Home Studio On A Budget! |
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May 27 2013, 07:05 AM
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I wrote a small article on my website about putting together a home studio on a budget, thought maybe it could help a few people out since I've had quite a few questions about my setup and have had a lot of conversations on here with regards to beginner's guides to home studios.
http://www.connorgilks.com/apps/blog/show/...dio-on-a-budget Let me know if you have any questions! In the meantime, who here has a home recording setup? What do you use? Post pics if you can. 
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May 27 2013, 08:02 AM
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Nice article man! Well, at this point, I decided to upgrade a bit and get the KRK Rokit 5 monitors and this audio interface: http://www.thomann.de/gb/emu_0404_usb.htm
If anybody has any experience with it, I'd be grateful for some info I worked with the 0402 and it is a very reliable device.
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May 27 2013, 09:06 PM
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Great article!! I didn't know this...
"Keep in mind that Skrillex made one of his albums entirely on a MacBook and some headphones. No one else mixing or producing,just him and some headphones." QUOTE (Cosmin Lupu @ May 27 2013, 04:02 AM)  Nice article man! Well, at this point, I decided to upgrade a bit and get the KRK Rokit 5 monitors and this audio interface: http://www.thomann.de/gb/emu_0404_usb.htm If anybody has any experience with it, I'd be grateful for some info I worked with the 0402 and it is a very reliable device.I'm also interested in getting these ones... -------------------- My lessons
Do you need a Guitar Plan? Join Gab's Army Check my band:Cirse Check my soundcloud:Soundcloud Please subscribe to my:Youtube Channel |
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May 27 2013, 10:26 PM
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QUOTE (Cosmin Lupu @ May 27 2013, 09:02 AM) Nice article man! Well, at this point, I decided to upgrade a bit and get the KRK Rokit 5 monitors and this audio interface: http://www.thomann.de/gb/emu_0404_usb.htm If anybody has any experience with it, I'd be grateful for some info I worked with the 0402 and it is a very reliable device.I have 0404, and my honest recommendation is - don't buy ! To be clear, the device is correct in relation to the price, but if you intend to upgrade OS soon - the card isn't compatible with Windows 7, or 8! I had trouble to get it to work, but EMU has no support, no drivers. I tried some beta versions, but only frustration, the system sometimes recognize the card, and in the next 5 times wont, so... |
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May 27 2013, 11:50 PM
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Gabriel: Yes! He said it himself. He says it in this interview at 1:45 about creating it on "blown speakers". In another interview with the BBC (also an YouTube) he says most of what he creates isn't in a studio, it's just him in a hotel with a laptop and headphones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0MIxoM_o_8 dcz702: Nice setup man!! Love the mini Recto too
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This will be a real upgrade indeed |
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May 31 2013, 08:29 AM
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Nice!!! That info is the subject of many questions here in the forum as you've seen. Great articulation of technical material and good scope. Thanks for sharing!!
Todd QUOTE (ConnorGilks @ May 27 2013, 02:05 AM) I wrote a small article on my website about putting together a home studio on a budget, thought maybe it could help a few people out since I've had quite a few questions about my setup and have had a lot of conversations on here with regards to beginner's guides to home studios. http://www.connorgilks.com/apps/blog/show/...dio-on-a-budget Let me know if you have any questions! In the meantime, who here has a home recording setup? What do you use? Post pics if you can. |
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May 31 2013, 03:34 PM
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QUOTE (ConnorGilks @ May 27 2013, 07:50 PM) Gabriel: Yes! He said it himself. He says it in this interview at 1:45 about creating it on "blown speakers". In another interview with the BBC (also an YouTube) he says most of what he creates isn't in a studio, it's just him in a hotel with a laptop and headphones. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0MIxoM_o_8 dcz702: Nice setup man!! Love the mini Recto too I use headphones for checking EQ, effects, balance between left and right but when I have to define levels, I don't find Headphones useful, I can notice the real level of each instrument and voice, does this happen to you? -------------------- My lessons
Do you need a Guitar Plan? Join Gab's Army Check my band:Cirse Check my soundcloud:Soundcloud Please subscribe to my:Youtube Channel |
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May 31 2013, 06:57 PM
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QUOTE (Darius Wave @ May 31 2013, 08:48 AM) Nice topic fellows! I work on a pair of Adam A7 + Presonus INSPIRE 1394 firewire interface (most stable device I had). With usb devices had many issues. I work on the PC. What I can say is that 90% problems (cause there are some indeed) are caused form using same device NOT ONLY for recording / mixing/ etc. As far as I had PC only for one purpose it worked good for a pretty long time. My expirience with different manufacturers of processors showed me that Intel (old Pentium or present i5 i7?) is most efficient for processing audio. I had One core pentium 1.6 and it handled more audio processes than the newer Athlon DualCore. Was also much more stable - less errors,blue screens, overheating. World goes on and plug-ins need more and more memory but this old pentium handled even some "heavy" sessions and never failed. There is no other reason for using PC (in my case) than mentioned budget - tons of great, free plugins have no mac versions. Not alwasy afford to by Waves etc so in this particular situation PC gives more possibilities for the poor musicians I was always considering buying a Mac and maybe someday it will happen (only good memories form studios - Macs were always stable as hell). But there will always be a PC close to it just so I could make some presets for students or check some options to help them use DAW, plug-ins etc. Most of them work on PC (cause it's they use it for everything). I have a one issue that always cofuses me and I wonder