What is at the core of your home studio?

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What piece of equipment or software is the hub of your home studio? Is it portable? Why did you choose it?
 
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Macbook Pro.

I used to have a desktop setup (q9550) and when I went macbook shopping I discovered that the i5 MBP was every bit as powerful as that desktop computer, so I decided I didn't need two computers.

The fact that it's portable is great too.
I have my main motu 828 interface with 8 outboard preamps, and I have a presonus firestudio mobile to take with me for mobile recordings.

I don't do a lot of mobile recording, but it's very nice that I can. :)

Hope that's what you meant.
 
ME!!! Ha!

Just kidding... for me it's my Tascam US600 interface. I use either a Mac in my basement studio, or Dell laptop recording out with band, running Reaper either way. A matched pair of middle of the road MXL condensers, a pair of 57s and KSM9 round out my setup. Missing link for me is monitors, which I don't have. I mix with headphones, render to MP3 and play on home stereo system and in car, then go back and tweak. Rinse and Repeat...
 
I'm not sure I really have a core. I've a couple Win7 quad core machines that I built, one for tracking, the other for mixing and mastering. I have different DAC/ADCs on each. I've got four large diaphragm mikes, nothing special, and I'm not picky about which one I use for what. I also use my laptop for remote recording. I suppose, if I had to identify the one piece of gear I own which I consider critical, it would be my KRK Rokit8 near fields. I guess I'd go with jjj777ggg -- I'm the core of my home studio. :)
 
Mine's the Akai DPS24. I like faders and knobs. It can be a portable machine but it's kind of big and heavy.
Just bought a second one off ebay as it's been obsolete for a few years now and it's my security blanket. :)

Plus, the one I just got has waaay less miles on it.
sweet.
 
My studio effectively consists of four elements: PC, Presonus Firepod, Neumann monitors and Behringer headphone amp. And that's pretty much it.
 
The core of every recording rig is the monitoring chain (and of course, the space itself).
 
I wonder what the core of Apple Studios is? Can it rot?

The core of my studio is a MCI 2424 2" recorder and a RADAR 24 track HD recorder along with my Allen & Heath console.
 
Well, there is the "real" recordings. And the demo's which is me writing the songs. The real deal has a lot of stuff, macbook pro to apple display krk monitors m audio subwoofer, ton of pre amps, saffire pro 40, ton of mics, different amps.

But when I write these songs, It's simply an ipad, irig HD, amplitube for ipad and garageband for ipad. Once I'm done with the song and I know it's a good song I turn on all the big tools and record it. But I don't write with those tools. Because it's so much stuff it'll make me just not do it because I can't just get down an idea I got to turn a million things on. And I don't even have to be at home to do it with the ipad.

It has come a long way too. I remember having the ipad 2 and trying that and it wasn't that great of an experience. Now with the ipad mini retina which has a lot more power, the irig hd, which is a different ball game than the original irig, and the new amp sims in amplitube it's very powerful.

For recording vocals for writing or acoustic guitar I plug a zoom h4n which has good condenser mics in it into my ipad. You might read it won't work with the new ipads but it will, you just plug it into a non powered usb hub and then into the ipad and it somehow tricks it into working.
 
cnd1010 said:
What piece of equipment or software is the hub of your home studio? Is it portable? Why did you choose it?
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I guess my DAW is at the hub because I have a roving commission rather than a studio. What I mean by that is that I have no dedicated space. I live in a small two bedroom house set within a block of flats so I utilize every nook and cranny that I can. I use the kids' bedroom for drums, congas, tablas, bongos and any other percussion, I actually use it for everything else, stringed instruments, brass, woodwinds, vocals, electrics and acoustics. I use my wife & I's bedroom for bass, the front room for anything I can play from the keyboard or guitar/mandolin, I have an isocab {probably more of an isolation unit to keep noise from freaking out the neighbours} that I built for my combo amps in one of the kitchen cupboards, I use the bathroom sometimes for vocals or guitar but it has a very bright sound so I'm mindful of that.
But you get the picture.
Because of the way I record my DAW has to be the hub of the studio. It's not so much that the DAW is portable {it is} as much as the studio itself is ! The first producer I ever met said to me "a studio is just a room" and while there is obviously more to it than that, in my head as a hobbyist, I think of any space as one that can be utilized.
My DAW is an Akai DPS12
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and I chose it because for me it represented the perfect halfway house between the cassette based portastudio that I'd outgrown after 17 years and the computer recording set up with it's bells and whistles as I imagined it to be based on what I'd read. But I wanted both in one box. I specifically settled on the Akai because, along with the Fostex VF160, it was the only DAW that I came across after months of research that had varispeeding as one of it's features and varispeeding is crucial to me, particularly for vocal textures.
 
For me it's a Fostex G16 tape recorder. Sounds great for a narrow track machine.
 
I guess the core would be a PC running Sonar and Pro Tools - everything goes in and out of that.
 
Xdrummer said:
I guess the core would be a PC running Sonar and Pro Tools - everything goes in and out of that.
Click to expand...
I'm curious -- why both Sonar and Pro Tools? I use Sonar and like it for tracking, but not for mixing. I've been using various flavors of Audition, but I'm dumping Adobe because I refuse to rent software. What do you like about Pro Tools and what do you use it for?
 
PTravel said:
I'm curious -- why both Sonar and Pro Tools? I use Sonar and like it for tracking, but not for mixing. I've been using various flavors of Audition, but I'm dumping Adobe because I refuse to rent software. What do you like about Pro Tools and what do you use it for?
Click to expand...

I have used the Sonar/Cakewalk format since Cakewalk v.1 (before digital recording when it was basically a fancy MIDI sequencer) - so I can get around in that format very quickly ....... and I use a lot of MIDI applications and I feel Sonar does MIDI more effectively than Pro Tools. So, Sonar is my preferred format for my own projects.

However, over the years, I've acted as a producer/engineer for projects that started in Pro Tools in someone elses studio - or - someone wanted to be able to take a project from my studio to another studio (it seems Pro Tools tends to be a relatively common format) - so I have Pro Tools loaded for those types of projects. I don't work in Pro Tools nearly as much (perhaps dozens of hours vs. hundreds or hours in Cakewalk/Sonar) - so I am waaaay too slow in Pro Tools ....... thus whenever possible I try to manage projects in Sonar.
 
For me it's still my trusty old Delta 44. It's been bulletproof and reliable for over a decade now, and I'm dreading the day that I have to replace it. The old PCI slots are hard to come by on new computers anymore, so I have a feeling that it'll be replaced with a USB interface in the next year.
 
I suppose it's my Tascam MS16 tape recorder. I couldn't decide between saying that or the desk. But really there is no single core piece of equipment. No one bit would function without the rest.
 
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