Holding out for better recording environment?

[Tadpui]

Hi all,

In your home studio, do you ever find yourself putting off recording because of an impending improvement? Like a backordered piece of new gear that you'd rather wait for, or that updated computer that you've been meaning to get, or that acoustical treatment that you've been meaning to install?

In my case, we're planning to finally finish the basement where my "studio" is. Concrete walls on 3 sides, just framing on the 4th, no treatment, awful acoustics...but I've never let that stop me from recording and mixing down there. But now the prospect of actually having walls that I can treat, corners that I can trap, an actual room that I can set up from the inside out...that's made me really reluctant to actually lay down any of the ideas that I have. I find myself holding out for a finished room and a treated space. It's gonna be such an improvement (especially psychologically), I can't seem to work up the motivation to go record in a reverbarant, cold, damp basement when I know that it'll be so much more hospitable and acoustically sound in the next 6 months.

Heck, I haven't even been listening to the MP3 Mixing Clinic lately either. I feel like my listening environment is so crappy that my opinions on mixes is pretty much null and void.

 

[Steenamaroo]

I've always felt that someone should outgrow what they have before they move on.
Does your current environment genuinely prohibit you from creating something worthwhile, or from learning?
You could literally spend your whole life doing nothing because you've a new mic in the post, or new monitors, or acoustic panels, or..or..or..or......

Having said that, why waste time recording your next project in an awful environment if you're doing a full refurb in two weeks.

There's a line to be drawn. Just work out where to draw it.

 

[fat_fleet]

It drives me crazy not to play, but that's me. Usually I do what I can with what I have. If I make an improvement to my setup and feel strongly enough about the difference in sound, I re-track what I think could be improved.

 

[Mr Clean]

I went 3 months without any recording gear when I packed everything away to store while readying to move house. It should've only been around a month but the house sale/solicitors turned to shite. It was worth the wait though for the room I have now. I can make music all night long at good volume and not disturb anyone in the house or nearby neighbours.

My room is set up now and I use it all the time while still adding to it. Going to make some bass traps next month.

I don't see the point in waiting around to be creative if you have the means.

 

[mjbphotos]

It really depends on YOU and your schedule. If it will only be a few weeks ot get the new room finished and you have no personal deadline on recording songs, then wait, or just lay down some scratch tracks for now. On the other hand, if you need to finish up some songs for a scheduled release or to have downloads/CDs ready for an event, dont waste time, you can always retrack what needs to be done.

 

[miroslav]

When I moved about 15 years ago....I just unloaded all my gear into the designated studio space, and it sat for a good year and a half while I built the console furniture and racks, and did the wall treatments....and finally ran all the new audio snakes from the patchbays to the racks....so while I could have jury-rigged some basic setup to do some playing/recording....I wanted to get the studio "finished" as best as I could before really diving back into recording.

That said...it's never really "finished"....I'm always making adjustments.
A couple of years ago I added a 24-track tape deck, and for awhile it just sat in the middle of the room while I pondered where to locate it. Took me about 8 months before I finally decided what I wanted to do with it, which involved a remodeling of one area of the studio to get the deck fitted in the way I wanted and also to move a whole rack of gear to a different position. During that time, I only did some test recordings with the tape deck, and pretty much didn't do anything serious until I got it sorted out.

 

[dobro]

Hi all,

In your home studio, do you ever find yourself putting off recording because of an impending improvement?

Nope. I just keep doing it, no matter what else is happening. But sometimes when I'm mixing an album, I'll learn something about mixing that's really useful and then go back through all the mixes I thought I'd finished and apply the new knowledge.

Must be a matter of different personality types. Mine's sensible.

 

[PDP]

When I moved about 15 years ago....I just unloaded all my gear into the designated studio space, and it sat for a good year and a half while I built the console furniture and racks, and did the wall treatments....and finally ran all the new audio snakes from the patchbays to the racks....so while I could have jury-rigged some basic setup to do some playing/recording....I wanted to get the studio "finished" as best as I could before really diving back into recording.

.

Sounds like a real nice setup. What console did you build ? What brand is the 24 track ?

 

[muttley600]

Not with my recording setup no. I have a pretty heath robinson setup as it is.

I can empathize with the "sit on it" attitude from my workshop point of view though. I used to shuffle jobs around waiting until I had time to fix that jig or improve that setup.. Not good as this is my living. These days I force myself to tackle tasks in order and do those jobs that are on the back burner even if it means midnight in the workshop. I just stop every hour or so and check in here to refocus my efforts...

