Designing a moderate home studio - Help?

[ps_7]

Hey there everyone!
Sorry im quite a newbie when it comes to home recording.
I've tried to set something up before, but this time I am much more serious.

Just have a few questions about ideal set ups and what is still required to make a great home recording studio.

The purpose: To be able to record acoustic instruments (guitars etc) as well as vocals. Will rely heavily on sequencing. Also, to be able to have an environment to make electronic music (almost all software side) since more than 1 person will use this studio.

Equipment so far:
Hardware
G5 Macintosh Computer, 2 17" LCD monitors
4 Channel Mixer (small)
Pentium 3 1.2ghz Computer (standalone for certain instruments)
3 Midi Keyboards
1 Midi Foot controller
5 guitars
Steinberg Nuendo, Logic Pro
A host of VSTs and instruments (Native Instruments package, Waves Kjaerhus and Voxengo effects, lots of software synths like Synth1 and Vanguard)

The environment:
Large room, furnature, in the basement. Walls have already been soundproofed by previous owner, but ceiling was not. Hardwood and carpet mixed floor.
Can get dimensions if it will help. I've considered also building walls in the room if needed to create a recording room and editing room.

So far no monitors, and no soundcard yet.
So - suggestions?
What should we add to this - what else is essential?

Thanks very much for the help. Its very much appreciated, and I'll update progress!

 

[Synkrotron]

you appear to have quite an impressive setup already for a so called newbie

You don't mention microphones. I would suggest that you should own at least one semi-decent large diaphragm condenser microphone for your vocals and acoustic guitars... check out the microphone forum here if you haven't already done so.

Monitors, like many things in life, pretty much depend on what you want to pay for them... what is your budget?

Room enhancements... you should check out the studio building forum here, they have plenty of great advice on acoustic treatments.

Will you be the only person in the studio when recording certain things? You will need to consider how you control your DAW if it is in a separate room. Or you'll need to stick your PC in an acoustic enclosure of some sort...

good luck in your venture

andy

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Sort the room out first.

Spend some time in the studio building forum, read around the subject and tend to that before you do anything else. It will make life so much easier in the long run.

Then spend as much as you can on monitors.

Then you have a decent chance of making some good sounding recordings and you can think about mics and pres and soundcards and all that other stuff.

Frankly if your room and monitoring aren't up to snuff it doesn't really matter what other gear you buy.

(Yes, I learnt the hard way ).