Remodeling

[Velvet Elvis]

The walls in my studio are plaster.... and textured plaster at that... so I decided the velcro wouldn't work very well.. in fact I had trouble sticking that to the Auralex even. Same with carpet tape. So, for a couple of bucks I got enough painted screws and brass washers to do the whole job. looks nice... works well... VERY easy to do. The foam seems to cover the holes fairly well too (if you remove a block its hard to see the screw holes).

We've got furries too... two small 4 legged meowing creatures and one large woofing creature. They aren't allowed in the room. However, if I color coordinate the dog as per John's suggestion, maybe I could use her for a foot rest or better yet a portable sound isolation barrier hehehe (would that be considered a 'sound isolation terrier') wow... that was bad... sorry couldn't resist.

I agree with John on the "grey/white" to contrast with the green... my studio's "white" is actually a color called "Whitest Grey" and it is NOT even close to being white But it still looks nice.

Frederic... nice studio... think you have enough automated mixers?

I tell ya... having kids is actually amusing if you have a studio... I should MP3 my oldest boy (2 years old) singing "The Wheels on the Bus" into my C3 Pretty hilarious. All he wanted me to do was let him sit and sing with about a 4 second delay on his voice.... not being able to resist... I hit the record button.

Velvet Elvis

 

[minusone]

We've got furries too... two small 4 legged meowing creatures and one large woofing creature. They aren't allowed in the room. However, if I color coordinate the dog as per John's suggestion, maybe I could use her for a foot rest or better yet a portable sound isolation barrier hehehe (would that be considered a 'sound isolation terrier') wow... that was bad... sorry couldn't resist.

heh! yeah, we have one of those smallish furry creatures that goes meow... its name is kidd... at least that's what we call her. she HATES it when I stick her in one of the adjacent corners of the studio and say (in a stern voice) "now kidd, you have stay there, I need a bass trap, so don't move." She looks at me with a "are you nuts! you are talking to a cat" look and saunters off to continue the mutulation of her scratching post. She's makes a lousy asst. engineer too.

I tell ya... having kids is actually amusing if you have a studio... I should MP3 my oldest boy (2 years old) singing "The Wheels on the Bus" into my C3 Pretty hilarious. All he wanted me to do was let him sit and sing with about a 4 second delay on his voice.... not being able to resist... I hit the record button.

Velvet Elvis

Heh... sounds like that could possibly be an intro to a song later on down the road?

 

[minusone]

Minusone...
Thanks for the comments on the "just william" stuff. I didn't know anyone actually checked the stuff out We are still working to get it all finished, but our record company is having some financial issues, so they haven't given us a commit date yet... go figure.

If you get a chance... go listen to the "drum and bass" and the new version of "Angry at Angels"... let me know what you think of the guitars.

Velvet Elvis

Elvis, I am listening to the drum and bass track now (heh... I was expecting drum 'n bass - the sub-techno-genre -- which I happen to be into) and i really dig the mellow-ness. One thing I would try... during the verse (i think it is) instead of that cool lead-guitar part changing keys with the bass.. keep it the same key, and let the bass change... I love that technique... it creates that really "emo" sort of quality... but then again... that's just me... I'm probably totally wrong.

I dig the intro to "Angry" Nice kick sound you captured... nice and airy and boomy. I really dig that snare too... i hate the "modern" method of recording snare... when its mixed with the rest of the band the damn thing sounds like the drummer is hitting a shoe box. I like knowing what kind of snare drum is used... how its tuned and the type of head... which listening to your mix... i can get a pretty good idea of what all those properties are.

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Minusone...

See you've got it all wrong with the cat...

Bass traps aren't as efficient if they aren't put together well... so here's what I've found...

duct tape the cat in the corner... you can vary the spacing of the duct tape to act as the slats... the cat then becomes the absorbing barrier on the inside of the bass trap ;-)

Simply change your cats diet to alter the frequency being absorbed

hehehe

Yeah, my son LOVES to scream and sing into the mic... I've never put a meter on him, but he really has a pretty loud voice for a little guy. Only problem is he also loves to twist knobs and push faders... or buttons on the tape control surface!!

