Building a workstation from scratch ...

[PeterD]

Hey everyone!
GREAT forum!!! I currently have some old gear that's not cutting it for today's sound. My room consists of a Korg Triton le, a few guitars, a few mics (condensers), a Zoom 10 track recorder, and a pair of headphones. I can get by most of the time, but want/need to be taken MUCH more seriously.

Could $3K take me to a better place? Please have a listen to some of my work to create a benchmark, and should I be creative enough for this biz, is it worth investing?

Thanks so much for reading and listening!!

[jazzstan]

Peter,
One goal will be appropriate allocating your resources between software synths & VIs, etc and the hardware's CPU memory and disk space to run it tall. A couple of years ago I found a local PC shop that would build-to-spec, and I got a good machine in a super quiet box for under $1000, and it still works just fine. So that leaves a couple of grand for your software 'wish list" which ought to fill the bill with access to current-sounding elements. I'd also set aside a small fund to get some of Taxi's custom critiques and a library of current reference tracks for the genres you are writing for.

[mojobone]

I recommend that you spend half your budget on a quality set of monitors; it's the transducers (mics and speakers) that are the choke point for most studio rigs, where quality is of concern. The biggest leap in quality my music ever made was when I finally upgraded to a set of real professional nearfield studio monitors, and could actually hear my mixes.

[cardell]

I recommend that you spend half your budget on a quality set of monitors; it's the transducers (mics and speakers) that are the choke point for most studio rigs, where quality is of concern. The biggest leap in quality my music ever made was when I finally upgraded to a set of real professional nearfield studio monitors, and could actually hear my mixes.

Yes, yes...you're so right Mojo! The difference (for me) was like night & day!

Stuart

[PeterD]

Wow!!
Interesting how everyone agrees with that being the "meat" of the studio. I guess recording software is just recording software? And a good library of sounds would be 2nd tier to the monitors?

Thanks for the input!!

[andygabrys]

I recommend that you spend half your budget on a quality set of monitors; it's the transducers (mics and speakers) that are the choke point for most studio rigs, where quality is of concern. The biggest leap in quality my music ever made was when I finally upgraded to a set of real professional nearfield studio monitors, and could actually hear my mixes.

If I might suggest, unless you have a fantastically large room that you mix in where the walls and ceiling won't influence what's coming off those monitors, that you save a few $$ (say up to $500) for a few acoustic absorbers to cover the first reflection points off your walls (like something made from fiberglas panels not foam - real traps, ready traps, primacoustic, L.A. sound panels etc.).

[rnrmachine]

Hey Peter,

Knowing that what you hear IS what you have is paramount to doing this sort of work. BUT not having quality sounds can be worse in some ways. A person can "work around" not having a great work environment.. eventually... but poor quality and or outdated samples will take a lot more ingenuity to make them useful.

I listened to ALL your songs and your mixes sound good to me, not great but good. You probably should think about finding a mastering service, eventually. There is no way you can afford the rooms and equipment they have. Don't get me wrong though, I do my own mastering because I am so friggin broke. BUT once I have a group of songs that I consider my top 10 out of hundreds, I will fork up the dough for a mastering house, without ANY doubt. We will NOT be able to match their abilities unless we win the lottery. Let me explain further...

Typical HOT CD mastering, from professionals, is done WAY different then we "home studio people" do it. They gain stage, push outboard PRO audio gear with tons of headroom, overdrive their PRIMO ADCs (Analog to digital converters), something we can't do... unless you fork out about $2000usd for pro ADCs and then you will still need DACs. Pro-sumer will not cut it when doing this. It sounds like CRAP!!! Also, they KNOW when they have a balanced mix... something a lot of us on the forum can only guess and hope we have from time to time lol.

I would agree a good pair of monitors IS something you NEED. But if your budget is only 3K I wouldn't spend half on monitors. $1500 monitors are NOT needed as bad as some of the other stuff you will need... when talking 3K budget. I would shop around like a Lion ready to pounce on a great deal when looking for monitors... since there isn't a dire need for them immediately. A budget of $500-$1000 for your monitors is more than enough imho. On your budget. Just wait for a deal on a good pair. They happen often enough.

