Bedroom Studio vs. Semi-Pro

[fb000]

What are the differences in gear between a typical home studio and a semi-pro or Pro?

i'll start by listing the typical bedroom studio may have:
keyboard or midi controller
2 Daw's (i.e. sonar producer, reason)
a $100-200 mic
$100-200 pre amp (i.e. blue tube)
a delta soundcard or $200 interface
and use all software compressors and fx.
and burns tracks to cd

Just from looking and reading I seem semi-pro home studios with more thaan just control surfaces but it looks like full mix boards. Outboard compressors and fx. Are they recording to tape or what?

A local professional studio owner I know said he doesn't believe in software so what does his set up consist of?

What else would a typical set up have beyond the bedroom level as far as gear is concerned?

[giraffe]

listen to multiple examples of the studios work (at least 5 different bands)
only results matter.

repeat after me,
only results matter.

[Harvey Gerst]

Most "pro" studios can record up to 24 tracks at once. 10 or 12 mics on drums, bass, miking 2 guitar amps, keyboards, and vocals - and all playing at the same time.

And enough mics to have some choices on each track as to what mic to use.

[antichef]

I'm in the heavy learning stage, but it occurs to me that the biggest difference between my bedroom setup and a semi-pro outfit is the room, including the treatments, blockage of outside noise, consideration for sound reflections, etc.

I've cobbled together a decent bedroom rig, but I pretty much have to get lucky to get a good track because of all that. It still happens sometimes, but I frequently have to remember that I'm doing this for fun and not for a living -- it can take days or weeks for me to get a track right, which obviously isn't an option for semi-pros.

[Massive Master]

Just look at the gear list of pretty much any professional studio and you can see it for yourself.

[Ironklad Audio]

bedroom studio: somebody has some gear sitting in the corner that they tool around with for fun. gear can be of any quality.

semi-pro: somebody has at least 1 entire room dedicated to their studio, and have at least a few people who pay them to do recordings...gear is at least decent quality.

pro: multiple rooms(live room, control room, iso/vocal booths), top-notch instruments and gear all around. engineer makes most, if not all, of their living off of the studio.

a pretty simple explanation, but it gets the point across

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Damn double-posts

G.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Bedroom studio: Drools at a locker full of under-$250 LDCs.
Pro studio: Wouldn't be caught dead with a single LDC in their locker that cost less than $600.



Seriously, one of the major seperations between the two is the amount they have invested in their mic inventory. Most even small "pro" studios have as much invested in microphones than most bedroom studios have invested in their entire studio gear list put together.

And it's been mentioned already; but your average "pro" studio can say the same thing about their acoustic room design and treatment; that they have invested as much in that as your average hobbiest has in his entire gear inventory.

G.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by fb000

What are the differences in gear between a typical home studio and a semi-pro or Pro?

Glen nailed it - the difference between a pro studio and a bedroom studio is as much about acoustics as gear. I'll go further and say gear barely matters at all these days. I'd rather mix on a pair of $80-each Behringer Truths in a room treated with bass traps, than the finest speakers in an untreated bedroom.

--Ethan

[Ironklad Audio]

Most even small "pro" studios have as much invested in microphones than most bedroom studios have invested in their entire studio gear list put together.

shit, a U47 alone costs more than all my gear put together

[PhiloBeddoe]

The differences in gear between a home and pro studio are huge, but the two things are very different animals.

A professional studio is in the business of making money so they have to accommodate a wide variety of projects. One day a choir may come in, the next a metal band, and the next a string quartet. Of course many studios focus on one type of client, but they still must have gear to handle most anything.

A bedroom studio probably only needs to be good enough to make your own music. So you just need to focus on what it takes to do that. Totally depends on what instruments, if any.

Poor acoustics is a major handicap of small rooms.

[TerraMortim]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

shit, a U47 alone costs more than all my gear put together

I almost bought a u47 once :/ I should have... just figured..hey I'll always be able to afford it... *BUZZER* wrong! next time around lol

[TerraMortim]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

Bedroom studio: Drools at a locker full of under-$250 LDCs.
Pro studio: Wouldn't be caught dead with a single LDC in their locker that cost less than $600.



Seriously, one of the major seperations between the two is the amount they have invested in their mic inventory. Most even small "pro" studios have as much invested in microphones than most bedroom studios have invested in their entire studio gear list put together.

And it's been mentioned already; but your average "pro" studio can say the same thing about their acoustic room design and treatment; that they have invested as much in that as your average hobbiest has in his entire gear inventory.

G.

Would agree.. I personally can't stand cheap condenser mics. However, I must say one cheapish mic I have that I actually like quite a bit (it almost matched the CAD vx2 beast I was using for a while...almost) is the Bluebird, by Blue... Not too bad, esp for a sub $1000 mic.

A lot of people don't realize how important acoustic treatment it... which reminds me, I have to put up my new stuff lol...

