[CaffeinatedOne]

I had a humble post production setup for years; most of my recording was done live and in the field. I ran into that brick wall where, if I was going to go any deeper it would be at the expense of my day job. So the studio evolved into special projects, and that evolved back into a hobby.

Most of my recording was done on an AKAI DPS16. It has mind blowing preamps and really lousy I/O. If I was doing live sound, the chain would be 10 - 16 lines in to a Mackie ONYX mixer, two or three AUX sends out to the DPS with submixes, and at least one ambient mic dedicated to the DPS. Usually I would record two or four channels simultaneously on the DPS. Using a close ambient signal made all the difference in a live recording.

That meant using dynamic mics for the most part. I also used a Studio Projects C3 or a pair of SP B1s for ambient signal. Chain was simple - direct to the board, no coloring or eq, aux to the recorder. As long as I didn't clip the signal all was well. Any signal massaging was post-recording and usually that would be limited to compression, volume envelopes and maybe a little bit of cleanup work. I have Event monitors.

The DPS has its own dedicated software. In the computer I use Reaper and Adobe Audition. I like Audition's editing capabilities, especially it's spectral editor. At the time I was doing this Audition was way ahead of the field in this area; the gap has since closed and Adobe doesn't seem to be interested in the product. Reaper, on the other hand, keeps ahead of the pack.

These days most of my recording is for ideas or hobby stuff. I'm using an iPad with a Tascam im2 stereo mic (which is cheap and effective), tracking with Voice Edit Pro, which has excellent file management features. I'll send that to the cloud and download to my laptop.

I have an 8-track OTARI reel machine waiting for the day I can pay proper attention to it. It works but is not presently reliable, and it needs some outboard stuff I don't yet have. Nothing a fistfull of C-notes won't fix. But the preamps are pretty sweet - and there's eight of em. It's also about 150 pounds and takes up half a closet.