I feel like I'm giving my baby up for adoption

[antispatula]

I WAS going to keep both my Otari's, one for parts as Daniel suggested like foreever ago, but I've come to the conclusion that I am an no position to do such a thing I believe......I've decided to go into a commercial studio to get some tracks like vocals and drums and perhaps more layed down, and plan on using one of my Otaris, so I can mix and add tracks to my songs at my house. I only need 1 machine to do that, and REALLY need some cold hard cash to go into a commercial studio, so I've decided to sell one, especially after seeing one on ebay go for over 1,000 dollars that included a remote, which I also have. Anyways, I'm still seeing which one I'm going to sell, and before I make my decision, I want to calibrate, clean, adjust etc both to help me in my decision. The one I'm calibrating now looks and sounds great, but I MAY try and adjust the head alignment. My manual says to use a 500 khz tone at 7.5 ips to adjust the heads. I don't have a 500 hz tape. Can I use a 1 khz tone at 15 ips to do the job? It'd make sense.....If I double my speed I'd double the freq.....right? What frequency do you use to adjust azimuth?

Anyways, here's one out of like 9 pictures I have of the machine, just for kicks. I plan to put it on ebay most likely, and have samples of each track so people know exactly what they're getting. If anyone wants more pictures, tell me.

https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y80/antispatula/3.jpg

I'm pretty proud of how this picture turned out.....It looks like it could be in some recording mag from the 80's.

 

[Dr ZEE]

You do what you have to do.
But it sounds like you are about to sell one out of two of your nice mountain-view houses so you can pay the bill for one month apartment rent in dirty downtown.

/respects

 

[FALKEN]

unless you know of a problem I would not even touch the head alignment. check for phase and if it is in phase just leave it alone. IMO.

 

[antispatula]

You do what you have to do.
But it sounds like you are about to sell one out of two of your nice mountain-view houses so you can pay the bill for one month apartment rent in dirty downtown.

/respects

aw crap, your clever metaphor really got to me....I don't know what to do!

I really feel I should go into a commercial studio though, I don't want to sacrifice a lot of quality due to the false notion that I know what I'm doing when it comes to engineering. I just want to play the musician, so I can a. get the sound I'm looking for and b. be able to focus entirely on my music. Get what I'm saying?

 

[Dr ZEE]

. Get what I'm saying?

Yes. I, mean, I hope so ... that's why I've said first: "Do what you have to."... meaning, I suppose you have good reasons.
The problem(s) ARE! (or may be.. imho) in the notions.
They may or may not be false. You don't need to know what your are doing to get it done right... well, to a degree, of course.
Also, "knowing something very very well" does not mean "knowing what someone is doing (for you)" (especially in respect to "what YOU personally and specifically want to get according to your tastes, expectations, preferences and artistic demands)... and there are very good chances that that IS exactly what you are going to get from a commercial studio , minus YOU in the production process and minus your baby at the end.
I am not really trying to change your mind, but rather just dropping a bit of a thought.
The bottom line, I guess, is: if your mind is set to spend some cash for paying rent and if to get that cash giving up your real estate is the only option, then you've got no choice. But if you do have other options, then you may consider them instead ...
/respects

 

[antispatula]

true that.....Maybe I'll sell something else. I've got a Hohner Pianet T that I don't really use after I got my Rhodes.....I've seen those go on ebay for a couple hundred before.

 

[FALKEN]

dude...i've never been in a "real" studio and I've never really wanted to...

but theres this one studio who's website I saw once...

that had:

-a gigantic room with wood floors and high ceilings
-various awesome tape formats
-like every vintage german mic in the book
-5 or 6 flavors of vintage preamp
-console worth more than most peoples houses..see vintage preamps
-various monitoring systems...
-daily and weekly rates that were very, very reasonable...
-NO computers!!!
-and its only a 5 hour drive from me...

and for a second, I almost sold everything and booked a week there...

maybe i should...

man if you can get over the kind of aversion I have you would be in a better situation than I no doubt.

 

[Dr ZEE]

-NO computers!!! .

I'd bet six-pack of budweiser they've got at least one to do billing.
**********
I'd say in general, if you "don't know what you are doing when it comes to engineering" and because of that turning to a "professional facility" where the rooms and the things and the brains are - it is a bad situation.
If the RESULT is what you are after, then you better put your acts together so to get to know EXACTLY what your are doing and exactly why you really need this very specific facility and why you are going there, and so you know exactly what specific tool(s) you need there and what for, and exactly whose brain and experience you are planning to trust. Also, chances are, that after putting your acts together you may realize that you don't need any of the above or the specific combination of the things you need (or prefer to have) are not availble at this time and at this place... so you build your own Palace

 

[cjacek]

aw crap, your clever metaphor really got to me....

Yup and it really got to me as well. Dr. Zee has it 100% in my most humble view. It hit hard but rings true.

I really feel I should go into a commercial studio though, I don't want to sacrifice a lot of quality due to the false notion that I know what I'm doing when it comes to engineering. I just want to play the musician, so I can a. get the sound I'm looking for and b. be able to focus entirely on my music. Get what I'm saying?

Are you saying all this because you're just pissed as hell and tired of tweaking your machines, with all the trial and error that goes with it and feel like you're losing on precious time to record music ? Do you feel overwhelmed with the task of bring the machines to spec and want to lift the burden off yourself and focus on the music ? If yes then I don't think the solution is to go and throw out a bunch of money on a recording studio. Chances are that you may be very dissappointed with the end result. Not from your end as a musician but from the clown whom you subcontracted to "record" your tracks. Experience tought me that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself or find someone who shares your insight. Finding that person may prove very difficult.

