building wifes studio; Chapter One: Components, Insulation, and Wall Plates

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BuzzIce

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great site! I expect to be visiting often. I am currently building a studio for my wife,a 14' x 14' building, she is the creative one, I tend to be better at the electronics. I have a couple of questions I would like some advise on:
1. I have a PC that will probably handle digital recordings by reading other threads; wife has an old Fostex X-15??, I think, w/ no power supply, working on that. I think I would like to digitally record her music, and am unsure of the basics to link her mic, guitar, etc to my PC. I am taking the advise of others to check out various software titles.
2. As this is a room designed for her studio, I am considering lining the walls w/ foam sound isolation material, any comments suggestions, price vrs. performance tips?
3. I wanted to install plug-in jacks around the room for various instruments and mics to be plugged in without everyone tripping on wires, the plan was to use 2 conductor plg jacks to co-ax(Cat-5 RG-6) back to two-conductor plugs at the mixing board? I am having trouble finding the wall plates, and advise? What conductors works the best w/ the least db loss? do I need to consider three conductor plugs?
Any advise would be appreciated.
 
1. You probably want to get a decent multiinput/output soundcard. Many to choose from, aardvark, lynx, gadget, m-audio etc. And you will need software, n-track is a popular one, http://www.fasoft.com . Depending on your budget, you can also spend lots on progs like Cubase, Logic, Vegas. Do you still plan on using the 4-track in conjunction with your PC or scrapping it, using both maybe? Another thing you will need are some sort of preamp(s). Maybe a few standalone or dual chanel preamps, or mixer with several preamps. More preamps, more channels you can record at one time - all depends on your needs.

3. For cabling I'd suggest investing in a roll of Canare Star Quad or Mogami. From there you can make your own cabling - as for wall plates: So many possibilities, just depends on your application. You will want 3 connector XLR plugs for all your balanced mic connectors. Wall plates like these are easily available. May also want to put in 1/4" unbalanced inputs and TRS/1/4" headphone jack outputs/1/4".

Standard connectors are made by Neutrik, Switchcraft. Canare use to make them, not sure anymore.
 
Alesis 12R

Thanks for the suggestions Emeric, I am looking through a catalog at various equipment and the piece that I keep wondering about is the Alesis 12R Mixer @ $329.00, 12 channel mixer and mic preamplifier. Is this the kind of mixer I would need to run into my current sound board: an OPL3-SA set @ 44,100Hz, 16 bit Stereo and 172 KB/s, or do you still recomend getting a better sound card as well, it's a 400 Mhz processor w/ a 10 gig hard drive. Other brands in my catalog include Behringer, Samson, Ashley, and Mackie, and as I am fairly current on home theatre brands, I am not familiar w/ this line of equip.
Thanks for the jack/wall plate advise I am researching the wire and plates today.
 
All depends on your budget. Do a search on this site about the Alesis boards and you will probably get more info. Mackie's are popular, some people like them, some hate them, but this is the way with most things. The quality of the Mackie's is better, but a bit more expensive.

As for your soundcard, I would at least upgrade it to a Creative Ensonic sound card, or a Creative Sound Blaster Live. A bit leary of anything OPL. Only be about $30 for that upgrade. Then maybe in the future upgrade to a multi I/O card. If you don't plan on recording more than 2 different sources at a time, consider a dedicated 2 channel preamp instead.
 
Yo Buzzing Ice:

Don't forget to get a door-lock that unlocks only from the OUTSIDE for your wife's studio.

Green Hornet
Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.

Lots of stuff to choose from in the electronic world. Try to SAMPLE and hear some of the major stuff before you buy.
NO USED GEAR UNLESS IT'S FROM A VERY CLOSE FRIEND.

Green Hornet
 
Make sure that when you do the electrical work you purchase the orange isolated ground outlets and have your electrician set up a star gound for those outlets. Keep the lights and a/c off of these circuts as well. Doing this will all but elminate an 60hz buzzing in your audio path. More info can be found at John Sayers site. He also has great advice on building studios.
As for audio cabling stick with the mogami (2 pair) if you can afford it.
Best wishes
jamie
 
I don't think an OPLx-SA card is what you want. Those are... well.... shitty cards (for lack of better words). The soundblaster live is semi-ok, but if you're going to all the trouble to build a studio room and all that you might as well get a GOOD soundcard. I mean, why go to all that trouble to build the room, buy the mixer, etc. and run everything into a mediocre SBLive?

I used to have a yamaha OPL-SA. For audio, it's noisey and harsh, and it's MIDI synth sounds terrible.
 
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