Starting a digital studio... How to configure?

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dfrange

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Hello,
This is my first post.
Gotta say that this is the most informative site I have come across dealing with recording, sound engineering, etc..

OK to the point.

I need to have a set up that will be able to record drums in one take, basically I will need to be able to get as many tracks to disc at once as I can.
This because I would like to be able to during mix time to be able to adjust the individual pieces of the kit.

As for the rest of the band I will not really need more than 2 recording channels may be three for different mic configuration.

I was looking at one of the 8 channel sound cards like the layla, motu, or recently the gadget something (it is alot cheaper than the rest which makes me ? it).

Next would be a mixer.
Not really sure about the mixer or how to use it properly.
I am guessing at a 16 channel mixer to give me the most flex with amount of mics used.

We have someone who has a ton of mics that we would borrow, (Which would be the most expensive part of the studio as I am coming to find).

Am I on the right track?
Conceptually I am having trouble putting it all together, like what goes where how to plug it all together.

Any suggestions on how to put it together and what brands to get would be wonderfull!!
 
1st and foremost in determining what you need is .......
....What is your budget????
 
Heh heh
Now that is the most important question.
Ok minus the microphones ...
I was hoping to keep it at under 2000 .
Figuring the main cost to be the sound card and mixer.
Then the cable snake a nice compressor and hopefully a cool tube pre-amp with what is left.
 
The MOTU is nice...24 tracks, easy to use.
Comes bundled with software that makes it more than worth the money, I think.
 
I've been using the Gadget Labs 8/24 for a few months now, no complaints on the quality here. It's good to be skeptical on the price difference, though. Here's what I think contributes to the lower cost:

* It's stripped-down without a lot of "bells-and-whistles". Just 8 pretty good A/D and D/A converters, -10/+4 balanced I/O, and MIDI in/out. No clocking or synching extras, and the base card doesn't have digital I/O (the daughter card is really reasonable).

* It uses a wall-wart... a little cheaper

* No middle-man, they only sell direct

They also have a 30 day money-back guarantee and good technical support. The only downside is a compatibility problem I've had using it with Cakewalk, and I'm much more willing to change software than the sound card. My opinion is that it's a great starting point.
 
Thanks for the replies!

With the gadget labs do you ever feel the need for those bells and whistles?
I can't really think of any reason I would be needing them anytime soon and if I ever do upgrade to a larger studio I would probably just get more cards.

PG: How do you have your card set up?
Or how do you have your the rest of the studio set up to record to the card?
Thanks!
 
How I'm setup

The card has what I need to record. The digital I/O would be a nice addition at some point, but it's not keeping me from recording.

My Mackie 1604VLZ is pretty much the hub of my setup. When tracking, I use it for the preamps, level setting, and maybe just a smidge of EQ depending on the track. I record direct to HD and do all my mixing from software. I have the ins/outs and inserts of the Mackie running to a patch bay-- makes it really easy to route things. The board still gets quite a bit of milage even though I don't use it for mixing any more. The cassette decks, DAT, CD player, card outputs, etc. need to get routed and the mixer is great for that.

Some people prefer to use the multiple outs on the 8/24 to run back out to the board for the actual mixing. Since I don't use that method, I rarely use more than 2 outs on the 8/24 (and that's just for monitoring). It's nice to have the extras when I want 'em, though.

I'm not an evangelist... there are some other cards in the same ballpark that get good reviews. But I've used this one, and so far I dig it.
 
cool!!
That is the exact same setup I was looking at!
I was probably going to have to go with the 1604 vlz because it is the only one in the same price realm with direct outs on each channel(that I could find).
I had looked at n-track for the first time in a long time and wow!
It has come along way.

OK now you opened up a can of worms!!
I have a slew of ?'s for you...

What do you recommend for quality mixing software?

Do you use any effects pre hdisk, or do you do it all post on the pc?

Annnnnnnnddddd....
Can you see any way of stepping down to a lower cost mixer?
My fear is with a lesser mixer I wont be able to get the flexibility to be able to use JUST the mixer to run the sound to the hdisk.


Thanks again for the help and wisdom!