how Do You treat this. Low end about 80 Hz and 118 - 127 Hz seems to be a nightmare of many rooms in which people listen to the music. I theory we as a producers should calibrate the monitors to the room. So after doing some meterings and cutting the resonating freq I was closer to something called eqaul freqs level (while passing the reference 50-16000Hz audio file). Now doing a recored with room eq like that makes that those boomy freqs in mix still comes out while someone who has no idea about it playes your mix in his room. So...I came back to "no room eq" set up and started to find some sweet spots and add a few dB's to compensate to narrow cuts in the mentioned low end. For example - cutting a 3 dB of resonating 80 Hz compensated by boosting the 70 Hz a bit. The idea is to put the bass in the spots that are smooth in most of rooms and cut the freqs that seems to be common problem. Usually the worst 127 HZ or somewhere around 118 Hz. I wonder about You attitude to this issue? Hi Darius, If I understaood you correctly you need to correct/treat the room as much as you can for resonant frequencies, standing waves etc. If you don't you're assuming that you are cutting by the appropriate amount etc. This will also depend on the monitors used and how they are sited. as well as room design and construction. Translation ultimately should be done at mastering rather than at mixing. With mixing whilst the bass and sub bass is important so are the mids and higher frequencies. You don't however need to achieve a flat anachoic chamber response but you do need to deal with the resonance and nodes. It is better to treat the room and only eq them out if you can't treat the room adequately. Hope that makes sense and helps with the question. --------------------------------- Oh and my set up: (Room is acoustically treated and designed for mastering.) Monitor chain is PC/DAW --> Lavry DAC11 --> ATC SCM Pro50 3 way monitors . l l l l Prism Orpheus <--> Crookwood MA3 A7 Mastering Hardware router <--> Outboard hardware Monitors are on stands. Outboard includes mastering EQs, compressors etc. DAW is Sadie. Orpheus connects via firewire and the Lavry by EBU. The set up is balanced and properly gainstaged. I don't need a particularly powerful pc as I do very little processing in the daw, and use it mainly to compile, sequence and edit. PC is Win 7 64 bit, quad core. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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Jun 1 2013, 11:20 AM
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Guys, what would you choose between:
http://www.thomann.de/ro/emu_0404_usb.htm and http://www.thomann.de/ro/focusrite_scarlet...5a1f56596999528 |
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Jun 2 2013, 11:06 AM
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Well mastering rooms aren't sterile, they are are close to accurate
. I do prefer to refer to my set up as I know it well and how it translates to other listening environments. It's about having the experience and understanding of how your system works, what it does well and so on in comparison to other systems. That's a key part of mastering and one that is forgotten by those who do 'bedroom masters'; you have to think how the final master will be reproduced on a wide range of equipment and in a wide range of settings. One example is that very few people bother to do do a 'collapse to mono' check but many people ultimately hear most recordings in mono.One thing you can do is take a couple of recordings that you know well and listen to them in the new environment so that you get a sense of how they are representing the audio. ---------------------- Cosmin - between the two I'd go with the Scarlet for the reasons Sinisa described above. I think the EMU has been around for quite a while and the lack of updates and support means you may struggle to get it to run properly on a newish pc and OS. Also, the Scarlet shouldl have a more upto date specification and so should be able to perform better. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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Jun 2 2013, 01:54 PM
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Thank you Tony!
I have also considered buying the KRK Rokit8 G2 set as I understood they are far better than the Rokit5, regarding the low end. Also, I have received a new recommendation in respect to the audio interface: http://www.avaudiosys.ro/Avid-MBox-Mini--4--118.html What do you guys think? This will push costs though, so I might have to wait till next month for that... |
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Jun 2 2013, 02:39 PM
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Assuming the 8 and 5 refers to the size of the bass speaker than the 8 should roll off at a lower point and so deliver more perceived low end Cosmin. With the 5 you'd really need a subwoofer to be able to cope with anything below @100 Hz whereas the 8 should be reasonably linear to about 60, but may roll of quite sharply after that. So if you need to hear the low end I'd go for the 8.
(That said though there are other things to consider like where the cross over is, how the small speaker copes with mid and high frequencies, how good the bass speaker is, cabinet rigidity, power amp spec... There's no end to all this  )Avid MBox is fine but if I remember correctly Avid are dropping the prosumer lines. If that is the case you might have difficulty in the future getting new drivers and updates - which is similar to the issues Sinesa has with the EMU. Have a word with Todd as he's more up to date on Avid than I am. -------------------- Get your music professionally mastered by anl AES registered Mastering Engineer. Contact me for Audio Mastering Services and Advice and visit our website www.miromastering.com
Be friends on facebook with us here. We use professional, mastering grade hardware in our mastering studo. Our hardware includes: Cranesong Avocet II Monitor Controller, Dangerous Music Liasion Insert Hardware Router, ATC SCM Pro Monitors, Lavry Black DA11, Prism Orpheus ADC/DAC, Gyratec Gyraf XIV Parallel Passive Mastering EQ, Great River MAQ 2NV Mastering EQ, Kush Clariphonic Parallel EQ Shelf, Maselec MLA-2 Mastering Compressor, API 2500 Mastering Compressor, Eventide Eclipse Reverb/Echo. |
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I can't place things permanently as my room is pretty small so need to pack things when done. I bought the speakers about 2 years ago and this is only probably 2nd time I used it.. lol! I do plan to make a good home studio (like Steve Vais except for gears) within the next 2 years where I will be spending my retirement. 
 
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