Starting my own Home Studio

aqua2374

New member
Hi all,

I finally purchased a home, and will have a dedicated room for my recording studio.

Up until now, I've always used my bedroom for amateur recordings. Now since I'll have a room, I need a studio to accomadate the following needs...

-record electric guitars
-record acoustic guitars
-record vintage synthesizers
-record eurorack modular synthesizers
-record drum machines
-have everything hooked up/synced to one another where applicable


Here's what I currently own...
studio computer - mac desktop
DAW - logic pro x
audio interface - Universal Audio Apollo
studio monitors - yamaha HS8 (x2) (thinking about upgrading to the biggest size available...currently experience a lot of "crackle" and "fuzz" with these)
guitars - fender telecaster, acoustic guitar
guitar amp - crappy line 6 amp I purchased in high school
synths - minimoog model d (monosynth), prophet 6 (polysynth)
drum machines/samplers - elektron analog rytm, octatrack
various other electronics - eurorack modular synth, roland tb303 clone

Up until now, I've pretty much been recording everything straight into my computer via ua apollo, including my telecaster. here's what I think I need...can you let me know? PS - I do NOT skimp and purchase crappy cheap gear, but not looking to get insane. Here's what's on my list, can you send recommendations?


Mic preamp - thinking about the universal audio 2-610
Analog compressor - thinking about the 1176, Empirical Labs Distressor (x2), or both
(also thinking about the universal audio 6176 channel strip)
mixer - looking for recommendations? no idea where to start
MIDI - looking for a midi patch bay...I think there's one by MOTU?
Audio Patch bay - so I can have everything hooked up at once. Recommendations?
Guitar Amp - thinking about the Fender Deluxe Reverb 65' Reissue OR the Vox AC30 (or both)
Guitars - some sort of hollow-body (used to own a Gibson ES335), Fender American Strat
Guitar Pedal Board - looking for good pedals...spring reverbs, delay, compressor, looper (good for writing on the fly)
Mics - SM57, SM58 for sure, looking for other recommendations for acoustic recordings. I don't sing, but thinking about recording my electric guitar thru an amp and my acoustic guitar, and if a project gains a vocalist...obviously a mic that can do vocals will be good
Samplers - thinking about some sort of MPC, maybe the new Pioneer sampler
Drum Machines - Tempest, Linndrum MK2, 808, 909 are all on my wishlist, but won't be immediate
Synths - Juno 106, always expanding my eurorack

Basically, I would like all my electronics all synced together, absolutely everything hooked up for ease of access, I would like to focus more on making music and nerding out on eurorack than obsessing over microphones, recordings, mixing/mastering, etc.

Any help and suggestions and pointers is much appreciated, thanks!!!
 
First I'd be concerned with the 'crackle and fuzz' you're getting from your current monitors. Why? If the speakers are shot, then replace them. (easy to check - how is the sound in headphones?)

You've got a lot of gear on your shopping list, I'd recommend starting slow, getting a whole bunch of new gear leaves you trying to learn everything at one time, and not getting full use of anything.
What do you have for a room? Have you thought about acoustic treatment for it?
 
I am with Mike..Slow TF down!

Top of the list is to post a plan of the room with dimensions NOT forgetting ceiling height. Then, depending upon size of room, monitors can be considered. Personally I would look for something bigger, more powerful but also more accurate. Focal, PMC, Barefoot, Adam, Neumann. These and a few others are in the top range of monitors ('Massive' John might comment here?) Get the room properly treated and a pair of top line monitors and you could record with a Behringer £150 AI, an SM57 and a £100 SDC and get truly great results. Crap (well, 'low end') monitors in a crap room and £10,000 worth of mics and electronics ain't worth didlly.

Since Synths seem to loom large, you need a good LF extension and you might think "sub"? My reading is they can cause more trouble than they solve and if possible look for monitors that are big enough (cones) and powerful enough to get to 30 Hz'ish on their own. But, ALL this revolves around the room! A 'small' room necessarily put YOU in the middle and you won't get much bass.

New guitar amp? Yes, won't argue there but for 'studio' work look for something versatile and low in background noise. Must not spam so I will just say "check ME out and the word "Artist 30"

Yes, a patch bay (or six!) is going to be needed but this would not be 'me' here if I did not say "are you well grounded in basic electrics and can you solder?"

Dave.
 
So basically, I need to actually get into the room first it sounds like. I'm still closing on the house and moving in towards the end of April...but shopping now for gear since I'm excited I FINALLY don't have to be a "bedroom producer" so much anymore.

Most of the synths (all) will still be recorded directly into the box, I'm just shopping for studio mixers, EQs, Compressors, etc that I can run them thru. The mixer is mainly so I can have everything hooked up at once and record in Stereo if I'd like.

