Small studio setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter bennychico11
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bennychico11

bennychico11

...
Alright, I know EVERYONE has put one of these on here at sometime or another...but if you have sometime leave some feedback.
I'm gonna start setting up a little home studio for mixing/dialogue editing/small projects and wanted to see what everyone thought about my starting gear list:

I plan on building my own PC probably with Windows XP pro with at least a 2.8GHz CPU and 512MB+ RAM.
Digi 002 rack unit with Pro Tools LE and to use with Nuendo 2.0 that I have already
Monitors (still haven't decided on which ones yet...any ideas within a $400 budget?)
Mics: SM57(2), Samson C02, Behringer B2 Pro, and a Audio Technica 3031
Also plan on building a headphone amp from http://www.paia.com (any experiences with that unit?)
Sony MDR7506 headphones for whoever needs to do monitoring (vocalist, etc.)

The mics are still tentative. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
 
Oh...and I need to choose a nice, inexpensive (but not cheap) preamp. Might buy two so that I can utilize all 8 inputs as mic inputs.
 
There is nothing wrong with the PAIA headphone amp.

Except that its not rackmount. For about the same $80 you can find behringer and oz audio HR6's on ebay (or used elsewhere) for about the same price, and they are rackmount units.

I've always liked PAIA stuff, its fun building and tweaking your own things, however not all of it is rackmount, and a lot of the rackmount items they sell as kits aren't fully enclosed.
 
Thanks Frederic, I'll look into those. But being rackmount isn't a big deal for me right now. It's gonna be a small studio setup anyway and the picture of the headphone amp on the paia site looks small as it is. Probably something just to throw down on the ground next to the performer(s).
Have you had any experience with the mic preamps from paia? Do they sound good? I think it'd be fun to build one of those too.

pdlstl....going with pro tools 'cause 1) it's one of the programs I learned DAWs on, 2) I like it's versatility and 3) because no matter how many people will argue about it...it's been a standard in tons of studios and other facilities. Therefore if I ever need to bring work from one Pro Tools unit to home, I can easily work on it there. And don't worry...I'll still be using Nuendo when I need it.
 
Looks like a reasonable setup. I built my own version of the PAIA kit (ie. I didn't buy the kit but downloaded the schematic and used my own parts plus a box from Radio Shack; total cost was about $45 I think). It works OK but I've found that the bass response is bad which the bands I've recorded have found irritating. I need to spend some time troubleshooting it to see if it is the box or something else (I know the headphone feed from my board is good so it's downstream from that).

Anyway, to add to your list if you are going to build a headphone amp make sure you have headphones. BSWUSA.com has a deal where they are selling 5 pairs of Sennheiser HD202's for $90. I keep kicking myself for not getting those rather than what I did buy.

As far as preamps go, there are tons of choices in every coneivable price range. Right now I have been thinking it would be nice to have one of those Presonus units with the 8 preamps in it (don't know the model number) that goes for about $900 or so. A more cost effective alternative would be to get a Soundcraft Spirit M8 which has decent preamps with direct outs on 8 channels. I think these go for $400 or so. I have a 2 channel ART preamp that I've been using lately and it isn't bad by any means, but it doesn't have the greatest feedback from other users so I always hesitate to suggest it (I don't crank the gain much past midway ever, and it is really quiet; I really like the variable voicing options it has, also).

Otherwise, looks like a fun place to start.

Darryl.....
 
Thanks Darryl, I'll look into that stuff. Do you think you might have gotten bad bass reponse out of the Paia because of the parts you used from Radio Shack? I'm not sure how much I trust them all the time. And as far as the Sennheiser headphones...$90 for 5?? I'm a little skeptical on getting them for that cheap. Wondering how many corners they cut to get it down to that price. I've been suckered into the buying 2 or more things for less...never turns out good. Thanks though.
 
Looks like a nice setup to start out.
Some nice monitors i could suggest are the yamaha msp5 (active) Cost me 500€/ pair. Sm75's and AT 3031 are good choice i think, though the c02 and the b2 should be reconsidered i think. If you're only going to record accoustic/electric guitar and vocals, the SP B1 (100$) looks like a good choice. Are you going to record drums aswell, you might wanna get a kick mike (d112, md421,...) and another B1, or a pair of MXL603's, which are very good on acoustics aswell i've heard ... Tell us something about what genre of music and what instruments you will mostly be recording ...

hope this helps, greetz
 
Thanks fazil. As far as genre goes...I'm not going to record any set genre really. In fact I'm not going to do any self-recording really (i'm not the greatest musician in the world) but will be recording friends/other people. When I finally get the stuff I'll probably be recording some acoustic guitar, choral work (solos/ensembles) and other small acoustic ensemble work (maybe some jazz). And included in there might be some piano. I'm not considering a SP B3 instead of that B2 I listed before. The 3031 kind of fell off the list, but I'll look at it again. Thanks.
 
I guess I should have clarified what I got at Radio Shack. The only parts purchased there were the pots and the case, everything else came from my stock of parts in the electronics shop I work in where we do aircraft audio and video systems.

