Post a picture of your work station.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Freudian Slip
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Workstation Pictures

Right-side Recorder Rack.

This horizontal rack houses (2) Akai DR16's, (2) Akai DR8's, an Alesis RA-100 monitor amp, as well as a few other trinkets.
 

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Workstation Pictures

Producer's Desk.

Well, its not really a desk, there is no place to lean on to write :) However, the recorder rack is to the right (see above post), the Tascam TMD-4000 for recording/mixing to the recorders. Underneath is an OZ HR-4 headphone amp for handling performer mixes, a Samson MPL2242 analog mixer for foldback purposes (bus 1/2 is the performer mix, 3/4 is the Cue mix, and L/R is the sum of all four busses for the console table. Underneath that is my super-flaky MIDI composing PC.

Behind the mixer, sitting on the computer (which you can't see) is close to 108 gig of audio storage for the Akai recorders.
 

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Here is another picture of the producer's area, unloaded with all the gear (in fact, the rack rails are not mounted yet), so the 2x4 construction is fairly obvious. The back bar underneath the Tascam TMD-4000 mixer is nothing more than "ordinary" black pipe normally used for natural gas lines in homes. Its a strong, very inexpensive way to mount tascam mixers because they have this nice arc'd lip they call a "palm rest". Just made construction incredibly easy.

And yes, all the 2x4's will be painted at some point.
 

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This is the view of the homemade console table, partially loaded. The table is 105" wide and has six Tascam TMD-1000 mixers resting on another black pipe, as the smaller mixers also have this palm rest lip thing.

Ignore the ash tray, I will not admit I smoked in my studio while I was building this stuff :)

Two monitors for the MIDI PC, which also connect to a large KVM switch so I can hot-key the keyboard/mouse/monitors to the Akai DR8/16 recorders, thus able to edit the audio inside the machines, and not task my MIDI PC with this responsibility. The monitors are about to be replaced with NEC 17" LCD monitors that have a slightly higher resolution, weigh less, and produce less noise in the audio system.

Right behind the audio monitor in the picture, are the remains of my midi racks. I originally had six of these, down to four. After everything is wired on the console area (with Mogomi!) these racks will be ripped apart, moved forward a little bit to line up with the back edge of the console table for a cleaner look, and allow me to double up the height a bit so I can cram in more gear. Since the ceiling is slanted, this is a very good use for this space. Plus, there will be a small crawl space behind it so I can wire it :)
 

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This is the left-hand side of the console table. I took two of the Tascam TMD-1000 mixer's out of the table so you'all can see how easy this table was to construct.

Far in the background is my old console "hutch" which wasn't big enough and about to become scrap, re-used for the midi racks I mentioned earlier.

Also ignore the left video monitor - it decided to burn up and go "red" which is why I'm replacing both of them.

Well, to those interested in how I'm constructing my studio on the cheap, there you go. 2x4's and black pipe. Total cost was about 100 bucks including the pipe, wood, fasteners, brackets to the floor. The only additional cost there could have been was the rack rails that I cut up out of a few old aluminum computer racks I didn't need anymore. I used to be an ISP so I had a few of these things lying around. Made for good cutting :)

In most of the pictures you can see some sort of seemingly ugly paneling. This paneling is tongue and groove cedar believe it or not... about an inch thick. This was there when I moved in last may. I yanked it all down, put behind it better insulation, a layer of greenboard (sheet rock for showers), a layer of thin plastic, another thin layer of greenboard, a layer of 1/8" rubber, and then tacked the tonge and groove cedar back. On top of this I will paint with "superwhite" latex paint, and on top of that will be 2'x2' auralex acoustical tiles, seperated by about 4-6" depending where in the room the tiles are.

The room is absolutely not ideal, but I've mixed in significantly worse environments before, so once my ears are trained for this environment, I'll be okay.

Hope you all enjoyed.

Frederic (midiguy732@hotmail.com)
 

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Frederick, hey, that all looks like it's comming together real nicely!
Have you, or are you, considering trimming out some of that 2x4 construction with some cabinet grade plywood panels and maybe some pre-cut mouldings?
 
