Essential pieces of equipment to a studio rack??

[SecondHeartbeat]

what is the general standard to what ou should have in your rack for a home studio?

[Creamyapples1]

A good start would be:

Power Conditioners
Preamps
Compressor/s
Reverb/delay
Patchbay/s

[SecondHeartbeat]

what kind of preamps?

like recording channel ones or mic pre's or what?

[Creamyapples1]

Depends on what else you have I suppose. If you are using a decent board and were happy with the pres it has, then rack pres would be optional.

[Dogbreath]

Good list from the Creamy dude... (I feel kinda wierd writing that)

but I might add a UPS (uninteruptible power supply) as well. Saved my ass twice.

[Track Rat]

That would totally depend on what you were doing. Like recording full bands (real drums, real amps, etc) or just yourself, one or two tracks at a time. And how much disposable income you can dispose of to that end.
For me, 12 stand alone mic preamps, an HD24, a MOTU 2408 to get in and out of a computer, 8 different reverb/delay units, 14 channels of compression just for starters. If it was just me all by myself, a mic preamp or two would be it. That's casting a wide net.

[foreverain4]

i would start with a recorder. (yes, my ass is smart)

[BigRay]

Suck buttons

GOOD preamps

GOOD Converters

GOOD power conditioners

stuff you dont have to upgrade..

[SonicAlbert]

Some good posts so far.

The first most important thing is along the lines of what Track Rat already said, which you have to determine what it is you will be using your studio for. All you gear choices will flow from that.

So if you are doing vocal and a single guitar tracking, then a couple mics and two channels of preamps would be the appropriate starting point. If however, you will be recording bands, then obviously you'll need a different set of gear, and more of it.

As a basic tracking type studio where you might want a couple channels available at a time, the following would be kind of a starting point, assuming you already have a computer and sound card:

A couple mics, two channels of preamps, good AD conversion. From there, probably the most useful tracking tool would be a compressor.

For mixing you would definitely want to add a rack reverb unit, plus possibly an eq. A patchbay would also make things a lot more convenient for you.

So you list is actually pretty good, but again the important thing is to know what you will be recording and then design the gear choices around that.

[peopleperson]

None of that stuff is gonna stay in without rack screws.

[killthepixelnow]

Get decent gear, not cheap one. Avoid Behringer on racks.
-Digirack
-Tube preamp
-Power amp
-Expander
-Compressor
-FX Signal processor (mainly reverbs and delays)
-Patchbay

[SecondHeartbeat]

Originally Posted by SonicAlbert

Some good posts so far.

The first most important thing is along the lines of what Track Rat already said, which you have to determine what it is you will be using your studio for. All you gear choices will flow from that.

So if you are doing vocal and a single guitar tracking, then a couple mics and two channels of preamps would be the appropriate starting point. If however, you will be recording bands, then obviously you'll need a different set of gear, and more of it.

As a basic tracking type studio where you might want a couple channels available at a time, the following would be kind of a starting point, assuming you already have a computer and sound card:

A couple mics, two channels of preamps, good AD conversion. From there, probably the most useful tracking tool would be a compressor.

For mixing you would definitely want to add a rack reverb unit, plus possibly an eq. A patchbay would also make things a lot more convenient for you.

So you list is actually pretty good, but again the important thing is to know what you will be recording and then design the gear choices around that.

Thanks dude that helped me out ALOT.

But I've got a few questions and yes Im aware im one of those annoying nubes but i only plan on recording things one at a time. Does that mean I still need to have more than one channel?

And could u possibly explain to me what an Expander and a Patchbay do??

Thanks to all for you feedback.

[Creamyapples1]

Multiple pieces of the same gear would be to use during playback, mix down, etc. Say you are mixing through a 16 channel board, using 13 tracks and you want compression on just 6 of the tracks, the compression for track 1 may not be suitable to track 2 and so on. I mean, you can live without a crazy setup like that, but that's the idea of it anyway.


Patchbays are rack mounted and all of the ins and outs of all your gear run to the back of it. Then all of your cable routing is done with patch cables on the front of the patch bay, so you don't have to get in behind the rack and switch out cables, and under your board and behind your PC everytime you want to try something different, or using the above example, if you have 4 different compressors, you can patch them into whatever you want without leaving your chair as opposed to tracing cable and rerunning a stretch to your board multiple times, every time. It's really the lazy mans dream, esspecially if you have multiple rack units, boards, etc.

[SecondHeartbeat]

Originally Posted by Creamyapples1

Multiple pieces of the same gear would be to use during playback, mix down, etc. Say you are mixing through a 16 channel board, using 13 tracks and you want compression on just 6 of the tracks, the compression for track 1 may not be suitable to track 2 and so on. I mean, you can live without a crazy setup like that, but that's the idea of it anyway.