Velvet Elvis

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Minusone...

Thanks... yeah the drums don't sound tooooo bad for being recorded through a Mackie and some old black face ADATs.

The reason I was curious as to what anyone though on those tunes was that I used a guitar processor for the guitar tones. All the other tracks were live amps... but that day... in a moment of weakness... I tried out a unit from the store I work at.

My drum recording is somewhat unorthodox. I use mics that I don't think many others do... but they've always worked for me.

The kick is a D-112.. no big surprise. The toms and top of snare are all SM-57's... no biggie there either. The hats and overheads though are AudioTechnica CHOIR mics... little tiny condensor mics.

And the bottom snare is an old Shure SM-76 (I think is the model) that has the nastiest sound to it... but it does great at picking up a rattling snare. without picking up too much else (kick etc).

Velvet Elvis

 

[frederic]

You might consider putting a hard limiter between your console and your monitoring amplifier

Also, this idea is not original, I stole it from somewhere, but with clients (especially non-experienced demo bands) I had on my rate sheet a $5 knob twiddle charge, per twiddle. Always, I was asked what this meant specifically, and i was amused explaining it - touch my console, thats $5 per incident.

Yeah, my son LOVES to scream and sing into the mic... I've never put a meter on him, but he really has a pretty loud voice for a little guy. Only problem is he also loves to twist knobs and push faders... or buttons on the tape control surface!!

Velvet Elvis

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Not a bad idea... The studio I used to work at had a guy who CONSTANTLY blew up the NS-10's... he'd forget to turn the i/o switch to analog on the DAT deck when he un-muted the DAT.. and BAMMMM there go the tweeters.

I've done that a time or two with my adat's (opened a monitor channel with a record still enabled)... but nothing's blown yet.

'cept my hearing.

Velvet Elvis

 

[frederic]

The walls in my studio are plaster.... and textured plaster at that... so I decided the velcro wouldn't work very well.. in fact I had trouble sticking that to the Auralex even. Same with carpet tape. So, for a couple of bucks I got enough painted screws and brass washers to do the whole job. looks nice... works well... VERY easy to do. The foam seems to cover the holes fairly well too (if you remove a block its hard to see the screw holes).

Understood. All of my apartments were smooth finish, thus my velcro idea. For me it worked. And I do like your screw idea, i wasn't knocking it at all, was just sharing what I've done in the past. This time around, I'm going to use long carpet tacks until I am pleased with the location and tuning of the room, then use spray glue since i own this house.

We've got furries too... two small 4 legged meowing creatures and one large woofing creature. They aren't allowed in the room. However, if I color coordinate the dog as per John's suggestion, maybe I could use her for a foot rest or better yet a portable sound isolation barrier hehehe (would that be considered a 'sound isolation terrier') wow... that was bad... sorry couldn't resist.

We have three domestics, and one asian leopard. I generally do not allow furry critters in my studio for the obvious hair problem (faders and hair do NOT mix) however the Asian Leopard spent about 15 minutes figuring out the door latches on both the hallway to my studio, and the control room itself. Now when in my studio, I wheel my Harke bass amp in front of the door until i get around to installing all these electric strikers that I have. Yet another thing I don't get to.

I agree with John on the "grey/white" to contrast with the green... my studio's "white" is actually a color called "Whitest Grey" and it is NOT even close to being white But it still looks nice.

I've always believed studios should be neutral in color as not to be visual distracting - the environment is for your ears. However I will probably violate that with my black and purple auralex foam, just because I have it, and I'm too cheap to replace perfectly good foam. However John Sawyer offered up some painting ideas, so I might try that route.

Frederic... nice studio... think you have enough automated mixers?

No, I do not

The TMD4000 in the back right is for surround mixing, and mixing to the recorders (two Akai DR16's and two DR8's) and live instruments (nicer preamps), where as the row of TMD-1000's in front (six in all) mix midi synthesizers. I have approximately 96U worth of synth modules, and about 25U of outboards. True, I certainly don't use it all at the same time - I have my favorites, however if someone wants a lame sax sound off a Korg EX800, well, I got it

voice.... not being able to resist... I hit the record button.