A friend who is a professionaly veneer layer offered as a gift, to add some mahogony veneer to all visible surfaces, to make it really look nice. This would be my first choice, actually, wood always looks nice.

I'm just not at that point yet... I want to do all the roughing first, then the wiring, then make it pretty so I don't scratch/ruin/damage the veneer.

If that doesn't work out, I'll either chop up the roll of "amp carpet" I have in the garage, or worse case, use black latex paint to cover the wood after priming it with "killz".

Choices are bountiful!
 
Coming along nicely!

Fredric: Looks like you are moving along good. When I see you guys with oodles of equipment I turn green. I spent the last 10 years purchasing live equipment. Sad to say not a whole lot of it crosses over well for recording. (aren't monitor speakers those things that set on the edge of the stage:)) They don't hang to well on the wall.

Well keep it up.

I will post my meager set up in the next couple of days here.


F.S.
 
Re: Coming along nicely!

Freudian Slip said:
Fredric: Looks like you are moving along good. When I see you guys with oodles of equipment I turn green. I spent the last 10 years purchasing live equipment. Sad to say not a whole lot of it crosses over well for recording. (aren't monitor speakers those things that set on the edge of the stage:)) They don't hang to well on the wall.

Well keep it up.

I will post my meager set up in the next couple of days here.


F.S.
Click to expand...

Aside from monitors/amps, depending on the board you purchased you could suffer and use it for recording. I used a Fostex 450-16 for years with a reasonable degree of success. While Fostex touted this board as a live/recording board, other than little switches to select tape/line/mic, it definately in my opinion is a live board.

Anyway, e-bay / digibid are your friends :)
 
Milkman

Sure does. looks like the board is fresh out of the box. Is it a mackie?
If so what model and how do you like it? I hace a Vlz sr24-4 I bought for live and I am pretty happy with it, but I would like something a smaller for recording.


Later
F.S.
 
Re: Milkman

Freudian Slip said:
Sure does. looks like the board is fresh out of the box. Is it a mackie?
If so what model and how do you like it? I hace a Vlz sr24-4 I bought for live and I am pretty happy with it, but I would like something a smaller for recording.


Later
F.S.
Click to expand...

I can tell you the 1604 is SWEET!!! If you don't want that big get the 1642 or whatever it is. It's one step down and is quickly becoming a studio standard.
 
yup, it is a Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro. No lol...it is not fresh out of the box...i have had it for about 2.5 years...i just keep my gear in really good condition and don't move it around a lot. It like it a lot...the preamps are nice, and it offers a lot of routing options (4 preamps, 3 stereo lineins...aux outs, control room outs...etc.)

~Milkman
 
milkman

I am much the same. I have stuff from 1990 that looks brand new. I even tape over the screws on rack mount gear so it does not scratch another piece of gear next to it in the rack..
Other people in bands think I am wacked as they toss all their mics in one bag to rub against each other all the way home!?!

Not me. If I ever want to sell somthing I want it to look new.
Even just for me I want it to look new.

I was just noticing the sticker still on it.

Later

F.S.
 
Not much but I get a good sound. I will be upgrading to the Aardvark Q10 in the next couple of months (overtime at work is coming - Yeah).


DD
 
where did you get your rack housing from? and how much?
 
I got the rack and another one half as tall with handles at a U.S. Government disposal sale about 2 years ago for $10. I'm sure it probably cost Uncle Sam about $400. Those of you in the states who live near a military base should really check out the disposal sales. Go to http://www.drms.dla.mil/ and see what's coming up for sale at a base near you. Never, ever, Never email a bid without seeing the item first. What you think is a 19 inch rack with a glass door on the front might be a 24 inch computer equipment rack. You know - the ones in the mad scientist movies with all the 2 inch reel-to-reel tape drives. I don't know if those old data tape drives are useable for audio but I've seen them crushed for scrap because no one would buy them. Most of the sales I've been to are 99% junk but there are diamonds there if you look hard enough.

What I really want is a 4U size rackmount computer case. I would gladly trade the "half as tall" rack with handles for the computer case. This rack is very heavy duty commercial. I don't think you could break it if you wanted to.

DD
 
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