Studio tour (video)

I am getting ready to take everything out of here so I can rip the old carpet out and completely refinish the walls. I figured I would shoot a before and after video since I'm kinda documenting the whole process here.

Sorry about the Blair Witch style video, never said I was a Video guru.

I threw a beat on my drum machine and made the bass lines with my EA1 for the background music, hopefully it's not to repetitive for ya.

Roland XP-50

I bought this board about 10 years ago at a pawn shop. At the time I had never heard the word midi and did not even own a computer, (and now I work for Geek squad???...who knew huh). Anyway, I'm just saying I had no clue on how to do anything with it except play it like a piano.

I put it in a closet for 8 years and almost sold it 2 or 3 times, I'm so glad I never did.

After I started working on PC's for a living I got to hang around a lot of people who messed with midi, once I saw how it worked I drug my XP-50 out of the closet and blew the dust off of it and now I'm building a whole studio. Once again, I'm glad I held onto it. This thing is great. I love the sounds it has in it. It also had a dance expansion pack in it when I bought it so I have some good "Rave,techno-type sounds in it as well.

The keys have a nice feel to them and the jog wheel makes it easy to scroll through your patches. I have not messed with the sequencer much on it since I use the PC to do that part of it.

Here are the specs on the board

64-voice polyphony; 16-part multitimbral capability; 512 preset patches; 8 MB of internal waveform memory
32-bit custom RISC chip
Redesigned 16-track sequencer; 100 patterns
Accepts any four SR-JV80 Series expansion boards
40 insert effects in addition to digital reverb and chorus
Direct-from-disk playback; Realtime Phrase Sequencing
GM/GS Compatible

They are great boards.

You can usually find them on eBay starting around 450 and up based to their condition.

Vintage Synth Explorer

I really am taking an interest in vintage analog and digital synthesizers. I look on eBay all of the time for them and I am always looking at pawn shops and music stores for whatever I can find.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/ (Vintage Synth Explorer) is a awesome site to learn about all kinds of synths. They have over 500 instruments and counting on their site. There are reviews and info on all sorts synths old and new. Its a great place to read what each one does and will point you in the right direction when it comes time to start looking to purchase.

The site even has "gear for sale" and "wanted gear" sections to buy and sell your instruments.

I stumbled across this site on a Google search a while ago and I just figured I would spread the word, Its a great site and a lot of fun to read about the old synths. Oh yeah, you can also download patches for some stuff there too, check it out.

E-MU 0404 sound card

This is the card I am using at the moment and I have no problem with it at all. It has two 1/4" analog inputs and outputs, optical 24-bit/96kHz S/PDIF In/Out, Coaxial 24-bit/96kHz S/PDIF In/Out, and MIDI In/Out. Everything I need at the moment.

Its performs great for me and I have no latency problems at all with it.

My only problem is that I'm thinking of moving to Pro tools and I will need an M-Audio card for that. If it were not for that one reason I'm not sure I would even upgrade right now (if it ain't broke....)

I am looking into firewire mixers. I could kill two birds with one stone because I'm using a little 4 channel mixer right now and I do need some more channels. I'm not sure what I'm going to get yet but for 100 dollars if you are just getting into home recording this little card will do the job.

check out the Emu 0404 here http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=10447 In my opinion its a lot of card for a hundred bucks.

Cubase or Protools

Short post tonight.
I've been using Ableton for about 7 mths and I like it but I'm finding that nobody else uses it and many don't even know what it is. I am really starting to like the sounds that come from hardware synths instead of vst's anyway so I am going to make the switch to either Pro tools or Cubase. I'm pretty sure I want to go with Pro tools but it will cost me a lot more because I do not have a m audio sound card. I have not used either one of them so I just wanted to get some pro and cons of the two.
It seems that Pro tools is more the industry standard from what I have read online. I just don't want to drop and extra 3 to 4 hundred if its not necessary.
Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Got my EA1 today!

My Korg EA1 I bought off of EBay arrived today...I've been waiting for this for a while. Anyway, This little guy can produce some awesome sounds and I cant wait to get into it. I opened it up and made sure it worked and took the pic so I haven't got to play with it more than about 10 min.

I have been looking for one of these for a while now. They seem to go for around 175 to 200 dollars (used) in the music stores around here but I lucked out and bid the highest on EBay for only 61 dollars! It was so cheap I thought it wasn't going to work when it got here. The only thing wrong with it was the master volume knob and power cord were missing. I bought a universal ac adapter at Best buy for 8 dollars and wallah. I don't really care about the volume knob, you can still turn it if you have to but I will probably set it and forget it anyway and use the mixer to control it's volume.

SO..... keep your eyes out on EBay when adding hardware or software to your studio, if you are patient enough you will strike gold.