DF


I dont want to have to get other components down the road to make up for being cheap at the get go :)
 
SW: I'm pretty impressed with the new Vegas Audio 2.0 (drstawl had some complaints about it), but that might be pricy... especially since the budget will be mostly wiped by the card and mixer. Don't forget that cables will eat up some of the remaing cash, too. N-track is cheap, users seem to love it, and I've heard great things recorded with it. I'm sure you could get plenty of milage out of it. You'll know more about what you want out of the software once you've played with it a bit.

Outboard effects: I don't really use any. Not that I wouldn't if I had the extra cash :D. For what I'm doing, software plug-ins are a better value for the money... I just have to watch my input levels reeeeeeeally close. Even with my lean setup, I'd still spend more money on mics, preamps, and monitors before I spent anything on outboard stuff. I've learned to get by without it, but the convenience and the lighter CPU load would be nice. I do pay a price for my choice.

Mixer: I'm spoiled. Since the Mackie is my "hub", I'd hate to have skimped any more in that dept. In two years, I'm sure I would have brought lesser built gear to it's knees. I rarely use all the channels, but I'd be up a creek if I didn't have 'em when I needed 'em. 16 reasonable quality, low noise preamps is a cool thing to have. I've never regretted the purchase. BTW, my 1604 (a little older, not the Pro) only has direct outs on channels 1-8. You might double-check the specs.

Remember, I'm just saying what works for me. You can build your setup a few pieces at a time this way and guage what will improve it with some experimenting.
 
Cool!
Awsome post!
I think it is the vlz pro I was looking at that has 16 direct outs.

I had played with Vegas Pro 2.0 for the trial version and it looked quite solid.
I think that will be a good investment when my cash flow returns to normal :)

I do fear the cpu load.

How much of a load can you hit your system with before it starts to cop out?
I have played with the dx realtime effects but haven't really used them in a mixdown environment yet.
Kindof wondering what I will need to do the the pc to make it usable.


Thanks again,
DF
 
As far as raw track count goes, I get much more than I've ever needed from a single 7200 RPM drive. The only benchmark I've taken the time to run gave me 48 solid tracks (16-bit/44.1, with no DSP effects of course) and I still had some headroom. My drive is almost full (full drives are usually slower) and it hadn't been defragmented in a while when I ran the test. I'm confident that most modern HD's should perform pretty well with 16/44 or 24/44.

Effects are a totally different story. I'm running on a PII 400 with 96M RAM, and I usually get 12 to 16 tracks with the amount of effects I tend to use. Effects have differing CPU loads, so it's hard to quantify. I usually have an expensive compressor (CPU-wise) on kick, snare, and vocs; a less "expensive" compressor on bass and possibly other tracks; EQ on most tracks; usually a reverb on an aux buss (they're quite expensive) and maybe I'll try to squeeze in a delay or two. I've learned where the limit is, and how to push it a little more sometimes, through experimentation. The downside is that buffering and latency (lag time) make it more difficult to adjust plug-ins in real-time. You can increase the number and/or size of buffers in a lot of software and get more "power" at the cost of more lag time between when you make an adjustment and when you actually hear the effects of that adjustment. This can be annoying in situations like trying to EQ out a specfic ring in a snare, but it isn't usually a problem for me when I start getting things dialed in.

When I start to hit the wall, I just process some tracks off-line. This applies the effect directly to the audio and saves it to disk. Then I archive the original, unaffected source tracks (in case I want to process 'em differently later) and use the new processed audio tracks, lowering the CPU load. A faster CPU would make a world of difference for me, but I'm determined to hold off another couple of generations before upgrading. A $400 1Gig chip would be oh-so-nice :).
 
dfrange said:
Cool!
Awsome post!
I think it is the vlz pro I was looking at that has 16 direct outs.

Thanks again,
DF
Click to expand...


Well, really the vlzPro has 8 direct outs. It has 16 inserts, which can be used for direct outs.

What I would suggest is using 4 of the 8 direct outputs, and then use 4 submix outputs-so that you could group things if you needed to.

I would also suggest in at least a Stereo outboard Compressor of decent quality.
After I started recording in digitial-the first thing I found that I wanted was some extra compressors, just to tone down the peaks a bit-and also for limitingh, to get the maximum signal before distortion.

