sorry if my original post was confusing.
I own and operate Tweek Sound and Mastering studio in Concord NH and I teach an audio engineering course called Audio Tools from the studio.

I was offering assistance on building a home studio to anyone interested.
Thanks for your help though!

What is the purpose of your studio? Personal music projects, professional music & voice recording, audiophile listening, mastering, foley?

As identified by Otto, your budjet will ultimately drive your efforts. What are you trying to accomplish? If you have a budget, what are your priorities?

Sorry again for the confusing post.

Tweek Sound and Mastering is a commercial studio for music (recording, mixing, mastering) and audio production and audio post production for film and video (ADR, mixing, field work, foley, surround).

I also do personal music projects when I can fit them in

I'd love to discuss recording gear and technique when I am well.
Thanks for the replies!

[Sonnie]

Sorry that you're not feeling well Matt... hopefully the poisoning will go away in a day or so.

[drf]

tweeksound wrote:

I'd love to discuss recording gear and technique when I am well.
Thanks for the replies!

done any side by side comparisons of pre-amps? or do you use whats in your board?

[tweeksound]

done any side by side comparisons of pre-amps? or do you use whats in your board?

I have compared the files that others have recorded and I really like the transparency of the DPS 24 stock pres.
It been generally agreed among DPS owners that you'd have to shell out some big bucks to beat the stock pres. And even then, it might be a different sound but not necessarily "better".

I'm looking into a couple more colored pres for vocals and other featured instruments like..

Apogee Mini-MP



UA 610



Any opinions on either or others? I'd also love an Avalon but my budget might not agree

[drf]

Heres a question that might help some people.

What do you think of Behringer mixing consoles? Are they remakes of mackies (I have heard this)? Are they excessively noisy? after mastering would you be able to tell a cheaper console was used?

I ask because quite often my clients get baffled with sales speaches or someone who thinks they know everything assures them that they must have the most expensive gear on the market. It seems to be getting hard to find unbiased opinions on gear that is considerably cheaper.

[tweeksound]

I have owned only one, 4 channel Behringer and that was years ago because I needed a small portable mic pre and phantom power. It did fine for that. Fairly noisy though. I have never owned a mackie mixer so I can't comment on differences and similarities between the two.

I have used both in live situations and preferred the mackie but they were different live situations so that could be contributable to any number of things.

after mastering would you be able to tell a cheaper console was used?

If you have good ears, absolutely. If you're 95% of the poulation... Probably not consciously, but I believe that to some degree, unconsciously you will enjoy the final master less. We are used to hearing things in a world with a 200 dB dynamic range, a precise frequency response, and in true stereo system that has millions of years of design behind it. Anytime you have anything less, it's noticeable.

The big $ are what get you closer to that ideal.

Mackie makes world known, highly usable studio monitors. Behringer doesn't.
If I had to place my money on which mixer will mix the signal better, I'd have to go with the brand that is better known for their professional quality audio gear. A good brand and a higher price usually means better preamps are being used, better converters and clocks if it's digital, and better build design.
These are the things that make a more transparent, clean, and dynamic mixer.

Plus I've seen a Mackie dropped off a 3rd story balcony and still work.


Here's a great piece of Behringer gear. A great use of $30.

[tonyvdb]

tweeksound wrote:

If I had to place my money on which mixer will mix the signal better, I'd have to go with the brand that is better known for their professional quality audio gear. A good brand and a higher price usually means better preamps are being used, better converters and clocks if it's digital, and better build design.
These are the things that make a more transparent, clean, and dynamic mixer.

Plus I've seen a Mackie dropped off a 3rd story balcony and still work.

Thats true but you wont see Mackie mixers used much in high end recording studios or for doing live concert mixes as thy are not nearly as good as some of Yamaha, Heath & Allan or Souncraft boards are.
I am starting to see more and more digital mixers. We just bought one from Yamaha for use at our church for the House mix and I must say that I am impressed I have run sound there for over 20 years and this digital 48 channel mixer is so slick.
Yamaha M7CL digital mixer


We recently moved to a new building and ran all cat6 cables for our mic lines and and dont use the standard XLR mic line snakes anymore.
Makie does make a decent mixer dont get me wrong but if you want the very best they simply dont do the job.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

I haven’t been especially impressed with Behringer mixers, which is pretty bad considering my extremely limited experience with them. We got a rack-mounted 24-channel mixer for monitor duties at church a few years ago, and right out of the box the EFX didn’t work, and neither does the solo function. No big deal with our particular application, but it is kinda galling. On top of that, pay very close attention to the LED meter column of each channel – when it hits red, it is clipping!!! Keep it wa-a-a-y below red!

