Build a recording studio

After doing some recording lately in my home office/music room, I’ve realized that my studio is already built. Yes, I’d like a sound booth and a better layout, but what I have now is functional….and I want this goal off my radar for now.

Do I really need to do this? I’ve gotten some pricing estimates on the hardwood floor, and it looks like it could cost $8000 to put them down professionally in the space that I need them. Also, after some research , I may have too many parallel walls to have a truly effective sound stage. No doubt it will improve the sound just by adding the new floors (and add value to the house), but right now I have not done ANY recording in months.

My mixing suite sounds 10 times better than my basement used to up in Menlo Park, and I produced a few well received projects down there. Also, another issue has arrizen with the mixing suite, in that air conditioning units are right outside it’s windows, which is less than optimal.

I’m thinking that maybe I’ll hold off and just do a few project studio recordings in the rooms as is (carpeted, minimal sound proofing). I rarely record emsembles, and I’m less likely to start now that I’m living down here. There is enough room in the mixing suite to squeeze in a single vocalist isolation booth.

I really need to make this a lesser priority and focus on the rest of the house (back yard, furniture, paint, window coverings, etc.).

I’ve gotten the ok from my wife to convert our huge high ceiling livingroom/dining room area into a convertable soundstage. So I will continue to use my office as a huge mixing suite. I will probably need a year or so to fully build this out.

The plan is to put down hardwood floors in the the soundstage and mixing suite. Then sparcely furnish the soundstage with a sitting/jamming area and a piano. Then build a rectractable cover over double pane glass that allows me to see into the soundstage from the mixing suite. Acoustic instruments already sound great in that space, so with the floor and sound proofing modifications, it sound turn out excellent.

The only drawbacks is that the soundstage is exposed to the rest of the house (upstairs and kitchen/family room area), but I reckon that I don’t need 100% isolation in the soundstage. I’ll still get some kind of isolation booth in the mixing suite or in one of the corners of the soundstage.

I’ve set up my “office,” and without any sound proofing, my studio monitors sound excellent. I’ve come to realize that converting one of the garages into a fully functional studio is probably years away given that I will have to insulate for the heat/sound and get some ventilation in there.

I’m happy with what my office sounds like as a mixing suite. Once I dampen some of the resonant corners, I’m sure it will sound much better. I can probably get away with recording individual instruments and vocals in here. I might even get a separate portable isolation booth at some point.

I’ve been recording my band at the rehearsal space for a couple of weeks now with my portable project studio (an RME Fireface w/ Berhinger ADA8000 mic pres into Sonar). I’ve been micing just about everything through standard SM57s/SM58s, a couple of Rode NT5 overheads. I also record bass direct & a Line6 Podxt for my guitar. Finally I used a Joemeek Studio Channel for the lead vocals (for great compression/EQ). After I’ve mixed and mastered everything, the sound is about as good as a live album!

I’m moving next month into a fairly big house and will finally have the space to setup my studio semi-permanently. I’ve been looking at plans for turning a garage into a mixing suite / iso room. I’m a little concerned about the ventilation in the desert heat, so I’ll probably hold off a few months until the weather is a bit cooler to implement my garage plan. Meanwhile I’m going to convert my office/spare bedroom into a mixing suite.

Over the past few months we’ve been working with a grammy winning producer and seasoned veterans of the music industry. It’s been a tremendous learning experience. I think we’re in a better position to produce professional quality demos. In the past I’ve been guilty of using too many effects & loops in an inauthentic way…. but even the acoustic recordings we’ve done over the past few days have a completely different quality to them.

We just put a deposit on a huge new house, and there are “extra” rooms, including an extra semi detached one car garage (along with a two car garage). I need to research plans for converting one of the garages into a isolation chamber and mixing suite. I’d like to make it big enough to record a small ensemble, but realistically just need a room for drums and vocals. This is probably a year or two out, but at least I know I’ll have the space.

In other news, I did get a new DAW interface (RME Fireface). The quality of the A/D and D/A is outstanding…as well as the Class A PreAmps. I can hear a difference between the RME and the MBox. I can’t wait to do a serious project with it in January. I need to think about more pre-amps for doing live recordings of the band (on individual tracks for each instrument). So far I’ve done some excellent “live” recordings on 3 tracks in the rehearsal studio. Maybe I’ll take some line outs from the guitar amps and vocal mixer at the next rehearsal (the RME supports up to 24 lines in)

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of 2 track recording of the band or acoustic projects right into the MBox. I’m kind of craving a new portable interface with lots of mic-pre’s. 8 probably is not going to cut it for the full band with vocals, mic’d drums, and instruments. The Mackie Onyx boards look interesting, and they do double duty as mixers…. but its about $1800 for one with 16 mic preamps and the firewire interface…. and it’s not so portable.

I saw a review for the new CardBus EMU interface with ADAT capabilities. It looks good on paper and its cheap ($500), but I would still need to buy a bunch of mic pre’s. An advantage would be that I would not have to buy all the pieces at once. It’s also good for portable mixing….

I have a buddy who works at Digidesign, and could probably get me a deal on their gear, but I’m just so committed to Sonar as my DAW….also, even with a discount, the Digi stuff would be expensive.

I have a small project studio. I use Sonar and an MBox for now, but I have the need to record more tracks at once and have less latency. I’m considering getting a FireFace or a MOTU Traveler to record drums and more ensemble work….as well as improving my A/D converters. This is what I have produced recently: http://www.steedmusic.com

My dream is to build a studio in the tropics with state-of-the art gear (i.e. Disney certified ProTools HD) near a beach and a resort where projects can be made in a secluded/vacation-like setting for less than the cost of doing them in LA or NYC. I need about $500,000 in capital, and have a location and contacts at Digidesign to do this.