I just helped a friend set up a home studio over the summer, and I figured that was probably what a lot of readers out there are probably into these days. I will cover live music tips and tricks in other posts, so stay tuned for those.
I have to say, this was something of a surprise. Back in the old days, we built home studios out of what we could get our hands on, and learned to make do with some pretty awful crap. From radio shack mixers and mics, to old couch foam stapled to chipboard, nothing in our old home studios could be counted as “semi-pro”. Sure we had fun, but the recordings were really pretty awful. Some of the songs were ok, but the sound quality was just so bad you didn't want to listen long enough to get the song stuck in your head.
I had done some work in pro studios over the years, and knew the quality and sound of their gear, but only in the last couple years have I started playing with the idea of a home studio again. But I found out things have changed a whole lot since the days long gone. For the same price we spent on crap that barely worked, you can get some pretty good gear now days. And a lot of the stuff we jury-rigged, you can now buy for peanuts, and it works better to boot!
So my buddy wanted to build a little studio in his house for podcasting and recordings of he and his wife playing acoustic guitars and singing. They are both talented players, but know very little about recording gear. He asked me about giving him a hand late last year and we finally got to it in early spring. Hey, at least I didn't have to help him move into a 3rd floor apartment. We came up with a plan after looking at his budget, and figuring in the WAF (wife acceptance factor). We are all pretty handy people, so we did not have to budget for hiring a contractor or the like for some of the renovations.
I will go into detail about all the fun we had renovating in a later blog about home studios, as I want to do a little more research and get some links together for you guys in one easy location.
Once the drywall was up and the paint dry, we started unpacking the boxes of gear he had ordered online. We did some searching, and found a good price point on all the gear he wanted, and used that to base our ordering plan on. We decided to get everything through Music123.com, since we could save shipping costs (they have free shipping on most orders over 30 bucks, unless its something big or way heavy, like a 4x12 cabinet).
This was the link that sold him:
Cash Back and Free Gear at the Music123.com Rebate Center
I never did figure out the points system, but he read up on it and decided it would help him save some dough (which I was hoping would be spent on beer, I will admit it).
So here is the gear we got him (part 1 – in a later post I will show you the rest and explain it all and give you some tips we learned). First was his microphone choice. He has been doing a lot of research, and went over to a couple other guys home studios and used their gear to see if it works for him. He settled on the MXL V63M condenser microphone. For his voice and guitar, this was the smoothest choice at under a C-note.
Here's a link if you would like a look:
I had only used the MXL 990 and SP-1 large diaphragm condensers in the entry level category prior to this, and the V63M is probably worth a few bucks more than either of those mics for his application. This can vary for yours though. If you know someone with another microphone (or better yet, many more) go try them first and see if they fit your voice. Microphones can be surprisingly subtle, and sometimes you may find that something that sounds good for your band mates voice sounds horrible with yours. That's ok! That's why they make more than one model of mic.
So we got him a nice entry level microphone, now we needed some way to keep it from falling on the floor. He asked me about the crude shock mounts we used to build out of aluminum cans and rubber bands that we just taped onto our mic stands, and I suggested we keep looking, since those sucked, looked awful and tended to cut you if you got near them. And for clarification, the MXL comes with a mount on it, but you get a bit of noise up through the stand with that style of mount. A shock mount is much better for isolation, just in case you bump the stand.
So for a few more bucks, we picked this up as well:
Now we had his microphone and a shock mount. I gave him one of my old heavy as heck stands and some mic cables and he was ready to hook up to his board. He had picked up a Peavy 6 channel USB mixer without tellin me about it (I would have suggested getting the 8 channel or 12 – it can't hurt to have extra channels and its not much more in cost):
So the basics were all set unpacked and we made a hell of a mess of the room with all the wrappers and boxes. We had the table set up in the studio a week before, and the computer and all of it's gear was already up and running.
Set up only took us a half hour, and that wouldn't have been as long, but we had managed to loose the power supply for the mixer in the pile of junk, and my buddy was pretty sure that Peavy had forgotten to pack one. So he called their customer service while I cleaned up the junk, then got to explain to their customer service rep that we were just idiots when I found the adapter. By the way, good response time on customer service! We were both pretty impressed. We had no trouble plugging in everything and firing up to track.
Here is where my one tiny bitch about the Peavy mixer showed up; we had to find a pen to push the recessed button for phantom power. (Phantom power is power from the mixer to the mic, since condensers require a small charge between the diaphragm and the plate to work – if you plug a condenser into a mixer without phantom power, it won't produce any signal at all.) I guess they do that to keep it from being accidentally turned on or off while you are using the controls on the board though.
We got him in position with his guitar and he started playing, and in no time we had a track. Then we reset the microphone and had him do his vocal take. Also quick and easy. We plugged in headphones for him to listen to his guitar track so he could get the take lined up and all was well.
Until we listened back.
Now, don't take this the wrong way. The mic is too sensitive. It picks up everything including me scratching myself while he was singing, the neighbors really loud car stereo and every tiny little sound in the room while we tracked. Now this is actually a good problem to have. All those sounds were pushed down in the track, as the guitar and vocals were close to the microphone and were much louder, but its pretty amazing how much this thing picks up.
I see this post has gotten pretty long, so I will tell you how we fixed that issue in the next installment. Stay tuned, that's where the really useful stuff starts!
