Traveling Suitcase Studio

[Dom Franco]

I Recently had to travel out of town on business. The thought of leaving all my (*loved ones) at home was just unbearable. I might also miss my wife and kids.

I had to find some way of doing some recording in the motel room. I finally settled on a few small pieces of gear that might get me through, and allow me to get something worth keeping.

Since it all had to fit in a suitcase, here's what I took:

* A small Beheringer mixer
* Laptop Computer
* Nanoverb
* SM58
* Red Square Direct Box
* A tiny Minidisc Recorder
* A small Cassette recorder
* Cables and adaptors
* Headphones and small speakers.

I also took my guitar in a well padded case.

To my surprise the system worked out great, and I was able to write 2 songs and nice arrangements. It also helped me to play better, because I had to get all the way through a take with no mistakes.

But I am so glad to be home now, and back in the studio.

Dom Franco

 

[DavidK]

Dom, tres Cool. What software did you use on the
computer? Any? If not, why the Computer, if you
had to play without stopping?

Also, why the mini-disc AND cassette? Is that overkill
or a little mixdown machine?

Finally, how long were you gone? If you say one night,
I will say I am Impressed, or you are insane!!!

I have taken Similiar rigs on the Road, but only if
I was going to be out for Two Weeks minumum.

Did you have any problems with the Maids touching
your gear?

In the late eighties, I used to lug around a DX 7,
Hardware Sequencer, Sound Module, Fostex 4 track,
Mics, microverb,etc. to hotel rooms. No wonder my
back is messed up! David

 

[AlChuck]

I just received the Zoom PS-02 digital palm studio that I won in a drawing from Home Recording magazine. It has some PCM drum and bass samples and patterns that can be chained into songs, and records up to 3 audio tracks, albeit at 20-bit, 32.5 KHz, to a Smart Media card. Each track can have 10 virtual tracks, and you can bounce the tracks together too. It has a guitar input and effects and amp models, and it sounds killer. The corker is it's literally barely bigger that a pack of cigarettes. If it was any smaller you wouldn't be able to have the jacks and buttons on it.

Of course to transfer anything I record on it to the PC means I'll have to get a Smart Media reader for the computer, and the sampling rate is less than stellar... Still, it sounds pretty darn good, and as a songwriting sketchpad it's terrific. I doubt I'd go buy one ($350 at zzounds.com), but I have long wanted to at least have something I could bring along on trips with a very small footprint, and something I could have in the car with me in case I got a great melodic idea I wanted to capture. Now I can hum or sing it and have it to work on later instead of losing it in in the jumble of my memory like I've been doing for years.

 

[DavidK]

AlChuck, cell phones are being banned in several cities,
including one here in Cleveland, called Brooklyn OH.

I can just see the next city council meeting: " Now that
we have banned cell phones, Councilman Jones is
introducing a bill to ban the use of a Zoom Ps-02 while
driving." Be careful out there, my friend, maybe the
PS-02 has a hands-free adapter too!!
Seriously, I saw that thing advertised, nice to hear it
is not a bad toy. In a few years, we will all wear are
Cakewalk Sonar 8 pro studio watches with pride.

AlChuck, since you know I value your opinions very
much, I have a stupid, embarrassing question that
maybe you can answer;

When I type on this post, or other posts, my words only
fill half the screen, whereas everyone else fills a full
screen. Why is that? I dont hit the enter button or anything, I type to the end of the box and it starts a
new line. I assume its my screen resolution or something, but It is getting embarrassing and I dont
know what to do. Thanks my friend, David

 

[vox]

When I type on this post, or other posts, my words only
fill half the screen, whereas everyone else fills a full
screen. Why is that?..................... I assume its my screen resolution or something, but It is getting embarrassing and I dont
know what to do. Thanks my friend, David

Dont worry too much David, It's not the size of your post that matters, it's how you use it.

 

[AlChuck]

It's not the font, it's the content?

David, I have noticed that from time to time... I think you're on it, probably has something to do with the resolution of your screen... but then wouldn't yours still look OK when you look at them?

Perhaps it's a browser font setting or something... I really don't know.

-AlChuck

 

[drstawl]

In Nutscrape, under Edit/Preferences/Mail & Newgroups/Messages there is a setting to wrap outgoing plain text messages at whatever # of characters is mentioned. I just changed mine to 40. So I guess that's got nuthin' to do with it...