#16
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A few thoughts:
1) Plan the work and work the plan. Research each part/component of your studio before buying anything. Identify maximum number of simultaneous inputs/ouputs needed. Choose brands and models near the end of your research, keeping your overall budget in mind. But it all at once from one dealer (if possible) to save money. 2) For acoustic and electric guitar, 8" monitors are not needed, and a sub bass module is not relevant because the frequencies generated do not get low enough to need either. 3) Regarding gear, and leaving aside the player and instruments/amps used, the order of importance for decent recordings is: a) Room and related room treatment; b) Montiors and headphones; c) Microphones; d) Preamps; e) AD and DA conversion; f) Computer, DAW and software plugins; g) Cables 4) A large portion of quality recording involves various recording skills, when tracking and mixing. Expect to spend quite some time to acquire these skills, which involve much experimentation, ear training, bias elimination and objective listening. Be patient here. There's more, but this is a start. |
#17
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My entire career was, starting in the late 60's, film and video production. The span of technology changes has been breathtaking. I spent a fair amount of time in recording studios and I agree with basically all that has been stated here about setting up your recording space. I'm not trying to create a new topic here but I'm curious about what video editing software you are planning on using because laying the audio tracks (music, narration, natural sound) to the visual can be influenced (dynamics and timing) by those visuals. Timing could (should?) be a creative factor. Also mixing a narration track into the music track can happen in the video edit with more control matching the visuals. It will be a grand experiment.
I also believe in keeping it as simple as possible early on to get a good grounding. why2 Last edited by why2; 05-11-2019 at 10:50 AM. Reason: Clarity... |
#18
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‘97 Taylor 555 12 string ‘17 Martin HD 28 ‘19 Martin CEO 9 ‘20 Gibson 1960 Hummingbird reissue ‘16 Gibson Hummingbird Avant Guard (gigging guitar) Note to self: Never play a guitar you aren’t willing to buy. |
#19
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For what it’s worth, I’ve been quite happy with iRig interfaces and Cubasis on my iPad. I’m no pro, but it is a cost effective set up and has a fair amount of DAW capabilities including a good amount of effects that you don’t get in garage band. Reverb, chorus, compression just to name a few of the typical effects folks use for acoustic and vocal recording.
It also has a lot of MIDI and sampled instruments and drums. As for bass traps, I didn’t realize this is a fishing forum . . . Dave |
#20
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I would offer First try consider realistically " How important to my goals is the sound quality of the recordings " And with that in mind then try to consider a realistic initial budget range (as per sdelsolray) I am like a broken record on this "decide on a budget then plan and shop " , Because as ric-slo stated, you can literally spend from hundreds to tens of thousands and still be in what is considered the "home studio" category of expense.
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Enjoy the Journey.... Kev... KevWind at Soundcloud KevWind at YouYube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...EZxkPKyieOTgRD System : Studio system Avid Carbon interface , PT Ultimate 2023.12 -Mid 2020 iMac 27" 3.8GHz 8-core i7 10th Gen ,, Ventura 13.2.1 Mobile MBP M1 Pro , PT Ultimate 2023.12 Ventura 12.2.1 |
#21
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I'm gonna pile onto the room-treatment bandwagon.
Nobody wants to treat their room because room treatment isn't fun, and it's considerable money not spent on "toys," and handling fiberglass is itchy. But I need to add this: in a one-room studio, you can have drastic acoustic problems and not be able to tell. Because you're playing back your audio in the same problematic space you recorded it in. You have to fix this. I've just spent the last three weeks mixing an album in a client's home studio. I hadn't been there before, and we spent the first day making sure his DAW and computer were behaving like they should, and updating a few things. In terms of acoustic treatment, this room had so little I could play back audio with my eyes closed and not be able to accurately point my finger at the speakers. On the second day I hauled in 24 2' X 4' acoustic panels and put them everywhere I could that didn't involve making holes in the walls. Those 24 panels were maybe 2/3 of what the room really needed, and we didn't really address bass and low-mid trapping at all. Which is to say, what I did wasn't extreme, it was on the lower fringe of adequate. Last edited by Brent Hahn; 05-11-2019 at 10:07 AM. |
#22
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Much thanks to all who have helped. I spent most of yesterday researching room treatments, calibrated microphones, REW software, early reflections, diffusion and a lot of other info. Seems almost overwhelming but some progress is being made.
