What to buy next?

  • Thread starter Thread starter fuzzsniffvoyage
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fuzzsniffvoyage

fuzzsniffvoyage

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I have about $1,000.00 to spend. I was thinking of maxing out my memory in my lap top, found 8GB at New Egg for $55.00. And Musican's Friend has some Auralex acoustic treatment on sale for like 60.00, which consists of 32--1'x1'x2" tiles, should be enough to do my rather small space. Also upgrading my Sonar 8.5 to the X1.

I don't have very many plugins, any suggestions?

Was also thinking of getting new interface. I'm now using an M-Audio Mobile-Pre USB. Either the Roland Octacapture or the Motu 828mk3.

Or I could buy a decent used mic. Now I'm using an SM 57/58 and a MXL V63M Stearo Mic, which I like, but have never used anything else.

Also my guitar amp has been acting up, intermittently. I don't care for it to much any way and have been plugging directly into the interface and using amp simulators. So I could buy a somewhat decent used Marshall combo.

It'll be at least another year before I have this much money at one time to spend. So I must choose wisely. The smaller items, 50-100 or 200 I can pretty much get every couple months.

Any advice would be appreciated.
THanks

I almost forgot I could use some bass traps as well.
 
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The best buy will be the one that improves the weaker part of your chain, say, if you have (as an example only) a slow pc, a good interface, a decent amp and a great guitar, then for sure a new PC or new components will be the best buy, so the best thing is to ask yourself what do you need more?
 
Don't buy the foam. They won't do much. Buy the bass traps! I would also look into some pretty sweet mics. What do you usually record?
 
fuzzsniffvoyage said:
I was thinking of maxing out my memory in my lap top, found 8GB at New Egg for $55.00. And Musican's Friend has some Auralex acoustic treatment on sale for like 60.00, which consists of 32--1'x1'x2" tiles, should be enough to do my rather small space.
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Hate to rain on the parade, but the foam tiles don't do very much. Think of them as the icing on a cake instead (with the cake being a room that already contains well-placed bass traps). Bass traps would be a nice next step instead!

Also, don't spend money on recording gear simply for the sake of having money to spend! :) What are your weakest points? Your guitar amp seems to be a good starting point.
 
Up the memory is good. Especially if when you upgrade to a new lappy that memory is something that you can use then.

New microphones are always a pleasure. Even going hog wild on evilbay purchasing used is a treat.
 
You don't mention what monitors you have. What shape and size your room is.

If you have a slap echo in your room, the foam tiles will do the job. But you still need to know where to put them. But hey, a set of 32 1x1x2 tiles for $60? Not bad at all. Just tack them up. Don't glue them like they say or you'll be sorry. You can always fill tack or nail holes in sheet rock with spackling, but getting torn foam off a wall is less than easy. Don't just slap a bunch of them up on the wall, though, and expect a miracle. You need to know where to put them. Bass traps? Might be a good idea if you have a problem with bass buildup. If you don't?

You're going to hear a lot of "you need room treatment". My advice is to go cheap on it unless you're actually making money with it. You still need to know your monitors and how your stuff sounds on other systems. If you're seriously going to make money off this, think about hiring an audio engineering consultant to treat your studio and mixing room. It is not cheap to do correctly.

Here's a good read for you: Studio Monitor Madness I don't think you need to spend $$$$ on Monster or Mogami speaker cable. Double blind tests with audiophiles showed that they preferred wire coat hangers as speaker wire. So there you go.

Think about hanging a solid core door with weather stripping in your studio room. That will help a ton with sound.

Plugins? Waves has the Tony Maserati Bundle on sale for $279. Nice set of plugs. They're essentially his plugin chains made into single plugins for particular purposes. But they're more pop oriented than guitar rock oriented. I don't have many plugins either. The stuff that came with my DAWs is pretty good quality.

Spend a lot of time listening to high quality commercial recordings in your studio. This will help you know your monitors.
 
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Julia_B said:
You don't mention what monitors you have. What shape and size your room is.

If you have a slap echo in your room, the foam tiles will do the job. But you still need to know where to put them. But hey, a set of 32 1x1x2 tiles for $60? Not bad at all. Just tack them up. Don't glue them like they say or you'll be sorry. You can always fill tack or nail holes in sheet rock with spackling, but getting torn foam off a wall is less than easy. Don't just slap a bunch of them up on the wall, though, and expect a miracle. You need to know where to put them. Bass traps? Might be a good idea if you have a problem with bass buildup. If you don't?

You're going to hear a lot of "you need room treatment". My advice is to go cheap on it unless you're actually making money with it. You still need to know your monitors and how your stuff sounds on other systems. If you're seriously going to make money off this, think about hiring an audio engineering consultant to treat your studio and mixing room. It is not cheap to do correctly.
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That's a bad idea to do. Unless he's playing in a basement with loads of echo, he doesn't need the foam. All they will do is minimize the high frequencies. Especially cheap foam! Carpets and rugs will do essentially the same thing. In a home studio, the low frequencies are more of a problem than high frequencies, that's why bass traps are recommended.
 
Well here's what I have: Lap top 4GB ram i7 processor running Sonnar 8, going into the computer via M-Audio Mobile Pre-USB, my monitors are M-Audio BX8a's. I have a SM 57 and a 58, also MXL stearo mic.

HPIM2262.jpg


Here's a pic of my work station.

Guitars: Seagull 12, Epi Les Paul Custom & Vox Valvtronix amp. Epi Thunder Bird Bass & Crate BT220 amp.

Akai MPK 49 midi controller.

My room is carpeted wall to wall.

I hate to cross post, but you can see more pics in the studio build section under let me see your studio.

I'm starting to like the idea of building my own bass traps, and getting the Marshall I want, JCM 800 50 watter--combo.
 
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