Newbie starting home studio, advice wanted please!

L

LionDogShark

New member
Hi everyone!

I am new to recording and have a limited budget so I am afraid of spending money in the wrong places as I upgrade. And most importantly, I don't really know what I'm doing yet or what pieces of gear will give me the most bang for my buck so I am hoping some of you pros out there can point me in the right direction. I am reading through the newbie sticky post and researching pro tools and recording in general, but any advice/tips to get me jump started would be greatly appreciated.

Goals:
I would like to be able to make a decent demo quality recording in the short term, and eventually grow into a setup that I could start a semi professional project at home then take it to the pros for final touches. I plan on recording guitars, bass, and vocals; mostly metal/hard rock. Again I am just getting started and have only picked up a few things here and there.

Current Gear (I am going to include everything as I'm not sure what information is most relevant):

Avid Mbox 3 mini with pro tools express
M-Audio AV 40 Monitor Speakers
Sony MDR7506 Headphones
GLS Audio ES-57 Microphone
AKAI LPK25 laptop keyboard
LiveWire 1/4" 12 gauge speaker cables
Monster Cable 1/4" Straight Instrument Cables
Dell XP Laptop

I also have a Laney IRT15H that has a DI socket which will be my main recording amp until I get some sound proofing done; not sure if that makes a difference on recording gear choice. My other amps I am mic'ing with the ES-57.

Budget:

I'm planning on investing 200-300 bucks a month for the foreseeable future.

I will be upgrading to a mac mini within the next month or so (as I was told this would make a big difference in my set up, not sure if that is true :confused:) and I would like to stick with pro tools as I eventually want to start working with the full version.

Other than that I'm not really married to anything, but I just don't know where I should start upgrading. I have looked at a few condenser mics ( AT 4040, Shure smb7) for vocals/guitars, but I don't know if I should invest in those with the mbox, or if I need an external preamp, or if I should upgrade to something with more than one channel/input.

I have found a lot of info on what specific gear is better for this or that, but i'm having trouble tying it all together and figuring out what is more important than what. I guess what I am really asking is, other than researching more about recording and pro tools, what gear purchase/upgrade would have the biggest impact in the quality of my recordings?

Any and all advice/feedback is welcome; thanks for taking the time to read my newbie post.
 
I am converting a spare bedroom; about 10' by 13'. I am researching acoustic panels/wedges, and I might also create an Iso box for the guitar cabs.

But at the moment its just the 10' by 13' bedroom.
 
For what my opinion is worth, put your money into the room. The "Studio Building.." section has a wealth of info. No use putting a roof on a house that has no foundation.
 
Now I do NOT want to start another mac/PC war but if you ARE going to upgrade the PC (and you must, see later) I would suggest aiming higher? (but then I know jack about macs).

Sell, trade in or keep as "grott boxes" the M-A "monitors". There are NONE sub £100 and you need to spend at least £300pr but, since your chosen genre is loud and heavy, at least double that. Inadequate monitors will make for inadequate mixes. Then the room will at least need some bass trapping.

(Note to noobs doing speech, classical acoustics or gentle ballad/folk. Good monitors can be found at £250-300 but they don't go loud and they don't go low.)

The mic is a cheap dynamic but will do for now on cabs. Look at getting a couple of SD capacitors as soon as you can. Pick a model with a built in 20dB pad then you will have a very versatile mic.

The PC: Nothing wrong with XP but it is old and very soon will have no support. I suggest an upgrade to an i5 or i7 machine and Win 7. Most importantly you need a 64 bit machine because you need lots of ram these days. 4G must be seen as the absolute minimum, 8G should be fine but 16G would be a good investment.

I see you have specified the cables? This is one area where you can save money. Do not fall for the hype, any decently constructed cable, mic and especially speaker will perform just as well as any other regardless of price.

Dave.
 
All solid advice from Dave. You definitely need a decent condensor mix for vocals, and one wiht a pad that can be used for othe rstuff is good. Acoustic treatment in the room - read the thread in the Studio Builidng section of these forums on 'small room acoustics' - and build some bass traps. Don't go nuts on 'acoustic foam' - it won't do what you need at this stage.
Computer - definitely upgrade with lots of RAM and current high process speed and with high speed hard drive (and/or external fast hard drive).
Monitors - you can use the M-As for now, but look at upgrading these asap, too - but you need acoustic treatment to be able to use better monitors.
Unless you are planning on bringing your music projects (not just tracks) into a pro studio - or you are planning on opening or working at a pro studio - ProTools is a huge expense you probably don't need to go with. there are many other choices for full-featured DAWs that cost tons less.
 
Thank you for all the helpful feedback!

Are there any thoughts on the Iso box? It's going to take me some time to do sound proofing for the whole room. Is the Iso box worth building for the short term?

Thanks again!

Edit:

Also, my laptop is a dell XPS with i5 2.40ghz, 8gb ram, and windows 7. So I'm not sure how much of an upgrade the mac mini would be?
 