For Acoustics, I really only will be recording Acoustic Guitar via mics up to the guitar and Electric Guitar either directly into the box or with mics up to my new potential Amp. Up until now, everything has gone directly into the box...which has more or less made my Acoustic guitar pointless, since when I use its output into the input of my audio interface, it sounds no different than an electric guitar being recorded in. I want it to sound "acoustic" "chimey" and "natural".

The synths are great, but they are mostly a hobby and something I can nerd-out on. Unless I'm making specific electronic music, most of my work is guitar-heavy.
 
Are you recording solo or plan on having other musicians in the room recording simultaneously? If only doing solo stuff, your equipment used in the 'bedroom' setup was probably more than adequate. Room treatment and some monitors would likely be the biggest areas of improvement. Everything else are marginal improvements, depending on what you're replacing and willing to spend on the replacement. The mic preamp would only benefit vocals - which you say you don't record, so overkill IMO for mic'ing guitar amps. Guitar amps themselves are fine if you're not hearing something you want from the modeling software/VST, but the quality of the latest modeling packages makes a strong case for not needing amps for home recording.

I'm with everyone else - plan this out. Determine your actual needs. Buying a bunch of gear you don't need is wasteful. You have a mortgage to worry about, right? ;)
 
So basically, I need to actually get into the room first it sounds like. I'm still closing on the house and moving in towards the end of April...but shopping now for gear since I'm excited I FINALLY don't have to be a "bedroom producer" so much anymore.

Most of the synths (all) will still be recorded directly into the box, I'm just shopping for studio mixers, EQs, Compressors, etc that I can run them thru. The mixer is mainly so I can have everything hooked up at once and record in Stereo if I'd like.

For Acoustics, I really only will be recording Acoustic Guitar via mics up to the guitar and Electric Guitar either directly into the box or with mics up to my new potential Amp. Up until now, everything has gone directly into the box...which has more or less made my Acoustic guitar pointless, since when I use its output into the input of my audio interface, it sounds no different than an electric guitar being recorded in. I want it to sound "acoustic" "chimey" and "natural".

The synths are great, but they are mostly a hobby and something I can nerd-out on. Unless I'm making specific electronic music, most of my work is guitar-heavy.

Yeah, you're not getting me. No matter what music you are doing you cannot make valid judgments about unless you can hear it properly.
Usually the "proper" studio guys here (I am not one) tell 'newbs' with little cash and small bedrooms to 'do the best they can' with some $300 ish monitors or the best headphones they can get..YOU are not in that slot. Assuming you want to keep recording for a good while, start with the best you can afford in terms of monitors and room treatment.

Still don't have those dimensions?

Dave.
 
Yeah, you're not getting me. No matter what music you are doing you cannot make valid judgments about unless you can hear it properly.
Usually the "proper" studio guys here (I am not one) tell 'newbs' with little cash and small bedrooms to 'do the best they can' with some $300 ish monitors or the best headphones they can get..YOU are not in that slot. Assuming you want to keep recording for a good while, start with the best you can afford in terms of monitors and room treatment.

Still don't have those dimensions?

Dave.

thanks bro, for your "dimensions." huge help
 
Generally...you seem to have a good overview of what you have and what you need...and how everything is kinda supposed to come together.
If you feel that is true...then buying a bunch of gear all at once makes perfect sense.
When you piecemeal it....there's always the possibility of something coming along and getting in the way of future purchases....so don't let the money burn a hole in your pocket. ;)

If you do have some questions/concerns...get them sorted first, so you don't buy something that turns into an "oh shit" moment.

Best advice...put your money first into the room and the monitors. You don't need to go nuts and turn the room thing into a science project that becomes detrimental to any recording progress...but filling up the space with audio gear...and then realizing it should crappy in there, and you need to treat it...is only going to cause you more pain.
For monitors...don't go cheap. You don't need a $10k monitor system...but basically you will need to drop at least a couple to get something that you won't want to upgrade a year down the road.
Of course...all that is dependent on you goals and how serious you want to go.

After that, good preamps and mics are always going to be of value....and then whatever other hardware you think you will need.
If you're planning some kind of analog/digital hybrid thing...then you have to cover both ends...but if you're mainly going work ITB, you really don't need to waste money on a lot of hardware rack gear. A preamp(s), maybe a "strip" type deal like you mentioned, and if you really think a serious compressor or EQ will be of benefit...but odds are, they won't get as much use in an typical ITB setup, because you won't want to compress and EQ a whole lot during tracking...though you can if it's the sound you want.
Just saying that before you by a lot of rack gear...think about how it will fit into your recording/mixing SOP.

I'm not getting why you think you need a mixer in order to "record in stereo"...???
You can do that with just a 2-channel interface to the DAW...or as many channels as you think will be recording simultaneously.
That said...a small mixer can be beneficial if for nothing else...simply to set up cue mixes while recording...though that is also possible via your DAW and interface(s)...it just take a bit more finessing.
 
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