Nothing wrong with that. I would be amused too

Unfortunately for me, I have four very noisy cats (at least at night) however during recording time, they just stare. The Asian Leopard has a nice growl rather than a purr, and for a few years now I've been trying to get it recorded, and have not succeeded. I think he's shy

My apologies for submitting an off-topic picture. The left kitty is Martha, and the right kitty is Spike, the asian leopard. Picture a cuisenart with spotted fur.

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Frederic..

Topic?? Does this thread have a topic?? ;-)

Nice cats... that's cool about the leopard... beautiful animals.

I'm just being jealous of your automation... I've 'creatively' automated my studio... all the ins and outs from the adats and the mackie go to a patch bay and are normalled to their appropriate channels... BUT I have a yamaha promix 01 that is also part of the patch bay... normalled to the subs of the mackie. So I can automate groups of channels by using the subs and sending them to the promix.. or I can hard patch them at the bay if I need one to one automation.

Everything is synced with my BRC to the computer (running the sequencer for the promix automation).

Very flexible... works relatively well... and NO VCA automation

Velvet Elvis

 

[frederic]

I highly recommend it as I've had customers in the past decide to touch something and screeeeeeeech - feedback through the monitors at ear splitting levels. Not sure how everyone else on this forum handles rating their amps to their monitors, but I always run more power than I need amp-wise, so that the volume on the amp doesn't have to be full throttle. This way the amp always has more power to give for bass and sub-bass frequencies. Of course the risk of doing this is someone sliding a fader way up results in overpowering their monitors. This is where the limiter comes into play. I use a symetrix, but anything that has hard limiting will work just fine. Hard limiting because slow limiting will start to alter the sound over a range of audible volume approaching the limit, whereas a hard limiter "kicks in" at just below its setting. This way you're colorizing the audio less until its at the limit.

Not a bad idea... The studio I used to work at had a guy who CONSTANTLY blew up the NS-10's... he'd forget to turn the i/o switch to analog on the DAT deck when he un-muted the DAT.. and BAMMMM there go the tweeters.

I've done that a time or two with my adat's (opened a monitor channel with a record still enabled)... but nothing's blown yet.

'cept my hearing.

Velvet Elvis

 

[frederic]

Topic?? Does this thread have a topic?? ;-)

Well, its is a recording BBS not a voyeur of cats BBS

I'm just being jealous of your automation... I've 'creatively' automated my studio... all the ins and outs from the adats and the mackie go to a patch bay and are normalled to their appropriate channels... BUT I have a yamaha promix 01 that is also part of the patch bay... normalled to the subs of the mackie. So I can automate groups of channels by using the subs and sending them to the promix.. or I can hard patch them at the bay if I need one to one automation.

Been there done that. I've gotten to the point where the path of least resistance is to purchase a few more little mixers (Tascam 1000's), chain them together for the music, and use patch bays much less. They are automated through midi, dirt cheap on the used market (often around 300ish on e-bay, sometimes a little more), and almost disposible from where I stand. While they are a 4-bus mixer which certainly has some limitations, for mixing racks and racks of midi gear, I think its perfect. I usually do all the midi audio in one shot to tracks 1 (Left) and track 2 (right) because I do all the sequencing on the PC, with cakewalk pro 9. This leaves me 46 tracks of Akai recording space for vocals, live horns, real drumkits, what have you, which is more than enough for anything I have done in the past, or forsee in the future.

In fact, between the little tascam mixers, I have them digitally connected via s/pdif, which is only stereo anyway. Serves my purpose just fine. This is why I have the TMD4000 there, its an eight bus mixer and much more flexible, and has better preamps for vocals, live instruments, etc. For my needs, its a great combination.

Everything is synced with my BRC to the computer (running the sequencer for the promix automation).

