My studio plans.

[brsanko]

Hi I'm kinda new to recording but I'm a fast learner and I am an audio hobyist so I have some knowledge of sound and electronics. I'm getting a settlement from a law suit soon and have decided to build a recording studio in my basement. The room is aproxametly 12' x 20' x 7'6". I'll try to post a drawing and my wish list so far. Let me now what you think of my choices and please feel free to offer any suggestions. I'd like to keep my initial investment right around $5000. The drums will go right in front of the bed. This picture is by no means to scale I just drew it up quick on Paint. Due to the small size of the room I think I will treat most of the bare wall surfaces. I have a large piece of carpet 3.5' wide running from the bed about 3/4 of the way to the mixing desk. The rest of the floor is cement, as are the walls. The ceiling is covered with a soft brown particle board of some kind looks pretty aborptive(sp?). I think making the room very dead will probably sound better than dealing with the sonics of a very small reflective room. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think I'll place the guitar amp and speaker under the counter by the sink. on top of that counter sits my casio keyboard I left it out of the drawing because I am a lazy individual. I will probably run a MIDI cord straight to the computer from the keyboard. I don't think the mixer has MIDI on it.

So that's about all I got so far let me know what you think.

[Supercreep]

I'd stay away from SM58s.

Why do you need 4 603s?

I'd save as much as you can on mics and put it into your drumkit or your interface. A cheap interface will bottleneck your system, but a bad sounding drumkit is impossible to "fix in the mix".

You can get great drum sounds with four microphones. Two 603s, a D112, a V67, and an MD-421. The 421 is great on snare and guitar cab and makes a good vocal dynamic as well. Maybe a cheap multipattern LDC like the new Studio Projects B1 or whatever for a room mic or whatnot.



You can save another 500 bucks or so on your monitor setup by just picking up a pair of Behringer Truths or some Wharfdales. Why do you need such an elaborate monitoring setup?

You can't have too many bass traps, I understand. Get 'em across as many corners as you can afford.

Welcome aboard, BTW.

[OhSh1rt]

Originally Posted by Supercreep

I'd stay away from SM58s.

Yeah if I remember correctly the 58 is exactly the same as the 57 but with a different windscreen

I do agree that you would probably be better off by putting less money into monitors.


I also think you should have a larger variety of mic's, even if it means having less. Buy some cheap Naiant mic's (http://www.naiant.com/studiostore/microphones.html) (which do beautifully on toms), and a nicer pair of overheads


Depending on how what interface you get, you may not need that large mixer. If you plan on doing your mixing in the box then an interface with preamps built in may be a better solution, and then get a control surface (such as Behringer B-Control Fader BCF2000)


That's just my few things

-jeffrey

[brsanko]

Well as I mentioned earlier I am a audio hobyist and I've been obsessed with speaker building for about 10 years thats kind of why I went hog wild with the monitors. If it's all the same I'd kinda like to stay with my monitor design it's kind of my pride and joy. Call me eccentric but I spent a lot of time and research on the design. As I said $5000 will just be my initial investment I'm sure the rest of the setup will catch up with the monitors in a couple of years. I'm pretty flexible on everything else so please feel free to give suggestions for mics, drums, amp, mixer, interface, ect. Thank you for responding so quickly.

[rayc]

Get rid of the bed.
Is this going to be your hobby studio or is it your bedroom with a studio in it?
You'll have to do something about all the straihgt lines.
Shower or dunny as vocal booth?
If you're a real audio head get a nice stereo too.
As Supercreep says BASS TRAPS - every nook & cranny otherwise the super speakers with be super wasted.
You've some unltrcheap stuff like the h/phone amp running some expensive gear like the h/phones - ewill they do each other justice? How will you power those speakers?
A 300 bill compuuter to do all the work?
The relatively cheap source (drum kit) will need almost as much cash in decent room treatment gear to deal with it in the room.
I'd do a lot more sussing about before spending it all in one bang.
Start with you monitor set & and room treatment & work from there.
Oh, g'day, welcome & good luck.

[brsanko]

Also I like the Idea of having a large mixer with analog capabilities because I also have an Akai 1/4" reel to reel that I can record to incase someone wants an analog recording. I put down 4 603s so I could use 2 as overhead drum mics and two for general room mics, but as I mentioned I'm just a newby so please tell me if this is overkill. I also included 2 d112s because I figured I could use one for kick drum and one for micing a bass cab. I assume good mics and micing technique are very crucial to good sound, so any pointers or advice on how to use them and which ones to use for what would be apreciated. I realize this is a pretty broad spectrum of topics so I won't expect too much. I'll be researching the rest of the site as well, and asking more specific questions throughout thanks for your help.

Brett R. Sanko

[brsanko]

Oh yeah I didn't mention I will be powering the Monitors with some amps I already have. A Nikko STR-7070 a receiver from the 70s that sound fabulous, for the tweeters, a Marantz PM300 Integrated for the woofers and a Technics SU-V96 for the sub. eventually I'll probably get a 5 channel amp to power them but these should work well for the time being.
And Yes actually it is my bedroom too. So the consensus seems to be to spend more on acoustics and the mixer/interface. I'm not really familiar with the particular unit I chose it just had all the features I was looking for and was quite afforable. If it is low quality please let me know and tell me what to look for. As far as the computer is concerned all I need to buy is a motherboard, CPU and memory. I already have a case and PSU as well as a 200GB hard drive, a DVD burner, Monitors, keyboard, mouse, ect.
I figured how much O.C. 703 I would need to cover most of the bare wall surface, and put diagonal in all the corners and included that in the budget do I need more treatment than this? If so what? I was overwelmed by the number of inexpesive condeser mics on the market and don't really know which ones to choose. I want a really good one for vocals (as I am a singer) and four more for over head drums and general room mics. I've heard it's often good to have two mics on the kick drum and mix them together to get the right sound, is this something I should consider or is it something way beyond my scope that I should worry about further down the road? I guess that's enough questions for now I have so many more but I have plenty of time to ask them and some of them are more purtinent to other threads.
Thanks,
Brett R. Sanko

[brsanko]

I wish they would make these things so you can look at the other posts while your replying, I keep forgetting to address all the questions. Yea that is a shower but I s'pose it could double as a vocal booth or something, a little small though. The headphone amp is for the cheaper phones for the performers. The expensive phones will be plugged into the marantz or possibly the mixer, or a better headphone amp that I didn't put on the list yet. Oh and Supercreep thank you for being specific I'll definitely do some reasearch on the mics you mentioned. I know absolutly nothing about mic models so any help woud be great I guess the sm57 and sm58 are the two that keep comming up everywere I read so I assumed they were good. But then popularity and a famous name don't alway mean much, I mean hey most people think that Bose speakers sound good, why because they spend alot of money on advertising. Ask anyone who knows anything about audio they'll tell you they're crap. So that's why I'm askin' the questions hoping you guy know your stuff

Thanks again
Brett R. Sanko

[brsanko]

Well that's kinda weird within hours of posting I have three replies and now nothing for days.