Two thoughts before I describe the current status of the home recording set up project. This is insanely more involved than I ever imagined. My original post demonstrated clearly that I did not fully understand what I was asking. I feel like my post was “I flew a paper airplane yesterday, tell me how to build the space shuttle”. Which brings me to my second point. The folks on this forum are genuinely kind and extremely gracious. Starting with not laughing out loud at my ridiculously naïve question and going into reaching out and sharing hard earned experience and wisdom. Words can’t come close to expressing how grateful I am. Based on the advice and guidance so far received here is the current version of the project plan. This is a DRAFT at this point, feel free to get me back on track if I’ve run a wheel off into the ditch. I am asking if this makes sense to you way more than telling ‘this is it’. 1. Pick space: Inside the house (16’ x 16’) or in the extra garage (30’ x 30’) . Both areas are climate controlled and can be dedicated full time to being set up properly. There are no concerns about neighbors hearing noise and such. External noises such as cars, barking dogs, etc. are non-existent for all intents and purposes. Either space can be modified however I wish. Current thought is that a small space for just recording is all that is needed for the one person, one guitar nature of what I want to do. I am no longer looking at my ‘wood shed’ type practice space, hanging out space, and recording space being the same area. 2. Room Treatment: Once the location and dimensions are determined the room treatment is going to addressed with a full blown ‘what ever it takes to do it right’ mentality. Budget for this aspect of the project is ‘what ever it takes’, short of construction a separate building. Currently exploring the idea of portioning off a small area, probably a corner, of a larger area using panels to create a booth type area. 3. Set budget. This is currently a very wild guess for me. Based on the advice I’m being given I’m going to just plant the flag at up to 10K and go from there. This is based on incomplete research and some major ‘Kentucky windage’ type guessing. 4. Gear: The quality of the monitors is the 1st priority. Don’t know enough yet to be more specific about mics. Seems like using an iMac is the way to go. 5. DAW: Current concept is to go with ProTools. Again, much thanks to all who have helped. I am beginning to understand how hard earned your experience is. Thank you for sharing it.
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Victor |
#23
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As for the iMac, I think that's another solid decision. I'm a PC guy for just about everything except music. I have a 2017 iMac with a 4.2GHz quad core processor and 32gb of ram. It handles everything I throw at it. It's a bit more expensive than a similarly equipped PC but the computer never gives me any trouble nor is it ever the source of a problem. I don't do anything as intensive as music production on my PC and I still find myself troubleshooting issues from time to time, especially with drivers. A bit of premature advice: Once you have your system up and running, don't be in a hurry to update software. It takes time for the software developers to catch up to OS changes and such. Be patient, let others find the bugs, and update when all the issues have been resolved. One thing that I don't think has been mentioned is ad/da convertors often come with preamps. The quality of those preamps can differ tremendously. I think the best interface combination of quality conversion and quality preamps is probably the Apogee Symphony I/O Mk II 2x6 SE. I own a UAD Apollo 8Xp which I upgraded to recently and is also very good but I'd likely have gone with the Apogee if I didn't have so much money invested in UAD plugins. As I said previously, Pro Tools is all I've used so I can't offer comparisons. That said, I like Pro Tools and I have no desire to move on from it. Something to think about... the initial setting up of everything and getting it to all work together is a chore. When I bought my first system, I purchased my computer and my gear through Sweetwater. For a couple of hundred dollars (this was back in the early 2000s) they loaded all the software, tweaked the computer, and had everything setup for me so that all I had to do was make the manual connections at home and I was up and running. They also have really great customer support. That little extra I paid was worth every cent back then. You'll be flying that rocket before you know it.
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Jim 2023 Iris ND-200 maple/adi 2017 Circle Strings 00 bastogne walnut/sinker redwood 2015 Circle Strings Parlor shedua/western red cedar 2009 Bamburg JSB Signature Baritone macassar ebony/carpathian spruce 2004 Taylor XXX-RS indian rosewood/sitka spruce 1988 Martin D-16 mahogany/sitka spruce along with some electrics, zouks, dulcimers, and banjos. YouTube |
#24
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That would be pretty far down on my list if at all (I prefer good headphones).