I had a rack of adats built over time, and at some point, started to get into the Akai hard disk recorders. I don't regret it because I LOVE the instant location ability of hard disk recorders. And the akai units have burr brown A/D and D/A converters in them, which at the time were probably one of the best, if not the best. However, there was something to be said for popping out six tapes and tossing them into the media vault, and starting a new project by shoving in blank, formatted tapes. of course with removable SCSI drives I can finally do the same thing (2G drives are practically free on e-bay!), but both are a far cry from my Otari 24 track, which I am loaning to a good friend and missing dearly.

Very flexible... works relatively well... and NO VCA automation

This is partly why I got so into midi - volume and pan are easily controlled on the mixers, AND the synths, so your flexibility is increased.

Even for vocals

 

[Velvet Elvis]

I used to record entirely on SAW Plus 32... everything was computer automated... my promix was used for live recording and mixing and such...

Maybe someday I'll go back to 2 inch tape... dunno... the ADATs seem to be a good reliable exchangable format still.

I've thought of upgrading the IO in my ADAT with Burr-Browns or something similar... but I'm not sure I need to. Sonically, the ADATs I have seem to do a decent job... at least good enough that I can't imagine spending the $$$ to upgrade something on them.

I used to (as a child) record using two stereo VCR's and whatever mixer I could get my hands on... Actually if you go to my web site, the stuff under "AtKM" was recorded either on VCR or minidisc

Velvet Elvis

 

[frederic]

Maybe someday I'll go back to 2 inch tape... dunno... the ADATs seem to be a good reliable exchangable format still.

This is where I think a mix of analog and digital make sense. Digital tape and especially hard disk allow cut and paste and editing, with no/minimal loss of audio quality.

Spinning off digital to a top quality analog recorder, then back to digital for mastering purposes, allows an engineer to add some of that magical analog warmth attained only through tape saturation.

While others have had endless problems with their adats, I can say mine when I had them were fairly reliable. I treated idler wheel replacement much like an oil change, and did it on scheduled intervals just to avoid problems down the road. For a while, I had a box of them as spares

Its a good format for the price, I would never knock it. Sonically, too.

I've thought of upgrading the IO in my ADAT with Burr-Browns or something similar... but I'm not sure I need to. Sonically, the ADATs I have seem to do a decent job... at least good enough that I can't imagine spending the $$$ to upgrade something on them.

All that matters is you are happy

Why I went for the akai's (and the burr browns) is at the time I got into them, they sounded much better than the adat's analog converters (I had blackface units, the original), and a/d was important at the time because my console was analog all the way through. Now that I'm into the little Tascam mixers, the converters are never used.

BTW, I just converted one of my akai DR8's into an Akai DR16. While it still only has eight analog ins/outs, I shoved in an 8-in/16-out ADAT card and swapped the eproms. Now it thinks its a DR16 Gotta love technology and marketing.

I used to (as a child) record using two stereo VCR's and whatever mixer I could get my hands on... Actually if you go to my web site, the stuff under "AtKM" was recorded either on VCR or minidisc

I remember those days well. My "master" deck in the very beginning was a radio shack beta machine that had hi-fi stereo in/outs for the audio.

Scary LOL.

 

[Velvet Elvis]

Frederic...

That's cool about your Akai being "upgraded"

My ADATs are the old black faced ones as well... partially because I got them for next to nothing and partially because I hear that they are still the model with the least amount of issues (reliability wise).

I've always been a firm believer in the engineer/musicians making the recording sound good... more so than the equipment. I know that there have been some pretty killer recordings done on some pretty crappy gear.

Maybe I should take one of my decks and upgrade it just to see how different it sounds... use that one for tracking vocals and such.

Velvet Elvis

 

[John Sayers]

I've always been a firm believer in the engineer/musicians making the recording sound good... more so than the equipment

Hear hear !!!

cheers
John

 

[Velvet Elvis]

wow... I got a "hear hear" from John

Unfortunately... for me believing in that philosophy, that means I have no excuse for how bad my recordings sound

hehehehehe

Velvet Elvis