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

shit, a U47 alone costs more than all my gear put together

Originally Posted by TerraMortim

I almost bought a u47 once :/ I should have... just figured..hey I'll always be able to afford it... *BUZZER* wrong!

There's a lame joke in there somewhere about my getting my hands on a U505 last week, but it would probably be lost on non-Chicagoans, and even if not, it still would be pretty lame .

G.

[COOLCAT]

yeah, interesting question...

it seems in the digital world Pro tools and the family of pc is the same, 24-192 can be had by anyone.

so the room, the mics and outboard gear... excluding the bands equipment.

but time and time again, hi dollar mics don't seem to sound as far away form the copycat-cheap mics as they used to. SM57, SM7, yadadada

maybe a semi-pro has an actual mixing board, versus a bedroom with one preamp or something?

a nice mixing board might be a noticable difference....er.....unless their's people with 48 channel mixing boards in their bedroom...

[LemonTree]

I'm in what used to be a big spare bedroom, the soundproofing and acoustical treatment alone cost £2000

Here's my gear list.....

D.A.W.

PIV 3.0Ghz
Asus P4C 800-E Deluxe
2 GHz Kingmax DDR400
Maxtor 120Gig SATA system disk
Maxtor 80Gig SATA recording disk
Matrox Dual head 32Meg AGP video card
Dual 17" TFT displays
Samsung 52x CD/DVDR
NEC 16x CD/DVDRW
19" 4U Rackmount Antec case with Zalman silent cooling


SOUND CARDS/CONVERTORS

3xDelta 410 24Bit/96KHz AD/DA giving 12in/30out
Emu MIDI to USB 1x1


SOFTWARE

Cubase SX 3
Adobe Audition 2.0
eZdrumme DFH
Wavelab 5.0
Soundforge 6.0
Waves gold bundle
Blue Tubes bundle
Digital phishphones
iZotope Ozone 2
Antres
TC Works

UAD-1 DSP CARD including...
CS1 Channel Strip
EX-1 Gate & Compressor
DM-1/DM1L Delay modulators
RS-1 Reflection engine
1176SE Limiting amplifier
Pultec EQP-1A Program equalizer
Realverb Pro
Nigel Guitar Processor
LA-2A Leveling amplifier
Pultec Pro EQP-1A plus MEQ-5


CONSOLE

Soundtracs TOPAZ Project 8. 24 track inline recording console with full meter bridge.


HARDWEAR

M-Audio TAMPA Mic Pre
Line 6 Pod
Behringer V-Amp Pro
Lexicon ALEX
Lexicon MPX100
Alesis Microverb III
Drawmer LX20
LA AUDIO GCX20 Dual gate/comp
Behringer Composer Dual comp/limiter/gate/expander
Valley Gatex 4 channel gate/expander
Countreyman Type 85 FET DI Box


MICROPHONES

ElectroVoice RE 20 (1)
Red 5 Audio RV6 (1)
Studio Projects B1 (2)
Shure SM58 (1)
Shure SM57 (2)
Octava MC 012 (2)


MONITORING SYSTEM

Wharfdale Diamond Pro 8.2a active nearfield monitors
Audio Technica ATH M40fs Headphones (2)
Behringer PowerPlay Pro HA4700 headphone distribution system

RECORDING/MIXDOWN

Tascam DA-20 DAT RECORDER
Sony MDS-JE320 MiniDisk Recorder
16x NEC CD/DVDRW

INSTRUMENTS & AMPS

Rickenbarker 330 6 string electric
Eppiphone Les Paul Custom
Sun Mustang Stratocastor
Dean 6 string semi-acoustic
Ventura Bass

Roland Fantom X6

Session Pro DD505 electric kit

Viper 2x10 all tube 100 watt combo
Peavey DEUCE VT 2x12 all tube 120watt combo

Add another £1000 for cables at least

and I work for beer and pizza because I have more passion than sense

OK, I've been paid a couple of times and money has started to come in over the past year but i don't even think of maself as semi pro. I have a day job. Recording, when there's any to be done gets done on the weekend, mixing in the evenings after work.


How much beer and pizza can you spare to record here?

[DavidK]

What are the differences in gear between a typical home studio and a semi-pro or Pro?

Whatever they are, they are relatively inconsequential. It's all about the guy running the show.

Cleveland is definitely not a "studio town". That said, there are a few around that have all the big boy toys. What they put out is truly baffling, a chimp could do better. I learned my lesson last summer:

I hired a local guy to mix an album. He had all the big boy stuff- PT, SSL, Chandler, all the fun toys. The guy turned out to be the least talented person I have ever run across in my entire life, and the biggest jackass to boot. To call him a pro would be a lie. Same thing with most of the studios I know of here.


I now think of good gear as a "bonus" A lot of the best musicians/engineers I know are horrible with money, which is why they dont have the good toys.

[darrin_h2000]

You have to be cordule...and allways make the guy with the check book think that he is the next big thing...you have enough time for laughing after they have left the building...lol.

