advice for home studio

Barney

ok ...im setting up a home studio to do some good quality demos...im thinking computer wise a imac...not sure about other gear ....any body have any pointers on good quality gear that wont break the bank ..lol...right now its a blank canvas so any ideas are good

Fretwired

How big is the room? What will you be recording (amp modeller or real amp, vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards, MIDI) ...

Barney

Fretwired;640333" said:

How big is the room? What will you be recording (amp modeller or real amp, vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards, MIDI) ...

the room is 3.5 metres by 4 metres ..i would probably like to record real amp but dont mind modellers either ...yeah vocals ...guitar synth /midi

Fretwired

My setup is a powerful Windows PC with:

DAW: Cubase
Monitors: Yamaha HS7s
Soundcard: Steinberg UR44
Amp modeller: POD HD Pro, POD2, Amplitube software
Drum machine: NI Maschine
Soft syns: NI Komplete
Roland guitar synth
Fender amp and SM57 mic

Danny1969

I would build a vocal booth that's big enough to also put an amp in .... best of both worlds then. Computer wise a used Mac Pro is a good choice, no need to break the bank ours is nearly 10 years old yet still capable of 90 track recording and mixing

Software wise I would go Protools first, if not that then Logic, if not that then Reaper

digitalscream

In terms of hardware, I can officially recommend one of these:

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UMC404HD.aspx

Clear and quiet preamps, no awkward setup, no fancy routing and DSP options, and plenty of inputs. It's more than enough to get your feet wet and figure out what you want to do.

Also...two or three mics would be a good idea. I'm currently using:

Superlux PRA628 mk III (kinda like the Sennheiser E606) 

T-Bone MB-75 (SM57-alike)

SE Electronics SE2000

AKG C1000S

Don't forget cables and mic stands/clamps.

For software...I personally recommend Reaper. Not only is it cheap, but it's really easy to use and works on both OS X and Windows (and Linux, if you can be bothered). Then you need to start looking at tutorials and start picking up free VST plugins until you've learned the ropes and know what you need to take it further.

Learning this sort of thing is definitely one of those "You won't know what you need to know until you know a bit more about it" things. Just take it slow, and try not to get frustrated by the apparent lack of initial progress.

wave100

For monitoring, I've just got a set of Focal Alpha 65s. Sound awesome if they're in your budget!

Barney

thanks for the input everybody ...some really good info here ..i need to do some internet searching .....what about computers mac or pc...sort of got my heart set on a mac but not certain

Fretwired

Barney said:

thanks for the input everybody ...some really good info here ..i need to do some internet searching .....what about computers mac or pc...sort of got my heart set on a mac but not certain

If you walk into a high-end studio it will probably be full of Macs and Pro Tools. However, for the home studio it's probably more PC orientated due to cost and convenience. I use Apple kit at work, so have no axe to grind, and a PC for my music as I find it cost-effective and flexible. I'm just about to add a 4TB hard drive to back up my projects. PCs are easy to upgrade should the need arise.

spark240

Mac Mini 2012..full spec 2.3G i7 16G ram.

be around £600, then try Studio One V3 new demo just out now....mind blowing.

goldtop

Tangent Q: comparing like-for like (amount of memory, CPU speed, etc), is there much difference in latency between Macs and PCs?

digitalscream

goldtop said:

Tangent Q: comparing like-for like (amount of memory, CPU speed, etc), is there much difference in latency between Macs and PCs?

None to speak of. When I tried it, Reaper on OS X had almost exactly the same latency (0.1ms slower on the Mac, but that's not worth worrying about) on two different interfaces compared with Windows 7 running on the same machine (2007 Macbook Pro).

goldtop

Thanks - was half-wondering about getting an old 2GHz Mac Mini (and maybe adding an SSD) but will stick to the i5/3GHz/6GB PC laptop for now.

spark240

I was going to put the ssd in my Mac but to be honest, I'm running a a decent setup now and I have found no need for the SSD. I do use an external drive to store all my songs.

goldtop

Thanks for the SSD advice. My laptop has a lowly 5400rpm HDD, and it seems that it's the weakest link in the system. But perhaps that's only a problem for big projects that can't be held entirely in memory?

Meanwhile, I've been trying to understand latency/etc before unnecessary spending. The rest of the system and driver DLLs seem OK according to the DPClat.exe checker from here: http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

(To be honest, a lot of this stuff goes over my head, and I haven't really got the motivation to dig deeper into it!)

digitalscream

The benefits of an SSD can't be overstated - replace your main drive with one, and you'll swear it's like a new machine.

spark240

digitalscream said:

The benefits of an SSD can't be overstated - replace your main drive with one, and you'll swear it's like a new machine.

<br/ But too what advantage? A fast boot up time , surely you are talking seconds,? Maybe faster load up of plug ins? Im it saying it's not a good thing, I'm sure I would love it, but is it really worth it if your on a budget?

Danny1969

An SSD for your boot drive is a cheap option these days as you only need a 128Gb It does make a big difference to booting, loading programs and such

I can remember selling 64Gb SSD's for £480 years ago

goldtop

I thought there was some question about SSD longevity and the way that it writes data...Perhaps that's an old story?

For day-to-day general computing, this PC is fine. So an SSD upgrade for me would only be worthwhile for better DAW (loading samples, audio tracks, and paging if that was necessary, etc)

digitalscream

spark240 said:

digitalscream said:

The benefits of an SSD can't be overstated - replace your main drive with one, and you'll swear it's like a new machine.

But too what advantage? A fast boot up time , surely you are talking seconds,? Maybe faster load up of plug ins? Im it saying it's not a good thing, I'm sure I would love it, but is it really worth it if your on a budget?

OK - my old studio machine took around 30 seconds to run Reaper and load all the plugins. My new machine takes around 3 seconds. There's also no delay when writing lots of recorded audio to the drive (or loading it from the drive), as you'd expect from 300MB/s+ on your I/O.

I tend to keep my current two or three audio projects on my SSD/boot drive, and everything else sits on an external disk. It makes such a massive difference to my workflow that I just couldn't go back now; it's healthier too, because some operations where I'd normally go and make a coffee simply take a few seconds now.

geepers0677

We just recorded this with a Mac running Logic Pro X. 

All the guitars went through a POD HD or through the built in amp models in Logic. 

Worked great. Bit of a learning curve in terms of deep editing, but we don't go anywhere near that for the earlier demo stage. You're more than welcome to have a visit and have a look.