Granted, I'm recording on Tape (DA-38's), but it will still apply for HD recording.

The vlzPro 16 is a great little board for the money.
I was planning on getting a "monster" sized mixer, but I'm digging the fact that it's rackmounted!

I would like to get another one, because I find that I do wind up re-patching alot of cables (because I'm using the Channel inserts for tape in/outs), but in your situation-going HD, you might not have as much cable swapping to do!

Do you plan on being able to record 16 channels of audio at once? (16 separate tracks at 1 pass?)

Just curious

Tim
 
Well, really the vlzPro has 8 direct outs. It has 16 inserts, which can be used for direct outs
Click to expand...

That's what I thought, too. I think some preamp improvements were the only change on the new Pro series.

The outboard compressor is a pretty good idea. I kinda have mixed feelings. On one hand, I wouldn't need so much DSP at mix time. On the other, the outboard compression gets committed to "tape". I tweak settings a lot as it is, but that's mostly 'cause I'm still a compression novice. I'd be more likely to use one just for limiting or even go with a dedicated "limiter" instead. Basically, peak protection only, saving compression "as an effect" for non-destructive plug-ins. But not everyone is as paranoid as I am. I just f-up too much to ever want to alter my raw signal too much on the way in.

I was planning on getting a "monster" sized mixer, but I'm digging the fact that it's rackmounted!
Click to expand...

Amen to that. The patch-bay has saved me many a bump on the head, too.
 
16 channels ? egads! I hope not.
I don't think I will go to far over 6 to 8 and that will mainly be drums and scratch tracks.
Afterwards I can't really see going beyond 3 to 4.

Mainly I was concerned with the flexibility of routing signals to tape (hd), other instruments that may not going to track, and just basically because this is the first time I have worked with any outboard mixing and don't really know what I will need! :)

Running 4 and 4 sounds like a good plan.
Hard to find a mixer for less than 800 that has 4 busses

"Compressor":
Ya I ran into my dsp wall trying to compress my tracks post tracking.
I think that will be my first effect purchase a good compressor!

Compression is no joke!
Been reading my butt of trying to get that one down with little luck.
Never really thought about as a serious effect when I have it in my effects chain (I am a guitar player), until I went to the studio and saw how it was really used.

OK one more Question.... :)
How does it all get wired together?:
inserts, effects, patch bay, ins and outs of the recording device, pre mix fader aux channels , etc...

Thanks again!
dfrange
 
dfrange said:
16 channels ? egads! I hope not.
I don't think I will go to far over 6 to 8 and that will mainly be drums and scratch tracks.
Afterwards I can't really see going beyond 3 to 4.

Mainly I was concerned with the flexibility of routing signals to tape (hd), other instruments that may not going to track, and just basically because this is the first time I have worked with any outboard mixing and don't really know what I will need! :)

Running 4 and 4 sounds like a good plan.
Hard to find a mixer for less than 800 that has 4 busses

"Compressor":
Ya I ran into my dsp wall trying to compress my tracks post tracking.
I think that will be my first effect purchase a good compressor!

Compression is no joke!
Been reading my butt of trying to get that one down with little luck.
Never really thought about as a serious effect when I have it in my effects chain (I am a guitar player), until I went to the studio and saw how it was really used.

OK one more Question.... :)
How does it all get wired together?:
inserts, effects, patch bay, ins and outs of the recording device, pre mix fader aux channels , etc...

Thanks again!
dfrange
Click to expand...

Yep, Compression is your friend!
I used to work part time in this studio when I was about 18 (so that was in 1986-GOD that makes me feel REALLY old right about now! Hahaha)

Anyway, We compressed EVERYTHING! Every single track went through Compression.
The recordings kicked ass. So, I do it today, and I'm happy with the results.

Tim
 
dfrange said:


Running 4 and 4 sounds like a good plan.
Hard to find a mixer for less than 800 that has 4 busses

"Compressor":
Ya I ran into my dsp wall trying to compress my tracks post tracking.
I think that will be my first effect purchase a good compressor!
OK one more Question.... :)
How does it all get wired together?:
inserts, effects, patch bay, ins and outs of the recording device, pre mix fader aux channels , etc...

Thanks again!
dfrange
Click to expand...