 

[muttley600]

When I moved about 15 years ago....I just unloaded all my gear into the designated studio space, and it sat for a good year and a half while I built the console furniture and racks, and did the wall treatments....and finally ran all the new audio snakes from the patchbays to the racks....so while I could have jury-rigged some basic setup to do some playing/recording....I wanted to get the studio "finished" as best as I could before really diving back into recording.

Thats exactly where I am with my setup. We moved a few years back and I still have stuff in boxes.. We are planning another move soon as I have scored a nice plot of land nearby with permission to build bespoke workshops and studio space as well as a nice pad for the family... Looks like my procrastination was correct..

Gonna be a long and expensive project though.. I'm doing the money sums this week end. Wish me luck...

 

[Tadpui]

Cool, thanks for the replies everyone. I definitely value your input. It's funny, I vacillate between the same thoughts that all of you have as well:

- screw it, just do it. I can always retrack later, or
- might as well wait till it's going to be right, or
- it'll never be perfect, so holding out is just wasting time

My main bonus is that I'm strictly a hobbyist. Nobody that ever hears one of my songs (except you fellas) will ever know the difference between a vocal tracked in a hard, reverberant concrete basement and one done in a nice lively room with controlled mids and highs. I don't have any delusions of grandeur with this whole hobby. I just love doing it. So no timelines or deadlines are involved, just my own mental health.

With such a blank slate of a room, I figured that I'd do it up right. I even bought Rod Gervais' book on home studio construction and design. And as I read through it, I'm starting to realize that doing it right will be something that I'm only going to want to pay for once. I may not be in this house long enough to really make a full-on Cadillac isolated studio space worth the expense. And honestly, "mediocre" to "pretty good" would be a huge upgrade for the room. I think that I can make a few key decisions about the room while it's in its skeletal state and end up with a space that'll be acoustically OK, but will still be a functional bedroom when it comes time to move.

So I think that the gist is "STFU and go record something"

 

[Bobbsy]

When I moved about 15 years ago....I just unloaded all my gear into the designated studio space, and it sat for a good year and a half while I built the console furniture and racks, and did the wall treatments....and finally ran all the new audio snakes from the patchbays to the racks....so while I could have jury-rigged some basic setup to do some playing/recording....I wanted to get the studio "finished" as best as I could before really diving back into recording.

I wish I had your self control.

I moved a couple of months ago and was firmly resolved to spend time putting everything together neatly and "right' Then came the need to "just listen to this" then the need to "just try out these new radio mics" then the "all I need is a slamming door effect".

Then I finally got around to taking my mixer down to Brisbane to have a faulty fader replaced (I'd attack an old Soundcraft or A&H but it takes a braver man than me to open up a Yamaha digital) and I'm now left with a rat's nest of disconnected cables etc. and orders from SWMBO to finish her coffee table before I start working on the studio.

 

[miroslav]

Sounds like a real nice setup. What console did you build ? What brand is the 24 track ?

No...not the "console" itselff.........just all the furniture and racks.
It took a bit of time to build, but it's like an L-shape unit in trhee sections that goes across the corner of the room. Console/rack on one wall, and then some desk space and then more racks on the side wall...with wheels so that the entire console desk/racls and the side racks can be pulled out away from the wall when I need to get behind them.
That took me maybe a couple of months of part-time building. The wiring of the patchbays and making miles of snakes, and then loading all the racks and connecting all of that, plus working out any issues....that took awhile longer.

The tape machine is an Otari MX-80 2" 24-track deck. Prior to that I was using a 16-track machine (still have that).

I wish I had your self control.

Self-control had nothing to do with it.
It was driven by sheer madness.

I had a new studio space, and it was better/bigger than the previous one, so all the little shit that I didn't like in the past, I wanted to correct this time around, and much of that included the overall layout and how everything was going to fit.

Heck...like a year or two later after I did all the initial building and wiring.... at the other end of the studio, I wasn't happy with this 2-closet setup. I was making use of them, but they just didn't work well into the whole studo vibe. I hated how that end of the room looked. So, one weekend I removed all the gear from that side of the studio....and began ripping out the closets and the divider wall.
Took me another month of futzing with it....but in the end the result was better than I expected...and that side has become my "wall of guitars", which looks cool because I left the sides and to edges of the closet frames, so it's like an alcove, and I put a bunch of acoustic panels up in there at the top to suck up whatever got trapped in there,

I don't thinkmy studio really done yet. I feel a major remodel somewhere in the near future, as I've had this "bigger-n-better" studio plan in my head from day-one....but it involves the "deconstruction" of two other rooms, and then construction of some proper studio treatments....so I'm waiting for the madness to set in one day when I just decide to go for it.