what to buy...

[jobones]

I plan on making a home studio, as of now I have a computer with plenty of disk space and ram, an assortment of guitars, amps, basses and an acoustic drum set. My question is what actual recording equipment should I buy with a budget of 2500-3000 dollars. I plan on buying a Digidesign Digi-001 Computer Recording System because Im pretty familiar with protools, and i would like to have a sampler/synthesizer.... what else would you suggest I dedicate my funds to?

[stonepiano]

the mic preamps are supposed to suck in the 001. (duck!)

After the 001, you'd need an assortment of vital mics, a mixer with faders (soundcraft or a mackie are suggestions), a headphone amp for listener distribution, some outboard mic pres, three pair phones (AKG, sony, fostex, Sennheiser are all good) lotsa cables and mic stands (people always forget these aren't free). There's more outboard gear to get too (FMR Really Nice Compressor springs to mind) but that's a start.
For that budget, you can certainly get everything you need and stay in the middle part of home studio quality spectrum.

[chessparov]

Good advice, may I add...
Since you're spending THAT kind of money, a great place to get
specific pro advice is to also post this question at www.gearslutz.com
Gearslutz is also cool about showing links to other BBS's BTW.

Chris

P.S. On headphones, the Sennheiser HD580 (monitor reference), and the
Sony 7506 or Sony MDR-V6 (for tracking) are excellent choices.

[MISTERQCUE]

Also add a good condenser mic and a pair of active or passive monitors!

[jobones]

Does it matter if what mixer I buy is analog or digital if Im doing digital recording?

[littledog]

Originally posted by chessparov
Good advice, may I add...
Since you're spending THAT kind of money, a great place to get
specific pro advice is to also post this question at www.gearslutz.com
Gearslutz is also cool about showing links to other BBS's BTW.

Chess, with a budget of only $2500-$3000 it seems like he's in exactly the right place. He's only going to be able to afford the low end budget mics, monitors, compressors, etc. Especially if that budget is going to also cover all his cabling and stands and software.

Looks like RNC's, Marshall/Studio Projects mics, Event or Yorkville monitors - with a little shopping around he might be able to get a studio set-up at that price point. But he won't be able to afford even one of the usual suspects talked about at Gearslutz...

[chessparov]

Yeah they "mostly" talk about higher end gear
Jay Kahr's forum, relatively speaking, would have more stuff in his
(and mine!) range over there IMHO.
Plus Jules is a whiz on Pro Tools stuff...

Chris