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Constructing a Home Recording Studio on a Small Budget?
Pinball Wizard asks:
"I would like to put together a home music studio. When it comes to keyboards, effects, and other electronic goodies, the choices seem pretty straightforward. But when it comes to guitar and recording other analog instruments and voices, the world of home recording seems bewildering. What are the best ways of recording analog sounds onto hard disk? I'm a lot more interested in a clever technical solution that costs less than $1,000 than I am taking out a loan and buying ProTools for $10,000 or more. What are the different pieces of equipment (microphones, preamps, etc) that are needed to do this well?"
The equipment I suggest you acquire varies on what sorts of sounds you want to record.
- Obviously you'll need a good sound card, Creative's Sound Blaster Live! is comparitvely cheap for the value you get.
- You'll need good microphones, also (it's amazing the difference quality makes). Nice mikes will let you record any instrument, electric or not. I would suggest the company Shure.
- Next on your list would be a mixer, I would highly suggest Mackie boards, and for slightly cheaper tastes the Behringer line.
- Another key component is good cabling. It's tempting to just run over to Radio Shack and buy what you need... but I've found those cables to have crappy shielding, almost no jacket, and die after about 2 years. I would suggest Hosa cables, or, if you have extra cash, Monster cables.
- Lastly you might think of getting a headphone matrix. This is mainly useful if you want to record a band/mutiple people at once. It allows you to amplify the sound a person is making back to them.Also it will allow you to have 6+ headphones w/o splitting the signal.
Well, that's all I have to offer.-Mark
P.S. Actually one more note, don't jerry rig things unless you really need to.
PHP, it kicks ASP!
www.homerecording.com has an entire discussion forum related to computer mixing/mastering...including computers and the soundcards.
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
Come up with some prospective names and do a google _news_ search to see what people are saying about such cards in, say, rec.audio.pro. DON'T go by what you can find on the Web or on 'reviews'...
Dude, few of the Under $200 cards are REALLY going to give you 24 bit. They MAY record at 96k, but the noise floor of these things will effective lower the bit level to something much less.
/.) and ask the same question there.
Then again, I generally go with the Echo or MAudio cards, some of which WILL fit the under $200 budget.
I've seen suggestions of SoundBlasters...the minute you hear ANYONE suggest a SB for ProAudio on ANY budget, you can discount their advice on anything else. Still the one guy makes mention of the Mackie vs. Behringer...for my money, Behringer makes a damn good board. Its all Chinese manufacturing and done very inexpensively, BUT it isn't cheap. I played with their new board at NAMM a few weeks back and I'm kinda regressing my higher end Tascam board.
As another guy mentioned and is entirely on -- Hosa IS crap for most work (unless you are a plug and forget person that doesn't move equipment) and Monster sucks big time...for christ sakes, they sell ETHERNET Monster cables and try to tell us that the gold plating and unoxidized cable makes digital audio downloaded over the internet sound better. I don't care HOW cheap Monster is, I will never buy their products after that crap.
Anywho, this is NOT something that should be asked on Slashdot. Geeks like to look at specs and buy according to those (yeah, I double duty as a geek in both the Music Industry AND in a day job that is slowly becoming more of a hobby as my music stuff paid more last year than my university research). Look on Usenet or one of the most excellent websites out their like ProRec or even a site like my own -- http://sonikmatter.com. My site ISN'T geared towards a lot of the things you are looking into, but if ya decide to use Proaudio software such as Logic Audio, it WILL be the place to learn about these as well as building a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).
Find a forum (NOT
As a side note, I am actually taking a break from working on my latest DAW. Its a midrange audio box...just threw a 1.8Ghz and a decent server Motherboard into a box with 512M of memory (will expand to 1.5G as soon as I get other things tweaked). Matrox dual 450 card - great for audio work as its stable and doesn't screw with the PCI bus as most gaming cards will. Echo Darla...this isn't going to be recording more than a stereo pair in, BUT will need to use all 8 outputs occasionally. UW SCSI is a must on this box, I need at LEAST 64 tracks internal before grouped to 8. Gigasampler, Reaktor and Logic Audio Platinum 5 will be installed on this in the next week (as soon as 5 gets here). So far, it has cost me about $800 and most of this box is new (except for the software which was sent to me for beta testing and reviews and the older SCSI stuff that I've pulled out of servers as I upgrade them). Add about $800 for the high end audio software (and there ARE a lot that are lower range and will do what ya need).
You CAN do this on a budget, but ya have to plan everything out and watch Pricewatch / Pricegrabber like a hawk and make sure you get EXACTLY what you planned on, not just what ever might work...audio is picky about what ya put in your machine...especially if you are appreciative of stability. Windows CAN be stable...hardware is mostly the same, its drivers by irreputable companies that keep it from being stable.
Thats enough of my sharing...read what ya can and get an idea from that. Check out the websites and check on Usenet.
clif - sonikmatter.com
So my last album was recorded in 16 bit/44kHz off of a Soundblaster AWE64 Gold. Not the greatest audio performance, but better than the 48kHz resampled SB Live.
You should have one or two pieces of analog gear. You probably want to have a mixer, especially if you want to record drums. Mackies are a safe bet and are not much more than the generic stuff. I used to be able to borrow a Mackie, but that's on my list of things to buy.
It's also extremely convenient to have an external compressor or two. I have two compressors and that's more than enough, but I don't do drums.