Samples, some, most, of your samples in your songs sound outdated. Now, this can be fixed by treating them in certain ways such as, adding NY style compression (parallel compression) with some sort of mild distortion. BUT I highly recommend getting a new program. One that will suite YOUR needs. I would highly recommend Komplete 8 Ultimate for your different styles, this will have a lot for you. BUT it's not the end all. There are MANY specialized programs out there that you MIGHT need depending on what you do. IF you will try to get involved in more orchestral music there are better programs aimed at that genre. BUT that is all they are good for...

Room treatment... even $10,000 monitors would screw you in a room that is horrible for audio mixing and mastering. IF your room is negatively affecting your sounds... nothing will fix that other than putting in treatment, bass traps, SOME absorption material on the walls BUT don't deaden the room. Top mastering house will easily pay $50k just on the room alone... before any gear is even moved in... they already blew $50k or more.

Mix at 83db... if your room is treated then you want to mix at 83db due to the "Fletcher-Munson curve" (it's actually 85db but Bob Kats any many others say 83db is better since it brings us to 8 hours + of "safe working time" per day. You can mix at lower levels to avoid less room sound but be aware that now your are hearing things a bit skewed from the "normal" balanced mix. Look at a graph of that curve so you have an idea of what your deviation is... anyway my point here is...

Buy SPL gauge (sound pressure level) so you can check and see how loud you are mixing at... and get things set properly.

Maybe get rid of the Zoom 10track recorder and get a true audio interface for your computer... possibly not needed but it's a suggestion, I don't have any experience with that Zoom.

What master program do you use? Cuebase? Logic? Pro-Tools? Sonar? Reaper?
What computer do you own? specs of CPU, ram, Hard drives, etc...
Have a decent preamp for your mics?
What are your current monitors?
What samples programs do you own?

I'll wait for answers.

Rob

[PeterD]

Yowza Rob!! haha

That's quite a suggestion! In the scheme of things on a 1 - 10 (with 10 being a "good" home studio) I'm about a 0.5! I know I'm doing everything wrong as far as technique and fundamentals are concerned. Everything in the way of music gear was accumulated over time and I can't part with a lot of it, for silly reasons. You're absolutely right about the dated sounds. I WISH I had an East West library or Ministry of Rock collection!!! More importantly, I wish I knew how to use it!

At the moment, I can't justify more than $3K on anything. Even that's pushing it. I would LOVE for a tune of mine to place somewhere and slowly fund the future growth of my lil room setup!! = )

BTW, thanks for listening to my samples!! Definitely appreciate the feedback!!
To answer your questions ...
---------------------------

What master program do you use? Cuebase? Logic? Pro-Tools? Sonar? Reaper? I have a watered down version of Cuebase on my laptop, but don't use it for anything. Audacity is on there too. I usuyally send everything to the Zoom MRS 1044CD, and mix it on there.

What computer do you own? specs of CPU, ram, Hard drives, etc... I've got a 1.5 year old Toshiba Satellite with 4 gigs of RAM, and a couple of 80 gig hard drives.

Have a decent preamp for your mics? Not at all!! I only use the vocal presets in the Zoom at the moment. : (

What are your current monitors? Thats a negative as well. Only a pair of older Sennheiser HD 433.

What samples programs do you own? Other than an aging, Korg Triton le ... Nothing. I used to love that toy : (
-----------------------

Whatcha think? Is the outlook bleak??
Consider me starting from sratch.
What would YOU do?
Thanks again,
Pete

[andygabrys]

It's. Not bleak. It can be done.

You probably won't be spending half your budget on monitors, and you may not even buy any treatment, nor a great standalone preamp.

First, you have a computer that is not so old. Great.

Now you need a functioning software setup. If you are somewhat accustomed to cubase, then you could upgrade to a more powerful versiOn. Yu could also switch to another piece if software like protools, but differences are more workflow related and personal stubborness than actual advanrages or shortcomings in the software. Cubase comes bundled with a number of effects and instruments.

Now you need a pair of monitor speakers, and an interface (likely USB2 unless the computer also has a FireWire connection)

The interface will contain a couple of mic preamps, audio -digital converters, headphone outputs for recording, monitor outputs for your speakers, and of course digital audio conversion for the info coming from the computer to the monitors. I use a Mac, and I definitely would recommend the apogee duet2 but it sadly doesn't run on a PC. All the other PC users will probably have lots of ideas. Yo could check the RME baby face, which is very small and compact and is expandable via ADAT if needed. it's a good chunk of change, but has pretty great specs.
That's a start I am sure there will be plenty of info coming your way.