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LionDogShark said:
Thank you for all the helpful feedback!

Are there any thoughts on the Iso box? It's going to take me some time to do sound proofing for the whole room. Is the Iso box worth building for the short term?

Thanks again!

Edit:

Also, my laptop is a dell XPS with i5 2.40ghz, 8gb ram, and windows 7. So I'm not sure how much of an upgrade the mac mini would be?
Click to expand...

I would not bother with an isobox, lot of work and there is probably a lot more to getting a great amp sound than putting a speaker and a mic (remember, you pretty much lose the mic for anything else) in a big box. Instead use your DIY skills to build a 100watt load/power soak. The Laney has DI out which will give you silent practice/recording. Not the full chat tone of the amp perhaps but then nothing ever is! Since jacking into the DI skt mutes the speaker outs I strongly suggest a load since one day you WILL forget and unmute the amp!

That Dell should hiss over anything the Home Recording jockey wants to do unless you envisage scoring a remake of Les Mis? Maybe look at replacing the hard drive with an SSD? But even 5,400rpm drives can shunt much more data in and out than most of us ever need. If the laptop can take two drives, SSD for system and DAW and mech' for backup? Minted.

Dave.
 
LionDogShark said:
Also, my laptop is a dell XPS with i5 2.40ghz, 8gb ram, and windows 7. So I'm not sure how much of an upgrade the mac mini would be?
Click to expand...

I'm a mac guy but the spec of your laptop is just fine. There's no need to move to mac mini.
The only real potential problem is the internal hard drive. They're usually 5400rpm. (mac mini would be no different!).
I strongly suggest either replacing it with an SSD if you're flush, or just doing all of your work on an external 7200 drive over firewire/usb/whatever.

You'll never soundproof your room; It just wont happen.
An isobox can drastically reduce the volume of a guitar amp, but soundproofing the actual room isn't feasible.
You can treat the room so it's suitable for recording and mixing, but that's not the same as soundproofing.

As said, monitors and room treatment. Those are the big deals.

I'm also a ProTools guy.......Give Reaper a serious look! ;)
 
Thanks guys!

I think I will stick with the XPS until I get my feet wet. I will def check out reaper.

I have one more questions about treating the room; while I understand that I can't sound proof the room I do plan on trying to put up some foam to reduce the noise level. Now I'm kind of worried I'm going to screw up the room acoustics. Any advice? I will of course read up on the studio building thread as well.

Thanks again for all the helpful comments!
 
Foam won't do jack. IMO it will create more problems than help.
Defo read the studio build threads.

Google sound proofing and room treatment and you will understand the difference better buddie.
I'm not trying to be smart I'm trying to stop you wasting money, I've been there.
Controlling the room nodes can vastly improve your recordings and make for a better mixing environment.
If you have some basic diy woodworking skill you can make your own treatment panels and save a packet.
There are online room treatment calculators and guides too.
Have fun and if you need any more advice. I'd be only to happy to help.
Welcome to the madhouse that is home recording.
 
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The SM7b is an awesome mic for vocals. Especially in a sub par room as you can get really close to it. But as everyone else said if you are mixing in there I would do some treatment and upgrade the monitors ASAP. If you take the DIY approach with treatment it should be well under 300.
 
If you can afford $200-300 a month, then don't rush. And don't think, "Hey, I've got $200, what can I buy?" If you can sustain that level of investment over a year, two years, you'll have top notch equipment, and via your new buddies here, lots of experience and you'll then just have to deal with the crushing realisation that you're not pretty enough to be a rock star... :D As we all have...

But seriously. Take your time. Rushing to spend will cause you to spend more in the long run.

Life is a long song. :guitar:
 
LionDogShark said:
I do plan on trying to put up some foam to reduce the noise level.
Click to expand...

What noise level?
Usually when people talk about foam (or real treatment) it's to reduce reflections at certain frequencies.

If you're trying to reduce noise from outside sources you'll need to go much more heavy handed than foam, and even then it wont be easy.
Tell us more.
 
Just a friendly piece of advice from my 8 years of failing forward:
The most important thing in moving forward with your setup is to target what you want to achieve and organize those goals and tackle them accordingly.

The equipment can obviously help improve your productions, but it won't do anything to help you work on and improve your writing and recording and (to a lesser extent) mixing techniques.

Now, you might already have great material written and know everything about production from EQ to side-chaining all the way to being able to master yourself. In which case I definitely recommend acoustic treatment (at least absorption at the first reflection points and bass traps) before anything else.

If you don't though, I recommend working on your craft. Honing song writing skills (which might mean getting a condenser that inspires you, or buying a more powerful computer so you can run some plug-ins more efficiently, etc.) and learning how to produce won't be significantly improved with treatment or a new interface. Once you've found a method to your madness and found your own workflow then you can integrate the higher quality into your productions and mixes.
 
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