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Derek Coombs Youtube -> Website -> Music -> Tabs Guitars by Mark Blanchard, Albert&Mueller, Paul Woolson, Collings, Composite Acoustics, and Derek Coombs "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Woods hands pick by eye and ear
Made to one with pride and love To be that we hold so dear A voice from heavens above |
#25
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Recording acoustic guitar and electric guitar are quite different animals. For acoustic guitar it is fairly simple...place a couple of mics out front, set levels and hit record. In addition, the bass energy from an acoustic dissipates rather quickly over distance and, other than some first reflections, the returned amplitude is much lower than the level the mics are receiving directly from the source. This is particularly true for mics with cardioid or hypercardioid poler patterns. Omni or figure-8 patterns will be different. For electric guitar, much will depend on the volume you set for the amp, as high volumes will generate more room sound. If you get into reamping, there are other considerations. You will be using your room for live recording and for mixing. You will have two places (perhaps more) from which "hearing" will occur. The first "hearing" location is the monitoring location, involving an equilateral triangle among the location of each monitor and your head (i.e., ears). That location will be static. Don't place it in the corner of a room. That's the worse place to put it. Usually the best place is centered with respect to the short wall (you won't have any short walls as both of your rooms are square), and moved into the room a bit, perhaps as much as 20% to 30% from that wall. Your room treatment needs to address this location. The second "hearing" location is where the mics are located with respect to the source being recorded. Obviously, this location can change. Generally, it should not be near the center of the room. There are more factors involved here, but again your room treatment also needs to address this (these) location(s). Quote:
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You will also need (or should have) headphones. They come in two basic types, (i) open-bak and (ii) closed back. The former is used for mixing and the later is used for overdubbing or if you want to listen to yourself while you are recording. Spend more on the open-back ones as they will involve more critical listening. As to mics, I would suggest looking into a pair of small diaphragm condensers (for acoustic guitar), a robbon mic (for your electric guitar amp) and a large diaphragm voice over mic (for your voice overs). Again, you don't need to go overboard here, as there are dozens and dozens of good choices. Yes, an iMac is a great choice, but so is a quality built PC. ProTools runs on either. I've used ProTools for about 20 years, since version 4.xx. I just upgraded to version 2019.5. For what you will be doing, it is rather easy to learn. Put another way, there will be about 500+- features in ProTools that you will never use or care about. You can use it to sync your videos and your recordings, although I have little experience with that. Hope that helps. |
#26
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Google “recording in square rooms” and also check out “recording audio and standing waves”
Some suggestions towards the end of the below vid but the whole thing is informative Since you are recording just acoustic it will not be as bad but square rooms suck https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3_BaSgHTOZo Many high end studios bring in a person who specializes in room design
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David Webber Round-Body Furch D32-LM MJ Franks Lagacy OM Rainsong H-WS1000N2T Stonebridge OM33-SR DB Stonebridge D22-SRA Tacoma Papoose Voyage Air VAD-2 1980 Fender Strat A few Partscaster Strats MIC 60s Classic Vib Strat |
#27
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Hi Victor:
Chiming in with a few observations as a 70 year old amateur writer/recorder. I record in an untreated room and mix using headphones or computer speakers. Although these mixes may sound good in my “studio”, and to my biased ears, they sound different if played in other rooms, on other speakers etc. So there’s no doubt that room treatment is very important. However (and this is a big however) the mixes don’t sound all that bad. Admittedly, any unsophisticated listeners (and that’s pretty much all my listeners) know that I don’t have a pro studio and are no doubt tolerant of my less-than-outstanding work. On your other choices: I’ve used an iMac for years, and love it. It’s all I need for large multitracked projects. I use Logic for recording & mixing. If I’m recording away from home (on the rare occasions when I can persuade friends to contribute to the recordings) I use Garageband on a laptop & import the recording into Logic. I use an AKG condenser mic & a Focusrite Scarlett interface. Enjoy the journey! |
#28
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Hi!
A few hints: If you find that it is too dead, put in a tall bookcase on the wall behind you and fill it with good books of different sizes, inserted so that they touch the back wall and the spines are at the naturally resulting distance from the back wall. That will be a diffuser and a great distraction from those long sessions. Be ready to switch off the air handler during takes to keep the noise down. Start with whatever DAW software you are comfortable with and move up if you wish after you start getting a good sound. That way you only have to learn one thing at a time. Make it comfortable, please. I sit in a $200k studio as I type this. What most pro studios struggle to create is hominess. Surround yourself with things that make you smile and feel comfortable. You can't beat the pros at the money game but you can make them wish they were in your home. Bob
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"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website) |
#29
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Update:
I remain deeply grateful to the gracious and wonderful folks on this forum. Several reached out to me via email and have been overwhelming patient, helpful and just plain fun to talk with. Here's the current status. Gear is either on hand or awaiting delivery in the coming week. MacBook Pro, external hard drive. Got a fire breather so I don't have to worry about having enough horsepower down the road. Universal Audio x8 and 4-710D. Reference mic to help set the room up. Also have 1 AKG mic on hand. Settled on Pro Tools. Currently researching in-person or on-line learning options. Physical setup of the 'pieces parts' should finish up this week. Getting the desk assembled will speed things up considerably. The only 2 major items yet to be purchased are Pro Tools and I still need to pick monitors. Pro Tools looks like 'click and order' so I'm waiting until the MacBook actually gets here. I have a set of good headphones so I'm able to proceed. The slow down is that I am trying to be careful and make sure of the quality of speakers I get. I also had to unexpectedly go to Texas this past week so that slowed things down a bit. Thanks again, for the help. I'm closing in on getting started.
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Victor |