Re:east west. Check the complete composers collection bundle

[rnrmachine]

Hey PeterD,

Ok, I looked up a Zoom 10track and found the MRS1044. It's a bit old in a technology sort of view but still usable. I found this SOS review on it. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan02/a ... rs1044.asp I would read more up on it IF you wanted or felt ya needed to keep using it. So I could help ya get a better setup based around it. 3K is a lot of money, but once ya start shopping in the pro-sumer world it goes fast... I know. lol

These things should really be done but you don't HAVE to. I am just going by what is best to get you closer to your desire to succeed at this.

1 Room Treatment - Try to have the room as "flat" in the frequency spectrum as possible. You can cut corners here, but the more you corners you cut, the longer it will take you to learn your "odd" setup.

You can get something like ARC system from IK Multimedia. It's $200 from their website so ya MIGHT be able to grab it cheaper elsewhere. This gives you the tools to Identify problem areas in your room. I would only recommend using it to actually fix the room, don't use the computer altered playback that adjusts your system to TRY and fix your room errors. This would work best if choosing to use it, IF the room is really close to a good flat response, at your seated work position... it's not gonna fix major malfunctions. Also, don't have any acoustic instrument/guitar in the room when calibrating. That would skew the readout... Nothing that resonates... other than the room of course lol.

2 SPL meter - You should get one so ya can mix at 83db... Do I mix at 83db? not as often as I should... /sigh Not always convenient to be that loud.

3 Monitors - if you don't have any? Buy some soon! You need them! To get a good idea of how the song sounds in a room AND to check for phase issues. Sound waves interacting in weird ways... can only be heard through speakers. Headphones don't interact. Fine to compose in cans, just don't mix in them... you can check in them before ya print the master of course.

4 Better Samples or learn to manipulate older ones if out of money. BUT this could entail buying an up to date keyboard for a couple thousand OR dropping the zoom and just go with a computer. My preference really. The zoom is an excellent scratch pad and technically can work, but doing any serious mixing with it, and the samples issue, is just gonna keep you struggling, to a higher degree, to make the bar for a lot of listings imho. You should really get an interface, the laptop could be fine for you but I prefer a Desktop. You can get more into them lol.

You can get a nice new computer system for maybe $1000 if you shop smart. Your gonna want an OS drive and a 2nd hard drive with TONS of room for samples and preferably a 3rd for audio... for when you record real instruments.

Then buying the ARC for $200, a SPL meter for under $100 if the ARC doesn't have that ability. Say room treatment costs $500 and ya get Komplete 8 Ultimate for under $500. That leaves only $700 for an interface and monitors. With the interface, most likely, it will have an adequate learning Program (Cuebase, Pro-tools, Sonar, etc...) for you but you will want to upgrade to their full version in the near future. You will outgrow the "came with the product" version fairly fast.You can cut some costs on room treatment by making your own stuff. Google "bass traps" and stuff like "sound absorption" and read hard... and possibly drop the costs to some material from Lowes or Home Depo. Let's say you kept the Room down to $200 that would bring up your monitor and interface to $1000. Maybe get something from M-audio. That would get you into the "pro-tools" area.

Also, I would keep your current keyboard and use it as the "MIDI trigger" for all your new samples for now. Eventually you may want to grab a more up to date controller. Just connect it via the MIDI out on the keyboard to the MIDI in on your interface. IF both have them of course. I looked up your Korg Triton and apparently there are a number of versions so I can't comment on how much you might wanna hang onto that thing but I wouldn't start calling it a toy nm what.

It just sounds like late 80s electronica. Not like you have Casio toy sounds going there lol

Anyway, this is just my advice... not the end all hehe... I'll check back and see where the discussion goes... sorry for the long winded post but I felt it was better to say it all.

Rob

EDIT: Btw, I thought Jingle Bells Caribbean style was cool as sh+t lol. It just sounds a bit too electronic to give ya many options with it... something that could be quite desirable for the right listing though, imho.