Building Studio Rack

[taylorcruse]

Ok guys I love this forum very much and everyone is soo helpful. That being said I trust you guys so much I want you guys to help me pick out a decent (decent as in affordable with decent quality). I plan on using this gear to record my new bands new album we are working on and also plan to sell studio time on the side for only $15 an hour (to help pay for more gear) to local Medford bands or musicians. A friend of mine is going to loan me commercial space (^^ connections rock) for the next year and I will be doing this with two other close friends who are helping me financial and musically.

I recently sold all my live equipment (old focus) and I am going into recording (new focus).

Heres what I have researched and chosen for sure: (suggestions welcome ofc)

Monster Power PRO 2500 Rack PowerCenter (no hum plox )
Motu 8pre Firewire Interface
Shure sm57 X 2 <--(my old ones were just recently stolen at a live show -.-. never loaning out again...)
PodFarm software (I'm broke)
ilok usb key


Now what I haven't chosen is:

Headphone Amp (musicians need to hear themselves ^^)
X4 headphones (^^ above)
Rack (to hold everything)

I plan to fill this rack with more things but really don't know the difference between a rack that's a good deal and one which is not. The same for the headphones and headphone amps (I think it has something to do with me being more worried on the recording process than the monitoring).

Also give me advice (if you would be so kind to) on the other things I shall need to purchase.

My plan is to have everything go through the interface (duh) and into my firewire port of my Macbook which is dual booted to windows running adobe audition 3 (my stupid friends don't have macs ruling logic studio out).

[taylorcruse]

Also if anyone could suggest the best monitoring solution for the interface setup that would be useful. I want 4 headphones at least which makes me scratch my head on how I would split them if I wanted to have a band record a live mix ?

[Weasel9992]

Originally Posted by taylorcruse

Also if anyone could suggest the best monitoring solution for the interface setup that would be useful. I want 4 headphones at least which makes me scratch my head on how I would split them if I wanted to have a band record a live mix ?

Just create aux sends, assign them to outputs, then send them to the headphone amp to make discreet headphone mixes. Of course, I don't know if your software can do all of that, but I can do it in Cubase SX3.

Frank

[yert33]

I love my Sennheiser HD 25-SP II headphones. Light, small, loud, flat.

[drumn4state]

As far as a rack goes, if you are not planning on taking the rack equipment out of the studio, Sweetwater.com has a 12 unit "table top" rack unit for like $25. I use one for now. I have 8 units in it and it is solid. But, if you need to transport the gear, then this would not be a good choice.

[Lo-Fi Mike]

Originally Posted by taylorcruse

Heres what I have researched and chosen for sure: (suggestions welcome ofc)

Monster Power PRO 2500 Rack PowerCenter (no hum plox )
Motu 8pre Firewire Interface
Shure sm57 X 2 <--(my old ones were just recently stolen at a live show -.-. never loaning out again...)
PodFarm software (I'm broke)
ilok usb key

the Motu 8pre is very nice for it's price
why not get (1) 57 and (1) Audix i5
you shouyld give reaper a try...http://www.reaper.fm/
why do you need an ilok?

[taylorcruse]

The ilok is for podfarm software. I will check out that rack system thanks!

Any more suggestions?

[darrin_h2000]

Im handy with woodworking...I intrageted the racks into the legs of my desk...which are 34" high and there are 2 of them on each side with the left ones Preamps and MIDI synths...and the right ones the mastering rack.