Anyway, I haven't had a chance to really dig into the problems I've got but it could be a gain staging problem (ie. I might be overloading the input to the headphone amp which causes distortion in the phones and is most noticeable in the low frequency end). As soon as I stop working 16 hour days I intend to take some time to troubleshoot it.

As far as the headphone recommendation goes, I was thinking of those Sennheisers for the tracking process only. You don't want to spend a bundle on phones that have a high probability of getting trashed by inattentive musicians. Another popular option is to get the MoreMe headphones that Harvey Gerst sells (http://www.itrstudio.com/moreme.html). A lot of folks around here swear by these for the tracking room.

Anyway, good luck. I'm currently working with a kid who just graduated from high school in setting up his studio. His parents bought him a Mac G4 dual processor with the big Apple Cinema display for graduation, and gave him $3000 to put towards studio gear (this was a bribe, I think, to get him to stay home for a year to figure out what he wants to do with his life rather than go to college with no direction), so I'm having fun helping someone else spend their money. He called me last night to say he'd started ordering stuff, so I expect in a week or so I'll get to learn something else new (I don't know much about Mac's).

Cheers,
Darryl.....
 
Everyone else has addressed the equipment parts, what about the pc? For a pc I would recommend building an AMD 64 system you can get a state of the art system for around 600 bucks. I just built a Shuttle system with a 2800+ AMD 64 512 ram and ATI Radeon card for just under 600. And it's portable! I run Ableton live on it. I also run Macs, a 400 mhz G3 and a 1.25 ghz aluminum powerbook (up till a month ago top of the line)and I must say 64 bit processing rocks!
Good luck!
 
Interesting...I'll definitely take a look at the 64 now. However, the costs are looking pretty high so far. You think 512MB will be plenty to run Pro Tools LE or do you think I should go ahead and max it out?
 
Since you paid all that money for Nuendo, and the digi002, why would you want to run all that through a "cheap" pre-amp, and $400 monitors?
 
Haven't bought the 002 yet and I said "inexpensive, but NOT cheap" preamp. Besides, I plan on using the preamp mainly if I need to use a few of the other line inputs as mic inputs (since there are only 4 on the 002). Thirdly, after spending probably close to $2,000 on Pro Tools and microphones....I'm going to be running close to my budget. Unless of course someone else out there would be willing to throw some money my way...then I would GLADLY buy a nice ass preamp with a pair of NS10s or something.
 
I was just asking.
Hey, believe me, I understand budgetary concerns!

I think I'd drop the samson mics though. Pick up an SM58 instead, maybe.
And if you're looking for a good, but inexpensive pre-amp, look into the FMR Audio RNP.
I haven't used one, but folks here seem to like it.

I'd try to put some money in the budget for some OC703 as well. You're going to have to do something with the acoustics in your studio, and room treatment is the biggest bang for the buck scenerio.
 
Yeah, the Samson fell off the list already. It seems my list keeps changing everyday. I'll take a look at the 58 but I always considered it more of a stage mic. Is it good in a studio setting? I'll definitely take a look at the preamp and I've already been keeping an eye out for acoustic paneling.
 
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I haven't had a chance the last few days to keep up due to travel for work (I'm 500 miles from home at the moment), but anyway.....

A couple of notes to add. First, I finally got some time over the weekend to do some testing on my headphone amp. The amp has a very low tolerance to improper gain structuring. I found I could get decent clean sound at a normal listening level without any problems, but the levels that are needed while playing an electrified instrument get into UGLY distortion. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out. I'm probably going to start auditioning headphone amps that are available from Behringer or some of the other lower end $$ units to see how they stack up (if I can find any to test, that is, without forking out real money).

Secondly, on the mic front, I'd recommend you check out the Audio Technica AT3035 condenser. I have been very happy with the quality of the unit and it's sound since I got mine. For under $200 I think it is the best I've heard ( I auditioned the Studio Projects B1 and B3, Rode NT1, and the AKG C3000 [I think that was it]). The Studio Projects B1 was my original intent to purchase until I heard the AT3035 and thought it definitely justified the extra $100 or so.

Anyway, hope this helps.
 
Thanks man, I appreciate it. I'll definitely check out all of that. I'm probably not going to be buying this all for a few months still (until I get all the money together and finally move into a new place) but I've been taking notes. And thanks for checkin' out that PAIA amp, I might reconsider it.
 
Headphones

I use the MDR7506 headphones for commercial voice work and find that they work great. Pretty neutral. I am also using the Behringer Pro-8 HA8000 Headphone amp (for multi voice sessions). Then again, this is for voice over work, not music recording, hence, I've never pushed the headphones or amp too far.
 
yeah, i've used the 7506s before and they seem pretty good to me. although after a few hours my ears start feeling painful...wish they were a little softer. but the again, probably most headphones will. i already own a pair of Audio Technica headphones and the ones I plan on getting will probably be for the musician...so they don't need to be 100% perfect. I'll look up the cue amp, though. Thanks.
 
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