Sound booth frame

This is what the frame of my booth looked like before I hung the Sheetrock. It's 4 x 4 x 7.5 ft.

I thought 4x4 was small until I finished it then I found that 4 ft is a lot bigger than it seems. There is enough room for 2 people to be in there comfortably or one person with a guitar. It seems huge with a single person in there which is how it is used 99% of the time anyway.

I used regular Sheetrock but I used Sheetrock adhesive AND screws to hold it up and help seal it off. I also used insulation between the walls just like it was an outside wall to help keep sound out. The glue helped kill vibration and sound leak but will be a pain if I ever have to replace a piece of Sheetrock. I recommend not gluing the rock to the studs where there are cables running behind it. Everywhere cables run in my booth have a removable,separate piece of Sheetrock that is only screwed in so I can remove it and replace bad cables or add them with ease. After the rock was up I did no mud or tape on the inside since it would be covered with acoustic tile anyway but I did fill the cracks with clear silicon just to seal it off even more. For the window I used 2 pieces of Plexiglas with a 1 in. spacer (piece of wood with foam seals) between them. It seemed to work well and only cost me around 24 dollars for both pieces which is cheaper and easier than glass.

After that I ordered my tile online. It ended up being about 180 bucks but I have quite a few tiles left over (like 25 or so). They came with some spray glue which has not been so good to me. I keep having to re glue them up every so often. I did a post on that last week and someone commented and told me to try krylon. I am going to research it and give it a try because I am getting tired of re gluing the tiles every month or so.

So.... for around 350 dollars in supplies and a little work you can build a sound booth that sounds great if you don't mind sweating a little. I based that figure on the supplies it would take just to build the 4x4x7 booth not the wall you saw in the video on my previous post.

Trigger finger by M Audio

I came across one of these one day while hanging out at my local music store. I was not planning on buying one nor did I even know what one was but I did have some money burning a hole in my pocket and like always I was going home with SOMETHING that day.

The owner of the store told me how cool this thing would be if I was getting into midi and how each button could be programed to do whatever you want it to. I must say it took a little while to figure out how to set it up but also remember I am new to everything midi so I'm sure someone who is more experienced could breeze right through it. OK, with all that out of the way, I love this controller. The pads are touch sensitive and seem very durable. I bang the crap out of them when using it to control drum programs and it feels very solid. I program all of the sliders to do different things (faders,volume controls,rolls,etc.) This is very easy to do in ableton live,you just put your mouse on the slider or knob in the program you want to program and then move the one on the Trigger Finger you want to assign it to. I picked this up used but still in perfect condition for 125 dollars...money well spent in my opinion.

I'm sure you are realizing that the only reviews I am doing right now are of stuff that I own so naturally they will probably get high ratings. I give this one a 5 out of 5 just like the midair 37. Both controllers are something I now would not want to be without.

Check out the M Audio Trigger finger here

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/TriggerFinger-main.html

M-AUDIO Mid Air 37

I installed Reason on my laptop and bought one of these little bad boys. I use it ALL OF THE TIME. I can sit on the couch with my laptop on the table beside me and since it's a wireless controller with no cords in my way I just throw some headphones on and I have a blast without having to alienate my wife by going downstairs to hide in my studio. I got it on sale at Guitar Center for 137 dollars and it was worth every penny. Its also great for taking on the road in hotels etc.
Check it out http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MidAir37-main.html
I give it 5 out of 5

Monitor in booth

This turned out great. I bought a dual monitor card for the PC that is running the daw and now it doesn't take 2 people to record vocals anymore. It also helps when one person is in the booth and the producer is behind the controls because you can see the peak levels and whatever else is going on. We also use it to see lyrics.

Best addition to my studio I've done and it cost me about 250 bucks.

Whats your favorite DAW?

Just wondering what everyone is using out there. I have been using Ableton live 5 and 6 for the whole 7 mths I've been into home recording. (I know, not exactly vet yet)
I think I am going to switch to pro tools though since it seems to be the industry standard.
I know there are tons out there so let us know what you like and why you like it.

acoustic tiles won't stick!

I used the spray adhesive that came with the tiles I ordered and it seemed OK at first but after a week or two I always have to re glue them? I put the glue on the tiles and the wall, let it get tacky and it stuck good at first but always starts coming off later. If anyone has used this glue befor or knows of a better glue please let me know because its getting old re glueing them all of the time.

Building a sound booth (video)

I took a bunch of my videos from the month we spent building the both and spliced them together to show the process from start to current condition. I plan to build a whole home studio but for now I'll just show the booth. I would guess with lumber,Sheetrock,Plexiglas,and acoustic foam I spent about 700 dollars on this project so far. This is not counting cables and wiring which would have cost me a ton if I didn't work at BBY.