Well,

I personally am not a big fan of Behringer-nothing against their gear-I ordered a Behringer mixer and waited for MONTHS with no word-I then called the dealer when it wasn't delivered on the due date (November 5th last year) Actually, I waited until the next Monday before calling.
I was told that the Board wouldn't even leave the factory until after January 1,2000.
I had already waited a few month's for something that wasn't even a "custom" order (it wasn't like I ordered a custom configured Trident or anything like THAT! Hahaha)
So, I cancelled the order, and walked into my local music store, and bought a Mackie 1604vlzPro for $1000.00 in Cash.
I was in and out in 15 munites.

Great little mixer.

Back to Behringer-You could buy a pair of the 4 channel Compressors for under $400. That would allow you to compress EVERY signal going into the Computer.

Just patch them in between the Mixer and the PC.

You could then Set the Ratio so that what would normally be NO Compression (which would essentially be 1:1 Ratio) would now be 2:1 (The input would have to raise 2 db's for the output to raise 1 db)
This would give you MINIMAL compression.

Or you could do like I do and compress the hell our of everything! hahaha

You want Kick drum in your face?

I Compress it somewhere around 6-10:1, then have it Keyed from a Drumtrigger-so that the Trigger opens the Noise gate and activates it all...
No variance in the Kick levels-same strike EVERY time, and it will Thump!

I play Progressive Rock/Metal-and I want my Kick to be the same every single time.


I personally use dbx 166 and dbx 166a Compressor gates (I can't tell ANY difference other than "detented" pots) and they work fine for me. You do have to watch it though, because if your gate is "chattering/pumping"-it will show up in digital; whereas in analog it might not show up; my solution was firing the gates from drum triggers-instead of "air bourne" signals (via mic inputs).

I also have an Aphex Compressor, and my only complaint is the Wallwart (I HATE them!) Florida has the worst Electricity in America. If one leg is running fine, the other is down-which means that we eat alot of wallwarts down here. When Alesis first came out with the Midiverb II-man We were going through a Wallwart every 3 months-and they were NOT cheap!
I was tempted to build a regulated Power Supply for it-just build like a really heavy duty Transforming unit.
My solution was simple-I SOLD the thing and got an Art SGE which didn't have a wallwart! Hahahahaha

Anyway, I would at least get a stereo Compressor of a decent brand.

No offense to the guys who are "Hardcore" into HD recording-but on some things "Plug ins" just don't get it for me.
I prefer mixing via a mixer, and I prefer using external gates/compressors-and just let the PC act as a recorder.


Tim
 
Awsome!
I have been getting used to recording ln live situations , where as before it was just me and I would record 1 part at a time.
I love the idea of keeping the compression outboard.
Hmmm how could I wire the computer during mixdown to do the mixing on the mixer rather than software?

Actually what I really need to do is get the damn mixer and that will answer most of my questions right off the bat!!

ya for my personla studio I think I will go with the mackie . THe rest just dont come close in the specs.
(BTW... I checked it out and the 1604 vlz only has 8 direct outs!)
That guy told me wrong ... and he will pay !!
HA ha ha.
I can't see any walls that would be left up with the mackie 1604. 8 direct outs plus the 4 busses will definitly suffice for 99% of all applications I can think of.

Cool thanks again!
range
 
Check out the Mackie 1642 as well. It also has 8 direct outs and 4 buses. However, only 10 preamps though (vs. 14 I think on the 1604). The 1642 is $100-$150 cheaper. If I recall I got a quote from 8th St. Music for $719.00 on the 1642. Beautiful piece of equipment for that price.

You won't go wrong with either one.
 
Ya I was looking at that one.
The only real difference I could see were the # of inputs and the fact that they were on top of the console as opposed to the rear.

right on
Hey you guys check out my band at http://www.doomfinger.com
and if you can check out the mp3's

My main mission for getting this studio started is to defeat the last production mixes that I think went astray.
Check out the mp3's and let me know what you think went wrong so I don t make the same mistake when we re-record them with my soon to be purchased studio.

Range
 
Actually you can rotate the input connections on the 1604 (top, rear, or bottom) which is a nice feature. On the 1642 they are fixed on the top.
 
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