I personally was of the opinion that you should have taken your Otari(s) to a qualified tech and let them do the work. A few hundred $$ later and much sooner, you could have focused on you music. Don't get me wrong. While I admire your wanting to set up the recorders yourself, it seems, at least from this post, that a plan to subcontract the Otari work to a tech would have proved a better investment, both from a financial and emotional stand point, at least for you.

If you feel you must sell then I'd opt for taking at least a portion of that money, from that one machine (but hopefully not the "good one") and putting it toward having a tech come over and do a full alignment for you. You'd then have the best Otari of the 2 fully up to spec and you'd be recording in no time, your way, everyday!

....but as the good Doc said: "You do what you have to do."

 

[antispatula]

Yup and it really got to me as well. Dr. Zee has it 100% in my most humble view. It hit hard but rings true.



Are you saying all this because you're just pissed as hell and tired of tweaking your machines, with all the trial and error that goes with it and feel like you're losing on precious time to record music ? Do you feel overwhelmed with the task of bring the machines to spec and want to lift the burden off yourself and focus on the music ? If yes then I don't think the solution is to go and throw out a bunch of money on a recording studio. Chances are that you may be very dissappointed with the end result. Not from your end as a musician but from the clown whom you subcontracted to "record" your tracks. Experience tought me that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself or find someone who shares your insight. Finding that person may prove very difficult.

I personally was of the opinion that you should have taken your Otari(s) to a qualified tech and let them do the work. A few hundred $$ later and much sooner, you could have focused on you music. Don't get me wrong. While I admire your wanting to set up the recorders yourself, it seems, at least from this post, that a plan to subcontract the Otari work to a tech would have proved a better investment, both from a financial and emotional stand point, at least for you.

If you feel you must sell then I'd opt for taking at least a portion of that money, from that one machine (but hopefully not the "good one") and putting it toward having a tech come over and do a full alignment for you. You'd then have the best Otari of the 2 fully up to spec and you'd be recording in no time, your way, everyday!

....but as the good Doc said: "You do what you have to do."

hey thanks cjacek for the insight. Actaully, I am very happy with how my machines are turning out when it comes to calibration. I have been able to do everything very well except bias, which I'm working on. But yeah, a few weeks ago I was frustrated, but I get how to do all the calibration stuff pretty good now, and have fised up both my machines besides the bias levels, and I can tell they're off because I can hear a crackle at high frequencies.

Yeah I still don't know what I'll do. I'm going to record at my house for a while. What I could REALLY use is a mixer! I don't even have a mixer at the moment......That's proabibly a reason I'm a little edgy when it comes to recording myself, I can't even get anything mixed yet...... I think I'll get a mackie cr1604. Then record a few songs. What's the easiest way to convert to digital without spending a trillion dollars?

 

[FALKEN]

you could find a used gina card.

 

[Dr ZEE]

What's the easiest way to convert to digital without spending a trillion dollars?

I assume you are talking specifically about converting two-track stereo recording (say: final mix) to digital (say: audio-CD)
So the easiest way to do it and to meet some level of quality is stand-alone CD-Recorder. But it's not the cheapest way.
The cheapest way is to use your existing computer (assuming you have one). You need an acceptable quality sound-card and CD-R drive and appropriate software.
Too many various options available nowdays. I can recommend couple of things that I personally used and that serve the purpose well(imho)
From the list of older / used cards: Digidesign Audiomedia-III card , they pop-up on e-bay from time to time for cheap (I "proudly" gave up 600 bucks or so for mine back in the days ) (this card will work with old w-95 16MB RAM Pentium computer in case that's what you have (or you can find one for 5-10 bucks if you have to) ... I still have one operational ).
For newer system: Digidesign ASIO Driver - here , Digidesign WaveDriver , tested by me personally and is proven to work great on W-XP with SONAR and SoundForge software (as well as with other basic music applications, ala MusicMatch mp3-player etc).
Sound Forge and CD-Architect is a great pack (imho) (I actually use older version, but not very much lately, just because of other options around).
New at MF: Sony Sound Forge 8 with CD Architect 5.2 & Noise Reduction 2.0 ,
I've found this for cheap at e-aby (I'm not sure if it's all so cool..like everything at e-bay).
Now, you can get something like M-Audio Delta 1010 LT PCI (or find used on e-bay), which I believe is the cheapes and yet pretty good card options/quality wise. I have similar card (2in/8out/digiIn/OUT) and it sounds just "fine". Honestly, I don't want to waste time conducting some sort of detailed "audiophile" test comparing cards and some other digital recorders (converters) I happen to have, because of in the swing of things it's like comparing dog's, cat's, horse's (and what have you) sh*t under microscope for "quality of the substance" and then writing "scientific report" )....
So, if you ask me: "what's better?", - I say: "I don't know".... ... but Digidesign's old card sounds really good (out of bunch) to my "unbiased" judgement
... one more note, also...
It's always a good thing to have a digital multi-track recording system available (stand-alone or computer based), that's why I mentioned Delta 1010 thing). When self-recording you experiment often and do all sorts of try-outs all the time, so there's no need to use (wear out and depreciate) your analog-recording machines all the time (for example: when you are just experimenting with various mic set-ups/options while recording drums, guitars, vocals etc, or experimenting with effects options, or sketching songs or what have you) ... for this kind of "production" you use your digital recording set-up. That's what digital recording set-ups are for, aren't they?
When you are readyto do something more serious, then! you use your precious analog recording set-up.
*********
(p.s. ..oh, and there's the whole bunch of cheap software which can do basic record audio - burn to CD job. I don't follow that market well. Sombody, please, list them . I know Sony (Soundforge used to have some $99 or so versions of their software, Cakewalk has some Pyro thing, I know MusicMatch burns CDs out of wav files pretty damn well ... winamp can do it too, I think ... what else?)