What am I missing from my studio for around $500?

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indravayu

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Hey folks,
I have a question for you - I have been slowly assembling equipment for a simple home studio and am about ready to record an album with my band (we play classic rock-ish stuff, in case it's relevant - drums, 1 guitar, bass & vox) - I think I have most of the essentials for a good budget recording, but I still have the nagging feeling that there might be something out there that I am missing that could really help us get a better recording - we have around $500 to spend on more equipment - can any of you make a suggestion as to any hardware/software in this range that might complete the picture a little more?

Here's what we have so far:
1 PC w/AMD 64 3000 processor (2gHz), 1GB memory, 2 160GB SATA hard drives (internal & external)
Sonar 4.1 Producer w/ a good selection of plugins (Waves bundle, TC, etc)
1 Aardvark Direct Pro Q-10 soundcard
1 Behringer BCF2000 control surface
1 FMR RNC compressor
1 ART Pro VLA compressor
1 Roland MMP-2 digital preamp
1 pair Yorkville YSM1i monitors & Samson power amp
1 Samson 4 channel headphone amp & AKG K-66 headphones
Mics:
1 AKG C3000B
2 AKG C1000S's
1 Apex 415 (large diaph. condenser, omni/cardioid/fig. 8)
3 Shure SM57's
1 AKG D112

That's about it - we have good quality drums, guitars & amps and are going to be recording in an unfinished basement with 8' ceilings (best we could get - we have no money for studio time).


Thanks in advance,
Chris
 
fist, buy some acoustic treatment, and make sure you have the proper ammount of bass trapping. Read about it at www.johnlsayers.com

You will prolly need more pres, and mabye just upgrade what you have. You might also want to explore some ribbon mics
 
A pair of Wharfedales :)

A nice pre like the Safesound or RNP
 
IMHO a really good vocal mic would be nice. Maybe a Baby Blue Bottle? That's about 500 smackaroos.
 
You could use a decent mic pre. I wouldn't consider anything with the name "Alesis" on it to necessarily fit in to that category.

After that, you could upgrade the condenser mics to something a little smoother. The AKG's you have can be a little harsh at times in the wrong scenario.

If it were me, I'd take a couple hundred bucks and plop it down on a couple Oktava MC-012's. Use those for drum overheads. Heck you can use them on just about anything . . . maybe even stick a pop filter up and use one as a vocal mic.

You're also going to need some mic pres. With the remaining 300, I'd grab a Soundcraft mixer. I think they have an E-series or something that has about 6 mic pres. Maybe look for a used Mackie board. Use the inserts to your soundcard.

And I wouldn't expect a whole lot. Just try and have fun with it . . . maybe learn a few things. Best case scenario is you wind up with something that sounds like a reasonable faximile of your band playing music, and doesn't sound so awful that it gets in the way of hearing what the songs sound like.

Good luck.
 
you have a very good computer system. kudos to you.
thats what a recording daw should be.
 
I would agree that you could use a good "vocal" mic. I would recommend an Audio Technica AT4047. They're under $500, and sound great.

You say you don't have any money to book a studio. I beg to differ. You ahve $500. You should be able to easily find a good quality studio in your area for $500 or less for one day. Book a good studio for one day. Get all your drum tracks down, maybe bass too. If you guys are well rehearsed, you should have no problem getting decent tracks to an albums worth of songs in one day. Then you can take the tracks home as WAV files and import them into your computer an do overdubs and mix.

I think that your $500 will be put to much better use at a studio working with a pro engineer, than any piece of gear you can buy.
 
indravayu said:
I still have the nagging feeling that there might be something out there that I am missing that could really help us get a better recording
Click to expand...

Well, I don’t know if this is good advice or bad but it worked for me. Take a minute to read this story and see what you think.

A little while back, a friend told me to try out (borrow) this piece of gear and it really made a world of difference in my meager little studio. I mean it really opened my eyes, (and ears).

It was a cheapo spectrum analyzer and EQ in one rack mount unit. They sell for well under $400. The idea is that you buy this thing and put it in your signal path just before the monitors and then always leave it there. On day one, you have it conduct a test; it makes the needed adjustments, and then remembers the customized settings for your system. Why?

Well, during the test it produces a pink noise signal. Using a test mic, it listens to your monitors and room together. It automatically makes the correct adjustments to your monitors to compensate for problems in the room. In other words, if your room makes your monitors sound shitty, like perhaps not enough midrange, too much bass, or whatever, this gadget makes adjustments to the EQ section until almost all the frequencies are playing correctly, (or near flat). It then saves the equalized “curve” and acts like a regular EQ from that day on. If you ever move your system to a new room, you can run the test again to set a new EQ curve.

After I ran the test my monitors sounded so much more full, rich, alive, and natural. I couldn’t believe the difference it made. It really worked. It was like some expert came to my studio and fixed everything for me. Needless to say, I didn’t want to return that little gem but alas, I had to. Now I knew what my next purchase would be. (NOTE: Due to the limitations of some monitors, it can’t fix all of the frequencies, but it can make a marked improvement in general.)

Now, experienced engineers would likely advise you that having a cheap EQ in the signal path is a really bad idea. …and I agree. If you want to have an ultra clean reference station, a better idea is to tune your monitors manually. Read all about acoustics and room treatments. Get yourself some test tone files, a decibel meter, and spend a little time getting to know your room and your system in a more intimate way. Decent active monitors have switches on the back to correct room problems. If you take the time to do it right, you can really work miracles.

