How's this for a small studio setup?

  • Thread starter Thread starter sjaguar13
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sjaguar13

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This studio is to record my band and a couple of other local bands, so we have CDs to sell at shows. None of us are that good, so it will be less than 200 CDs for each band. Here's what I got:
1.7Ghz Athlon, 220gigs, 0.5gig of ram, Delta 1010
Mackie 1402 Pro mixer
Cakewalk Sonar and Pro Audio 9
Cool Edit Pro
Signature IV CD printer
Shure Mics

Is there anything else vital to a small home studio? If I don't suck at this recording thing, I'll start getting stuff to do it better, but for now, will this work?
 
You seem pretty much set, for now. Soon you will become just another gearhead with racks and racks of outboard gear, or you can make it easier on yourself an invest in some high quality plugins for sonar, by the far the most versatile of your recording programs. Experiment on what you have and learn how it all works, than record a band and use the profits to buy some plugins. I have found that keeping a short signal path makes it harder to mess up during tracking and good plugins make it even harder to mess up you're beautiful tracks with a bunch of digital rounding inaccuracies.
 
I'm soon going to start recording my borther's band because I can mess it up a billion times, and do it again. They won't care, if it wasn't for me, they probably wouldn't even get a good recording, and I know where they practice and all, I can just go down and try stuff out. Once I get some more money, what kind of plugins should I get, like effect plugins?
 
You have a pretty good setup to start out with. For now I would scour the net for free plug-ins (Compression, Reverb, EQ). Pretty much all the generic ones you could apply to a track. Once you understand how to use them, check out the demo downloads of the Waves plug-ins. They're pricey but well worth the investment if your selling CD's.

Just a poke in no particular direction.
 
Evildick said:
the Waves plug-ins. They're pricey but well worth the investment if your selling CD's.

.
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Evildick you were faster than me.... now I have to use my jedi mindprint on you.
 
if you're seriously wanting to make good demo's you might want to look into getting good drum mic's as well..a friend of mine has a 4 peice cad mic set that was less than 500 and it made a big difference..not sure what the budget is here but it would make things sound reeeeal nice :)

dlv
 
Which Shure mics? If you aren't planning on getting some condensor mics, you are missing out. I would check out the microphone forum for some good ideas on building a decent mic locker, no matter what your budget is.
 
You've got plenty to get started. Just start recording and when you realize you need something... buy it.
 
You can do good stuff with that.

Your next purchase:

UAD-1 DSP card
Steingberg Nuendo or Cubase SX, dump that Cakewalk stuff.
Better mics. You really must have a good vocal mic.
 
What's a plugin card do? Does it come with plugins or do I have to get some and the card?
 
shit - i started 2 years ago with crap..and am still recording with crap. in about 2 weeks i'll be buying my new computer and soundcard..but still wont be up to hardware quality you're using.


i'd just suggest that if you havn't ever recorded before:
a - give your stuff to me when your done...haha
b - www.n-track.com - about 50 bucks for the 24bit version, can be downloaded, basically unlimited GREAT GREAT support for when you get stuck, and its simple as HELL to get started and use - especially if you've never touched a DAW and that stuff before.
 
b - www.n-track.com - about 50 bucks for the 24bit version, can be downloaded, basically unlimited GREAT GREAT support for when you get stuck, and its simple as HELL to get started and use - especially if you've never touched a DAW and that stuff before.
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I second this, except for the support part. The last three times I've emailed Flavio for help, he didn't respond. It was pretty frustrating.
 
n-track!

cominginsecond - flavio IS a busy guy. he really only responds to Tech. issues that seem to not work (installer not working, bugs you've found, etc.).

but, if you post your stuff on the N-Track forum, there is a million guys (including flavio) who could solve your problem in a heartbeat.
 
i've been using cakewalk for years and i love it. i've tried n-track and cubasis (but not cubase) and didn't particularly care for them.

besides, i don't think the sequencing software is the issue, you've got good gear, and with the addition of some decent drum mic's and directx plug-ins you'll be ready.

if you can not afford Waves plug-ins, I suggest looking at Sonitus' Ultrafunk suite. it's not quite waves, but its much better than the plug-ins that come with cakewalk.
 
cominginsecond - flavio IS a busy guy. he really only responds to Tech. issues that seem to not work (installer not working, bugs you've found, etc.).
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It was a tech issue. In the second-to-latest version of N-track the appearance of the mixer kept getting corrupted, especially when I was using my waves plug-ins. Apparantly, the issue was fixed in subsequent versions, but in the meantime, I had to reconstruct three songs from wav files beause I had to revert back to the first build of 3.0, and because 3.1 wouldn't allow me to save the files as 3.0 versions. (If you're reading Flavio, that would be a great new feature.) Anyway, to make a long story short, I was having tons of technical difficulties with n-track, and Flavio was no where to be found, even after repeated emails. So, I agree that, for the most part N-track is a great value for the money, but I can't sign-off on fasoft having great tech support. That just hasn't borne out in my experience.
but, if you post your stuff on the N-Track forum, there is a million guys (including flavio) who could solve your problem in a heartbeat.
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I did, and no one seemed to be able to help.
 
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