And, last year I had a gig at another church across town that had a Behringer mixer with a dead channel. The church was pretty new – maybe just a couple of years old – so the mixer couldn’t have seen much use. I mean, can you imagine an easier “gig” for a mixer than a church? Just sits there and only gets used a few hours a week. Pretty sad.

By contrast, I’ve used several Mackie analog mixers, at least for live sound, and have never seen any problems. I really liked the 32-8 console our church used to have – sweet machine. Don’t especially care for the Spirit digital thing we traded it for.

Actually, these days, if you’re doing digital, I think your A/D converters are what’s going to make or break your sound quality.

tonyvdb wrote:

We recently moved to a new building and ran all cat6 cables for our mic lines and and dont use the standard XLR mic line snakes anymore.

Why Cat 6? That stuff doesn’t have near the noise rejection properties of shielded cable. Are they soldered to XLRs at both ends or what?

Regards,
Wayne

[tonyvdb]

Why Cat 6? That stuff doesn’t have near the noise rejection properties of shielded cable. Are they soldered to XLRs at both ends or what?
Regards,
Wayne

No its standard mic inputs at the stage but they only run about 20ft to a rack that has DACs that convert the signal to digital that run back to the Front of house mixer via cat6e. The signal is amazingly clean far better than we ever had using the old XLR mic lines. We also use an digital AVIOM system for in ear monitors.
Our Sunday services regularly have a full band (full drums, bass, electric & acoustic guitar, piano, keyboard and several vocals so it can be a busy job for myself or whoever does sound that week.
Having the digital mixer has proven to be fantastic as it remembers presets and many other settings that can be recalled at the touch of a button (all the faders are motorized).

[drf]

Its interesting to hear thee different opinions, If the rumour I heard is true then there should be close to stuff all difference between Berry and mackie????, Maybe a little bit of noise and reliability.

I personally have a soft spot for soundtracs Solo and sound craft.

I installed a berry 32 Ch. in my old church 7 years ago and it has received a fair pounding from amatures including having a table top droped on it. Suffice to say it worked flawlessly until 1 week ago when all the Leds failed, the desk still works you just can't see whats muted, whats clipping and what themaster levels are.

Edit: Tony, that digital snake you are using, does it suffer disconection problems when there is a hicup in the power? Only I ask becasue some of the earlier snakes had to be reset everytime there was a brown out or flicker

[tweeksound]

On top of that, pay very close attention to the LED meter column of each channel – when it hits red, it is clipping!!! Keep it wa-a-a-y below red!

This is a per-manufacturer sort of thing. With some boards you can hit red every once in a while and still be in the clear as long as you don't stay in the red. The very tip of the crest of the wave might just kiss the ceiling and cause an inaudible clip. That usually means the red LED is quick to react and set a little lower on the margin.
In the case your talking about, the red LED is set higher on the margin and doesn't light up until the signal is severely clipped.

It's kind of a preference thing. Things like EQ and other effects processors can also contribute to this as well.
You might be fine kissing red but then once you add a couple dB at some frequency further down the chain with EQ, you are now even hotter than you were when you hit red and you will clip the mix bus.

This is one of the reasons why it's generally good practice to steer clear of the red in any case.

Actually, these days, if you’re doing digital, I think your A/D converters are what’s going to make or break your sound quality

.

Exactly right. Your converters and your word clock are making the biggest impact on your sound.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

tonyvdb wrote:

No its standard mic inputs at the stage but they only run about 20ft to a rack that has DACs that convert the signal to digital that run back to the Front of house mixer via cat6e. The signal is amazingly clean far better than we ever had using the old XLR mic lines. We also use an digital AVIOM system for in ear monitors.

Sweet! I’m jealous – sounds way better than the Spirit digital console we have. I’m not especially fond of it. I like the memories and the 3-band parametric EQ, but that’s about it.

Regards,
Wayne

[CoteRotie]

The great majority of Behringer gear is cheaply made and a substandard rip-off of other manufacturers' designs. Mackie is a large step above Behringer. If you do a search on www.gearslutz.com you can see what mixing and mastering professionals think of Behringer.

Regards,

John