You want to make sure that your inputs (i.e. the sound card and mic) and the outputs (i.e. the speakers) are of good quality. So make sure you get a good set of studio monitor speakers, a good pair of headphones, and a good sound card. That's been covered already by other people. A new Echo card that does 24/96kHz is also on my list of toys to buy.
Guitar/Bass Multi FX processors are your friend. At least, if you do my kind of music. Last time, I borrowed a digitech processor. Now I own one. The speaker simulators are much less trouble than a real amp.
You probably want to go to a music store and pick out a microphone in person. But you want at least one good vocal mic. If you have an instrument other than a guitar/bass, i.e. a piano or a violin or something, pick up a good instrument mic, too. Shure SM57s are a good bet for instrument mics, but you can probably do better if you look.
You don't need an outboard FX processor, except for guitar/bass FX units. Most good multitracking programs have most of the FX you need built in.
Now, as far as saving money, you are going to end up spending at least $500 on a good set of monitor speakers, either self-powered or speakers and a power amp. Your audio card is at least $400. Your mixer is $400. Your guitar processor is $200-400. Your mics are going to be $200-400. All in all, it'll probably be closer to $2000.
Which is a little much. Most people accumulate things over time. So you don't bother with a mixer right off, just plug a SM57 into your input port. Maybe you already own a guitar processor. Skip out on good monitors and switch between computer speakers and your headphones for the time being. You get the picture.
Gentoo Sucks
A friend of mine does a lot of home recording. He records using a stereo microphone plugged into a minidisc player/recorder. Later, he plays the disc back into his computer and captures it to wav format, which he then mucks with using various tools (audigy comes to mind), and finally convert it to ogg and mp3. You can listen to some of it here. His stuff doesn't go through much production after it's recorded so a lot of it is very raw sounding, but if I read your question correctly, you've already got that part figured out and you're just looking for a way to get the sound waves into the computer. This works pretty well.
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
My brother is the real expert (eg. actually qualified in these things) but here's my best shot:
Total: $822
This should give you a good start.. however you will also need some decent speakers - monitor speakers not just your hi-fi ones - and an appropriate amp for them. You could start with your hi-fi stuff but you need to something better pretty soon. I don't know if you were looking for something more than this for $1000 but this would be a good starting point. All I can say is that this is an expensive game, but very fun ;)
If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
Creative makes boards for games. Not for serious audio.
I happen to prefer M-Audio, because of their broad platform support: http://www.midiman.com/products/digital.php.
Their low-end card (Audiophile 2496) is cost-competitive with Creative's high end, and would probably do you very nicely.
You'll see most pro gear moving the D/A stuff external to the computer, to reduce noise.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Repeat after me:
Pro is pro, and consumer is consumer.
Ignore specs, numbers, "just as good as...", "same as [insert expensive gear] but costs only..."
Pro gear always exceeds it's specs, under all or nearly all conditions. It probably has good, stable power supplies that typically cost more to make than the "just as good as.. " product does all together. Build quality and component selection is done to impress a knowledgable and discerning crowd, not to look like a good deal at Best Buy.
It is usually rugged where it needs to be; but it could be quite fragile if that makes better sound, because it is assumed Pro users know how to treat it.
Some pro gear is made to go into a rack and sit there for it's lifetime, and some gear is made so drunks can load it into a too-small van at 4 AM and it still works the next night 300 miles away. (No attempt to portray roadies/musicians as drunks; I'm sure sober furniture movers and any respectable airline could also serve to test ruggedness). Good road gear and good studio gear are usually not the same, so don't assume you want what a live band uses. Some very famous microphones are popular because Punk Rockers can't break them even though they don't sound all that great, and some sound fantastic but will spontaneosly explode if you look at them funny. But, you need good microphones, and it's an unwritten law that you can't have too many.
There is nothing wrong with Analog; but Digital is the way of the future. Because of this, you may fit your budget and get better sound by picking up used Analog gear.
You will hear a lot if opinions about what to use and whether Analog is junk or Digital is 'da bomb but for the most part Digital is done poorly (it's consumer gear) and the good stuff is very pricy. Get the good stuff if you can afford it (about $500 or so for your sound card, and you're just beginning).
Don't pay too much attention to S/N for your recording media (assuming you are using good stuff, not a cassette deck) because anything better than 60+ db (without noise reduction) is fine, provided you don't play with it much (overdubs, bouncing tracks, etc).
16-bit digital boasts 30+ db better, but the reality is everybody will be playing your music back with gear that doesn't give you more than about 40 db of dyamic range and typically a LOT less, sometimes less than 3db. Very good playback systems sound excellent with material that has a -60 db noise floor, and 90% of your music will be played back on boombox level gear, at best.
Don't buy NEW digital gear that doesn't support 24-bit/96Khz at a minimum. If you can go 24/96+, then you're on your way to overcome the majority of problems Digital had over Analog so there's no need to worry about which format to use. 16-bit Digital wins some, loses some when it comes to sound quality over Pro Analog.
Get some good speakers and some cheap speakers, and mix/master/produce so it sounds good on both. Use Pro speakers or one of the few consumer models pro's use.
I strongly recommend finding/talking to/hanging out with people who have already done this and do it seriously. They made a lot of mistakes and so will you, but you will make far fewer than if you try to do this on your own.
If you're broke, Stereo is the only way to go. You can't afford 5 of everything.