Couple of dumb questions....

qiktune

qiktune

New member
1. How does everyone "power up" their studio? Do you have all your outboard gear switched on permanently and just use a master switch eg wall switch or do you switch everything on individually?

2. I've never recorded live drums but wondering how you'd do it with just a single or dual channel pre? All my drum tracks are midi and never had to think about this........I'm bored at work - can you tell? :o
 
There's a dedicated 20A circuit for the gear that runs to a relayed multi-stage conditioner that throws the power on "1-2-3" and off "3-2-1" -- "1" feeds a 8-circuit switch that controls digital gear in the rack, "2" controls another 8-way for analog (and is filtered differently), "3" controls the the main power amps.

Computers are on their own circuit (conditioned, UPS'd) and lighting on its own circuit.

(2) You need as many I/O (and preamps) as you have simultaneous tracks going in.
 
I've got my daw and computer ups'd and conditioned on 1 circuit
Rack gear on one circuit
Monitors and headphone amp on one circuit
And lighting on another circuit.

Beer fridge is on battery backup hooked to a generator. :D
 
somehow, i feel the need to mention that in virtually all structures with standard wiring schemes, using different outlets does NOT guarantee separate circuits. in fact, in lots of houses the whole room (including lights) will be on the same circuit, and sometimes several rooms will be.

my joint is far removed from "professional", but i do have a dedicated 20A circuit for the plugs in my control area. romex is fairly cheap and running wire isnt much problem, particularly in a basement studio like mine. i also have a dedicated 20A circuit for my hi-fi gear. it really does make a difference...

and incidentally, you will NOT want to run your rack gear and your DAW on different circuits. this can create a whole slew of problems from annoying to potentially damaging. signal chain = 1 circuit.

a
 
nothin here...I just saw my post count at 666 and it freaked me out. :rolleyes:

(and now back to our regularly scheduled program)
 
I was designing lighting for a ballet a couple weeks ago (don't start...). We were on cue 660 and I tend to jump up by two or three in case I need to add something in later. So 660 starts the dance, 662 builds it up a little, 664 was a silhouette or something... Then I say, "Come on - I've got to write a cue 666" -- So the restore was cue 666. We (the stage manager and I) joked about it some -- for a while... :eek:

So, they're blocking the dance, and then they start a rehearsal --

Everything's fine, all is well, dance, dance, dance, etc.

As soon as we go to cue 666, the soloist goes down, patella on the side of her leg - It wasn't pretty...

So as we go to "cue 911" (which means exactly what it sounds like) and the ambulance comes and drags here away, etc., etc...

Turns out that later it slipped right back in and she was actually able to perform at the premier that weekend. Sore, but able.

I don't design lights often - (It was kind of funny - I was actually hired by this particular company to do all of their editing and performance music, but I'm a fair lighting designer given the right tools) but I don't think I'll ever write a "CUE 666" again...

Sorry - We're digressing again... Anyway, congrats on post #667. :D
 
Massive Master said:
There's a dedicated 20A circuit for the gear that runs to a relayed multi-stage conditioner that throws the power on "1-2-3" and off "3-2-1" -- "1" feeds a 8-circuit switch that controls digital gear in the rack, "2" controls another 8-way for analog (and is filtered differently), "3" controls the the main power amps.

Computers are on their own circuit (conditioned, UPS'd) and lighting on its own circuit.
Click to expand...

Don't you have to pump up the primer lever first, before you throw the breakers I mean?
 
1. I have a master power switch that brings up power to the racks. A second master switch that's fed from UPS has the DAW and HD24. All of that is on a single dedicated breaker so I can kill the entire room if I have to (like if there's a nasty storm in the area).
2. I could record a decent drum track with a dual channel pre with a condensor above the snare a few feet angled to taste and a tight mic (condensor or dynamic) on the kick.
 
My "Studio" is one large room (with a vocal booth). The entire room is on one circuit and that circuit has dedicate surge protection in the panel box (pounding that grounding rod into the earth was a lot of work). I have a master wall switch which controls power to the entire room (although the ceiling lights are not controlled by this switch).

When I go in the studio I turn the ceiling lights on and then turn master switch on.....but nothing actually powers up (except for a couple of lamps - yes...including a lava lamp) because all the gear is pluged into several Furman power conditioners (all the guitar gear on one conditioner, the computer gear on another, rack gear on another) - so after the master switch is on I power up the individual power conditioners - rack gear first and then the computer gear. - So in answer to the original question, I don't actually turn each piece of gear on and off.

The reason the lamps are not plugged into the power conditions........once everything is powered down, they are the last thing on......which reminds me to turn off the master wall switch.
 
There is a really cool power conditioner pannel that actually rectifies the wavelength potential of voltage for up to 10 circuits. It puts 60 volts posotive potential wavelength on the "hot" wire and 60 volts of negative potential on the nuetral wire. This means always perfectly balanced loads. Dont know why I posted that, it just seemed cool to me.
 
OH to answer the sequence question, I always turn on my rack gear first (pre with mic already plugged in) and let phantom power warm up. Then turn on my firewire interface, and last the computer and monitors. This ensures that the mac always "sees" the firewire device and by the time all that is on, the pre is ready to go.
 
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