Help The Newbie

[thecuriouscouch]

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ok so my name is john and i have het to even aquired my recording equipment, BUT its on its way. im workin in this garage that i made into a new room , theres ample space...right. im kinda just wondering if anybody would like to help a 17yr old kid get his future started and give any helpfull tips you can think of for starting his studio

[Cyrokk]

Welcome to the board!

One of the most important things you will need to get decent recordings is a good room to record in. If you are converting a garage, you will probably need absorption materials to soak up all that reverb. For a cheap solution, try to score some old rugs and blankets and hang them on the walls.

The other important tools for recording are decent mics, decent nearfield monitors, and engineering skills (which comes with research and experience).

What kind of equipment are you getting? Is this for recording just yourself or will other musicians be using your studio?

[a2n3d7y]

Bah!
Reflections are ok. In my opinion a little natural space sounds better than most synthetic verb. And Im a verb JUNKIE even.

Everything depends on the sound you want as ALWAYS.

Here's a few humble sugestions. Take em or leave em. It's all about personal taste and thru expierience you'll find your own nitch. So just do it as much as possible. Give it a few years and allot of searching the net and most likely depending on how serious you are you'll be laughing at the advice you get from Guitar Center salesmen and for that matter most people who think they know what they're talking about but actually just want people to think they know what they're talking about. DONT be one of those people. Question everything. Anyways...

SET "GOOD" LEVELS. Sometimes a compressor is necessary...especially for a beginning bass player. especially when recording digital. double especially when doing both ha.
The sooner you learn how to use compression the better. It may even take years to fully grasp how to use it in order to have it do what you want it to do. hah. Took me along time anyways.
DON'T BE AFRAID OF OVERLOADING MIC-PREAMPS OR ANY OTHER INPUT. If it sounds cool anyways.
USE EQ FOR CORRECTION. NOT AS AN EFFECT. NOT TO BOOST. ONLY TO CUT OUT WHAT A SOUND DOESN'T NEED. Shit just goes wrong when you start boosting the lows on the bass and the highs on the hi-hats. You naturally think you should EQ stuff just cuz its always there, but shoot for not using any EQ at all. There is so much SOUND in a multi-tracked recording...or even a live band for that matter....dont just turn something up when you can "notch out" a piece of something else. Every instruments frequency range is unique.
DONT FIGHT FOR 1 K the center of the audible fequency range for humans is 1K or 1,000khz AKA MIDRANGE or MIDS when refering to audio. Something a band rarely collectively thinks about (but good engineers/producers do) is the overall sound of the BAND from a listeners point of view. Let eachother breathe man. If you can't tell who's playing what on what guitar or cant really tell the bass apart from the guitars, and then add a loud drummer (who's snare drum usually lies somewhere near 1K) and vocals (human voice is pretty much 1K dominant) THEN YOUR BAND WILL SOUND LIKE CRAP!!! IF not actually be PAINFULL to listen to.
You wont HAVE TO BE as loud as you think if you're not fighting for the same frequencys.

Thats all for now. email me if you want dood.

[selkindrummer]

You can spend a ton of money on things to make your studio nice. Here's my band's studio setup:

Behringer 24 input mixer (there are several models of these mixers that have different input and output options) - $300
Fostex MR-8 digital workstation - $300
Behringer Compressor Pro-XL - $110

That's basically it besides drums, mics, guitars, bass, monitors, etc. So as you can see, it all depends on what kind of studio you want to do. I highly highly recommend one of the Behringer mixers. The 24 input mixer has 100 built-in effects, aux sends, and all kinds of stuff. We use ours for live music and recording, so it's very versatile. We have had a lot of success with their products. Sorry to sound so vague, but you'll have to explain more as to what your studio needs to accomodate.

[apl]

I used a TASCAM US122 and a Rode NT3 to record the song in my signature line. I spent $300 for both.

I think it came out pretty well.