Something that I saw early on and the reason I have my Akai DPS24...is the fact I can put it in my road case and setup for live tracking almost anywhere...but it doesnt make me look like a "Pro".

[Dags]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

bedroom studio: somebody has some gear sitting in the corner that they tool around with for fun. gear can be of any quality.

semi-pro: somebody has at least 1 entire room dedicated to their studio, and have at least a few people who pay them to do recordings...gear is at least decent quality.

pro: multiple rooms(live room, control room, iso/vocal booths), top-notch instruments and gear all around. engineer makes most, if not all, of their living off of the studio.

a pretty simple explanation, but it gets the point across

I'll second this, and Ethan Winer's point about acoustics.

A semi-pro studio has usually had some form of acoustic treatment and isolation done to it, because usually the owner has worked through the bedroom studio stage and realised that something needs to be done to improve the recording/monitoring environment.
Same with gear - you start in this gig (unless you're one of the lucky ones) with whatever you can afford to buy and learn how to use it, honing your skills as much as you can until you learn why it is that you may need better equipment to get better quality recordings.

....then the gear lust takes hold and you're hooked for life!

Dags (hooked for life)

[stevieb]

Respectfully submitted, I think you are all wrong. (Unless there is a post I missed...)

The difference between a bedrrom/DIY/hobbiest and a professional can be been at the beginning, twards the end, and at the end of the process:

The beginning: A pro follows a logical process, whereby he/she considers the problem at hand and uses his knowledge to solve the problem. If his knowledge is inadequate to address the particular problem, he knows where to go to build his knowledge and thus solve the problem. If that pro is a recording engineer, he considers the space the recording will take place in ("room" is not the best term- it excludes outdoors, for instance), then the sound source, then mic choice and placement, etc. etc., going down the signal path until the setup is done. Then, test and tweeks are done, to determine if the setup is optimal. As an anology, a professional auto technician does the same sort of thing- looks at the problem, and uses his knowledge to find it's likely source- then test that source to confirm or refrut his belief.

The hobbiest or DIY'er tends to jump in and try something to see how it works. He does this because he has not learned the logical progression the pro has. Using one's bedroom as the space is the first "jump:" he uses what he has, rather than optimizing the space from the beginning.

Near the end: (Giraffe is close) The results. A seasoned pro can make a recording done in a steel drum sound good. But there is one more thing...

AT the end: A pro, by definition, gets PAID.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by stevieb

Respectfully submitted, I think you are all wrong. (Unless there is a post I missed...)

While I agree with most of what you said (there is one exception, which I'll get to in a minute...), that is not what the question or the intent of the question was, and it really hasn't changed in the year and a half since this thread was last active. It is specifically asking about the studio and the studio gear list:

What else would a typical set up have beyond the bedroom level as far as gear is concerned? Emphasis added

There are, of course many more differences than the ones I originally posted, but I still think that the mics, preamps and acoustics are the differences that *sonically* will separate the men from the boys.

Where I respectfully but passionately disagree is in the use of the standard textbook definition of whether one gets paid as the bar for "pro". There are thousands of "pros" out there by that definition who phone it in all the time or who simply couldn't do a professional job to save their mother's eyes. This can even include some names and jobs done that show up on the Billboard 200 list and had budgets for the recording that surpassed the entire cost of your average studio. Then there's the clowns out there with an mBox and a few plugs who gets paid on a regular basis to "master by e-mail" but have all the ears and professional sense of a potted plant.

This isn't just true of audio engineering. Hell, my mother's primary care physician has all the degrees and experience and standing as a "professional", but by any realistic standard the guy is a hack.

"Professional" is, IMHO, an attitude and a work ethic as much as anything else.

But when it comes to gear, the professional isn't going to be the least bit interested in most of the gear found in your average HR dabbler's bedroom "studio".

G.

[stevieb]

Well, you see, Glen, your post brings up one of the things that really bugs me, about you- you do such a darn good job of respectfully refruting my arguments that I just can't think of a thing to say in rebuttal...

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by stevieb

Well, you see, Glen, your post brings up one of the things that really bugs me, about you- you do such a darn good job of respectfully refruting my arguments that I just can't think of a thing to say in rebuttal...

Yeah, it's definitely one of my more obvious faults; I've managed to piss of a handful of people here that way over the last few years. Nobody ever notices that more often than not, most of my "rebuttals" talk about how I actually agree with much or most of what I am allegedly "refuting".

I should be punished. If you send Angelina Jolie over here to give me a sound spanking, I'll be very understanding.

G.

[stevieb]

She's on her way. I sorta suspect she may disappoint you, so Natalie Portman and Drew Barrymore are waiting in the wings. They are all now angry with me, and pouting- seems none of them want to leave, even for a little while...

[Massive Master]

Paid or not - A pro, let's say *proficient* as opposed to professional for lack of a better term -

A pro makes the recording he intended to make.