Equipment Advice

Greg Alan

Greg Alan

New member
I am in the process of installing my equipment into my new home studio. I have purchased a 12X24' building, insulated with spray foam and installed new electrical with Power conditioners and a Heat/AC system which will work virtually silent thanks to being able to route the duct work into the foam insulated rafters. I have installed LED lighting which I was told should also have no interference with the recording and eliminated the florescent lighting I started with.

My flooring is impact resistant stall mats I found at our local Farm Supply and they have been sealed so that feet can also move virtually silent. I have tried to take all precautions in order to eliminate any interference in my sound. I have moved on to my recording equipment and have installed a 3TB computer with the fastest processors I could locate, and was given a brand new TASCAM 24 track Portastudio recorder by a friend who is under the impression that it might be of some use and save me some headaches in the recording process. I installed a 16 channel snake from the booth to the recording area, and I also have a TASCAM digital interface installed in the booth rack along with another power conditioner. I have all instrument plugs and the power for the boards on different breakers to keep any bleed over from happening.

My question is this. Have I missed anything in the preparation and set up of the infrastructure of the studio? I have purchased some Shure 360 mics for recording as well as some SM58s . I have not yet purchased recording software, and booth monitors as I am not yet sure about what I have done so far. As a novice I am trying to read and learn as I go. I am about 6 months behind due to some problems I encountered, but I am now back on track and I think I am ready to move on to the next steps. Is there anyone who can think of what I may have missed in setting up the studio so far?

Thanks,

Greg Alan Edwards
 
I'm not sure how helpful being "insulated with foam spray" is going to be. It may be a good thermal insulator, but is it a good acoustic insulator? You will most likely find that you have to give the room more acoustic treatment than you've outlined so far.

It's nice to be given a portastudio, and it may come in handy. But if youare going down the interface-computer path, then I expect it will sit there gathering dust.

How are the 'booth' and 'recording area' configured within the 12 x 24 building? At 12 x 24, the building is not very big, and you may be better off by not dividing it up. UNless I have misunderstood and they are not co-located.

I don't know what Shure 360 mikes are, so I can't comment on them. Your 58s will always come in handy, and great for live work, though not my first choice for recording.
 
You say power "conditioners" Greg? Folks don't tend to find much use for them in UK but maybe your supply is noisier? An Uninterruptable Power Supply is a very good idea for the main computer and monitor so you get 10-20mins power to save and shut down in the event of an outage (but DON'T forget a UPS powered light. Can't run a keyboard and mouse in the fekkin dark!)

Which Tascam interface do you have? 3TB PC drive? Is that the system "C" drive in the PC? If so put another one in it to save recordings on AND get a USB 3.0 external drive for back up AND save critical stuff to a cloud (Google give you 10G for free, that's a lot of songs)

12 by 24 is unfortunate, you never want one room dimension an exact multiple/divisor of the other. How high is the room? I will not say anything about sound treatment as there are professionals here, except that you effectively have none and WILL need some.

No mention of monitors? Spend as much as you can here even at the expense of track count, more mics, building work (NOT ST tho!)

And no, I cannot find a Shure 360 either! You will need at least one good, big side address capacitor (rare reccy..Sontronics STC-2 quite "neutral" for a biggy) . Several small diaphragm capacitors among them a stereo matched pair would be nice.

Recording software, "DAW": Many people are doing great work with Reaper but it is likely that you will want more than one DAW, e.g. if you start doing a lot with MIDI Cubase is the dog's.

Dave.
 
Shure Mics

arcaxis said:
Closest to a Shure 360 I can find ......... :)
Shure Model 330 | RecordingHacks.com
Click to expand...



My apologies, folks. I should have been more clear. My other Shure mics are SM27. We always referred to them as 360 degree mics because they are the large diaphragm that record in all directions. My bad. I should have put the model number on there. They are switchable from low to high impedance. My foam insulation was shot into the walls. The walls are covered with 3/4" OSB and then I am hanging some of my wife's quilts over each wall to deaden sound. The ceilings are 8' high with can lighting and the ceiling is also covered with OSB. The Building size is also slightly different. It is 12 X 28' and the control booth is a 6'X5' corner carved out at the entrance of the building on one end. I have it set up as a single suite, with the booth behind framed walls and insulated glass.

SM27 Multi-Purpose Microphone | Shure Americas . Thanks for all the replies. It really helps.
 
And I havent bought monitors yet. Was hoping for some sage advice on good quality at a budget price??....lol
 
I think that the biggest questions to ask here are:

- what are you planning to record in this space? Drums, electric guitar, vocals?
- are you tracking and mixing in the same room?
- what are your requirements for noise getting in and out of this room?
- what are your goals for this space? Having fun with friends? Recording professionally for pay?
 
Greg Alan said:
And I havent bought monitors yet. Was hoping for some sage advice on good quality at a budget price??....lol
Click to expand...

Sorry, there is none. Yes there are monitors that "will do" in a very small room and for non-critical hobby use but for any half serious mixing purposes you will need to spend a few bob.

Some say there are no monitors worthy of the name under $5000 a pair, others are less critical and say $2000 but for sure THAT is the price area you should be looking in. As with room treatment, there are many here far more qualified than I to advise on monitors but you have some 2,600 cubic feet to fill and IMHO you should not be looking at bass cones under 6 inches and no less than a combined power of 80watts per side.

And! Don't hang the duvets on the wall! Make some "GOTOs" and mount them on those.

Dave.
 
You're going to need to set up the big room for recording AND mixing - a 5'x6' room is way too small to be anything but a 'control room' - a place to keep noisy computers and listeners.
Do some reading on 'acoustic treatment', and bass traps. Quilts on the walls won't do a lot for you except tame some of the high reverberations.
 
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