Look for the bare necessities! Analogue studio set-up on a budget. What's essential?

[gentlejohn]

Hello again kind people of Planet HR! I'm new to this forum but I have asked a few questions on here over the last couple of weeks and already I am bowled over by your help, advice & suggestions. "Ye are good people here so ye are!" ("Argh!")

OK, here's one to 'deliberate, cogitate and digest' .... I know this guy right (OK, yeah, you've guessed it: ME!!! How could I possibly have been rumbled so quickly?! See you people on here, you're clever yoose!)

So anyway, yeah, this guy (ie: ME) he's been caught up in this 'alternative lifestyle' called 'The Rat-Race' or summat for about one (or maybe two? I forget!) decades now. I tell ya, it's a really exclusive club with a very select membership of say, oh, about 28 zillion other folks. Don't get me wrong (sorry, him!) it's been GREAT fun it really has ("zzzZZZ!") but now, for some strange reason, in the immortal words of some dead rock star he mentions he now 'wants to break free' (or summat!)

The thing is, back in the day (pre-Rat Race), he has a vague recollection of deriving great pleasure from crafting half-baked songs'n'mantras with nothing more than an SM57 mic, an battered ol' acoustic guitar and an equally battered 4-track TEAC portastudio. (Some ol' American geezer used the same model to record some album called 'Nebraska' if my memory serves me well.) Anyways, after a long lay off, he (oh f*%k it) I am now looking to get back into the groove as it were.

I'll be sticking with the whole analogue vibe but second time around I'm gonna treat myself and double the track count! (Like "Yeah People!" Let me here ya say: "WOO!") So, 'moving with the times' here ... he! he! I had a minor LOL to myself as I wrote that! (That's short for 'Laugh Out Loud' Granddad! Come on, you gotta stay jiggy with the jargon). Where was I? Yeah, moving with the times .... (bear with me, I'm rapidly getting to the point of this post!) what would you good folks (here's the point!) suggest are:

The bare essential components needed for a small, analogue, home studio set up?

I'm predominantly talking outboard gear and the like but I'm very open to listen to thoughts on this whole topic in general.

Let me tell you a bit about me .... I'm a solo singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/jack-of-all-trades(master of none!)/composer who is making a seemingly not so fabulous 'comeback' (Ed: "To 'come back' I guess you would have needed to have 'been there' in the first place surely?!") Musically speaking I'm from a predominantly acoustic background but, as I get more decrepit in my dotage, I find myself being increasingly drawn to 'the electric dark side'!!! Think: A not-so-modern-day 'Marc Bolan' caught somewhere in the crossover crossfire between 'Tyrannosaurus Rex' to 'T-Rex' and ... you're nowhere there! (I'm not fit to lick the 'rubber soles' of Mr.B's spangly platform boots!) Jeez, what the hell am I talking about?!! So yeah, compressors ... where was I? What do I need? What should I/can I get (ON A BUDGET!) I still have all my old musical instrument gear (acoustic/e gtr/ bass/flugel horn/etc.) I have a nice mic too! I'm currently trying to score a TASCAM 388 (or possibly a TSR8 that's for sale which a kind inhabitant of Planet HR has made me aware of recently). In the meantime my TASCAM 688's now up for grabs if anyone's interested? (Don't get me wrong - I like it, it just doesn't like me!)

So yeah, it's just all the peripheral stuff that I need help with - stuff that I didn't have before but that everyone else of a musical bent either seems to have or thinks you need in order to record one's musical opus and leave their legacy.

IN A NUTSHELL THEN .... what do you need essentially? The BASICS to get going and FINALLY get around to making some great recordings with no one else to blame but yerself???

Let me get the ball rolling here as it were: A WEM Copicat per chance? Worth having? Hit me up .....

 

[jpmorris]

I use the Copicat on vocals, mostly. You could get a cheap digital delay like the Zoom RFX-2000 which would do mostly the same job. What digital delays can't usually do is the feedback effect which appears in a lot of psychedelia. Some copicats are modded to be able to switch off the motor while leaving the rest of it live, which saves wear on the tape. You can also make it do interesting things by switching off the motor while the system is running so the tape slows to a halt.

They do tend to be quite expensive though - clearly I got lucky on mine.

If we assume you do manage to score a 388, you've got a lot of the recording side covered. If not, you will need:
1. Multitrack deck
2. Mixing desk
3. Cable loom to connect them together
4. Something to mix down to (computer, 2-track tape deck, standalone digital recorder etc)

...the 388 would cover everything except item 4.

That is the absolute bare minimum. But it will probably sound pretty raw.

Other things you should seriously consider are:
1. Effects unit. A digital one like the Zoom will cover most bases. You can use it both to provide baked-in delay when recording, and use it to add reverb during mix, though you will probably need to re-patch the wiring to switch between these two modes. Eventually I got a spring reverb and used that to provide reverb at mixdown, and kept the Zoom permanently as a recording effect.

2. Compressor. I think this has already been discussed elsewhere. A stereo one can be used to provide bus compression at mixdown but you want to do that sparingly if at all. I kind of overdid it on the first couple of albums, and it's something that you can't take away afterwards.

2. Preamp for a microphone. If you have a condenser microphone, you will need this because AFAIK the 388 does not provide a 48v phantom power source to drive such a microphone. A dynamic mic will be fine. Even if you end up with a different mixer as your front-end, it's handy to have such a thing anyway because mixer preamps are often all-or-nothing and may end up providing phantom power to channels you don't want it on.

3. DI box for bass etc. Most mono compressors can accept a high-Z input for a bass. I use a TLA 5050 preamp/compressor as mine, since I use a lot of compression on the bass. The 5050 isn't cheap, mind.
EDIT: I must point out that I was after a clean DI bass sound a'la Gryphon on 'Ethelion' (and various punk outfits). IIRC you really wanted something to overdrive and while the 5050 is a 150v valve circuit I have never tried doing that.

4. Patchbay (you won't need this on the 388, but if using a standalone recorder, a patchbay will save you wearing out the connectors on the back of the machine by constantly reconnecting the inputs)

 

[j.harv]

As for the patch bay with the 388... I would get one. Just so you can get everything out front. I have all the line ins, eff returns, send/receive all plumbed into a patch bay. Makes things way easier.

 

[gentlejohn]

Great, great advice J, thanks so much for that! Yes, I need to invest in then work out how to use a patch bay. Definitely seems like the way to go (as I'm a terrible one for tying myself up in knots!)

 

[Ignatius-]

Once the basics are covered (388, or multitrack recorder + mixer and then mixdown deck/computer/direct to CD burner, etc.), I would highly recommend looking into a quality pair of monitor speakers. You can use computer speakers, hi-fi speakers/whatever, but a (close to) unbiased pair of monitors is going to help a great deal. You can go a little higher end (Adams, or Mackie HR624/HR824) and whatever you buy now will last you forever, and knowing and trusting your monitors is something that has saved me so much time... Also, KRK makes some good products on the more budget side - I've never tried them though, so I can't say.

Also, I would highly recommend getting an FMR Really Nice Compressor. It's like $150 used and works on almost everything you could throw at it. Extremely transparent. I mean, it's not amazing on everything, but I've found it usable on so many sources... and it's only $150!!! Also, the Lexicon LXP-1 or MPX boxes are really great for the price. Check craigslist and ebay... you'll find a lot of great deals on some of the more "budget" gear...

 

[gentlejohn]

Thank you SO much folks for your help & suggestions folks - VERY much appreciated!