Patchbays are rack mounted and all of the ins and outs of all your gear run to the back of it. Then all of your cable routing is done with patch cables on the front of the patch bay, so you don't have to get in behind the rack and switch out cables, and under your board and behind your PC everytime you want to try something different, or using the above example, if you have 4 different compressors, you can patch them into whatever you want without leaving your chair as opposed to tracing cable and rerunning a stretch to your board multiple times, every time. It's really the lazy mans dream, esspecially if you have multiple rack units, boards, etc.

thanks alot.

so where would i end up plugging that in to my computer?
is there like a main output of it that all the effects would run out of?

[Big Kenny]

Tom from DBX writes "If the expander is a downward expander it is essentially a gate. If is is an upward expander it will actually increase the dynamic range of the program material. i.e. the opposite of a compressor. If a signal goes below threshold, the upward expander will increase the volume of said signal. Mastering guys use upward expansion to "de-compress" overly compressed material."
A patch bay is simply a clearing house for all your rack gear, you run your ins and outs through there to alleviate the need for crawling around behind your stuff to plug it into your signal chain. At your point, with one or two pieces it is not necessary

[SecondHeartbeat]

would anyone of these beacceptable for my purposes?
im kinda on a budget....

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...ors?sku=185277

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...ors?sku=184132

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...ors?sku=241101

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...ors?sku=480830


of course if anyone else has any suggestions PLEASE let me know

[punkin]

The DMP3 is an excellent choice.

[Big Kenny]

what'syour budget?

[Chris Shaeffer]

Here's a quick snippet of my mobile rack with the patchbay.

See all the cables in back? Then all the jacks on the front of the patchbay at the bottom?

I have a bunch of short cables (patch cables) and I can create any chain of all the gear in the rack by popping a few cables into the patchbay. Not in the picture is another bay just below- that goes to all the insert jacks on my mixer. So right there at the bottom of the rack I can route any combination of gear in any order to any track on my mixer.

Beats crawling around behind it messing with long, tangled cables.

More useful for analog mixing, but can come in handy if you're using good analog gear to record into a DAW. I lived for years without a patchbay until I switched to mixing on the analog board. Now I can't live without it.

Take care,
Chris

[SecondHeartbeat]

Originally Posted by Big Kenny

what'syour budget?

preferably somewhere within 100-150.

im also saving up for some mics and im kinda short on money cuz im having to pay for part of my rehab.....

will the DMP3 also work for direct recording guitar?
cuz right now im just going straight from my digitech rp-80 to my computer.

[SecondHeartbeat]

Originally Posted by Chris Shaeffer

Here's a quick snippet of my mobile rack with the patchbay.

See all the cables in back? Then all the jacks on the front of the patchbay at the bottom?

I have a bunch of short cables (patch cables) and I can create any chain of all the gear in the rack by popping a few cables into the patchbay. Not in the picture is another bay just below- that goes to all the insert jacks on my mixer. So right there at the bottom of the rack I can route any combination of gear in any order to any track on my mixer.

Beats crawling around behind it messing with long, tangled cables.

More useful for analog mixing, but can come in handy if you're using good analog gear to record into a DAW. I lived for years without a patchbay until I switched to mixing on the analog board. Now I can't live without it.

Take care,
Chris

wow thats a shitload of cables haha.

the only question i still have is how do i get them all to run with my computer?

i have very limited inputs cuz im running the creative pro e-mu 0404.

[scrubs]

shiny knobs and flashing lights are very important.

[EdJames]

Is your knob shiny then?

For what this guy wants I'd almost be inclined to recommend just getting a decent mic, preamp and soundcard. From there you can record most things and rather have DECENT basic equipment and build up than have 10 pieces of rubbish kit right?

[chris-from-ky]

Hey Sec. Tell us what you've currently got to work with because quite frankly, 150 clams won't do jack for putting "essentials" in your rack.

My suggestion, if you're serious about this, is you always need at least two channels for stereo recording so:

~Assuming you have at least 2 mics already~
FMR RNP/RNC combo
(2) Speck ASC EQ
~Assuming you plan to record to a PC~
RME interface

If mics are on your list too, then go for a couple of AT 4040's and a Shure SM57.

Yes, I've blown your budget through the roof but, it's what's best for you if you're serious about recording. I'll also mention that you need an acoustically treated room. Spend some time reading up on that and treat your room with bass traps, absorbers, etc. Good gear in a poor room is actually worse than poor gear in a good room.