This EQ fix is good enough for my rig for now because most of my projects will be live remote recordings. For me, trying to make world-class mixes may be hopeless because they are already plagued with noise from the beginning. But hey, for those beginners who have no frigging idea of how to tune monitors, and don’t want to learn, this may be a shortcut method. It will at least get them a little closer to having more reliable sounding mix monitors.

Good luck Bros. and have a good Thanksgiving.

PS. I’ll probably get fumed for this post but hey, I did give a disclaimer at the beginning. :D
 
RawDepth said:
PS. I’ll probably get fumed for this post but hey, I did give a disclaimer at the beginning. :D
Click to expand...
Fumed, no... but here's why EQ'ing your monitor chain is NOT a good idea.

First - EQ units are not precise enough, nor do they have steep enoguh slopes - to properly compensate for all dips and valleys in response (32-band graphics will not cut it - not enough Q control!)

Second - Even if you manage to flatten response at a single location, move your head an inch or two and that compensation curve is totally inappropriate.

Third - EQ'ing adds phase artifacts to the cound, and the very last thing you want to do is color your monitoring chain. That's like putting a very cheap lens on an expensive micrscope!

Fourth - EQ can't compensate for poor acoustics -- acoustic treatment is what helps compensate for poor acoustics. You don't use a band-aid on a wound that requires stitches!
 
I've never heard your recording skills, but it looks like you've got a lot of good gear. You're probably a decent recorder/mixer, then you've got mastering, so any of those places you (or whoever's doing it) is weak, it will make your CD sound less and less professional. I mean, I could buy myself a airplane, but it doesn't mean I'd know how the hell to fly it...um...with that in mind, you might want to save that dough for mastering, or if that was counted in already, think about seeing if there's a way to go in a watch some real mixers work, or learn some mic technique from some pro's...or if you've got all that going on already, $500 of Jello would be pretty fun. :)
 
Thanks guys

Thank you all for the great advice - you have definitely helped me out here - in a couple of months, when I get this thing done, I'll post a link to mp3's so you can hear how it turned out. Oh, and by the time we are done recording we will have saved up enough money for proper mastering by a professional, so the current $500 we have can go to something more recording-oriented.

If any of you are interested, here's a link to songs from our last album (recorded in 2003) - this was recorded in various bandmember's apartments (including the drums!) here in NYC using only the SM57's, the C3000B, D112 and the MMP-2 as a pre (we mainly relied on the on-board pre's in the Aardvark). I produced, mixed and mastered it myself (I know, I know, a big no-no, especially since I have no training as a recording/mixing/mastering engineer - but honestly we were pretty broke then - hell, we still are - and this was the only option):

http://www.thelawoffives.com

Some people like how it turned out - or rather they appreciate the fact that we had no budget and the final product is at least listenable - but I hate the sound and am determined to do a much better job this time. I have been doing tons of research lately, so I hope there is a marked improvment.

Cheers,
Chris
 
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You've got a lot of good stuff together there ... well done! I'd be looking at making my rooms sound better, then nailing the 'right' vocal mic for the singer of your band.

C1000Ss seem to have a good resale value ... I'm selling mine at the minute ... and I would recommend shifting them and getting a pair of Oktavas instead.

Finally - a 'gold' channel (or more likely a 'tarnished bronze' channel by pro standards) can be a really good idea when you're recording one part at a time. So once you've got the 'right' mic, get the 'right' preamp - i.e. one preamp or channel strip (or a pair in one unit) that will sound better than anything else you have. Then you can use your others for multi-mic recordings such as drums.

Just my +/- 2dB
 
You dont have a single authentic Velvet Elvis poster in there...



seriously
 
Spend the $500 on getting the basement finished. Make certain the room in which you record your drums maintains a good live feel. Most people new to recording will over deaden their rooms with foam. This will kill your drum sound!!! You need the reflections and minor siblances to make the drums sound full. Oh, and pan the shit out of your drums!
 
I'm going to have to agree that $500 of jello would be very fun....

And a lava lamp would be sweet.

Once I took the front head off of a kick drum, and stuck a desk lamp in front of it, because it looked really cool from the other side. Also, we had the lighted picture of a girl we idolized [ ( . Y . ) ] on a mic stand. that was neat, but be sure to center it on the drums, or the drummer will look to the side too much and tend to get offset from his kit.
 
Lava Lamps Kill!!!

An exploding lava lamp has killed a young man in a Seattle suburb.

Police in Kent, Washington, say Phillip Quinn died after a piece of glass from the exploding novelty lamp pierced his heart.

Authorities say Quinn was heating his lava lamp on the stove Sunday afternoon when it blew up. They're not sure why he was doing it.
Police found no evidence of drug or alcohol use.
The death has been ruled an accident.
 
choice #1

OK, following some of the advice we got here (thanks, Raw-Tracks!), we have made our first decision regarding the spare $500 - we are going to track the drums in a professional ProTools studio - we've booked 10 hours, which is going to run us $300 - so that still leaves $200 to apply towards hardware when it comes time to track the bass, drums & vocals. We'll probably put it towards a vocal mic (maybe we can even scare up a few extra bucks).

Thanks for everyone's suggestions.
- Chris
 
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