Building the home studio!!!

[jaykemurd]

I'm so excited. I can't wait!
My wishes have finally come through!!!
Just this evening I ordered the following, from MusiciansFriend, to begin building my home studio:

M-Audio Delta 1010LT PCI Sound card
Behringer Eurorack UB1222FX-PRO Mixer
MXL 990/991 Condeser Mic Package
2 ON-Stage Boom Mic stands
2 extra Horizon Lo-Z XLR Cables
2 Hosa RCA to RCA Cables

All totaling close to 600 bucks-with gold coverage on Card, Mixer, and Mics.

In a month or so, I'll be adding a drum mic kit, and whatever else I discover I need.

Ohh yeah, I'm posting this in hopes that you all with home studios can tell me if I've forgotten something crucial....if I bought something that is a complete piece, etc.
Thanks in advance!



P.S. OMG I CANT WAIT!!!:thumb:

[allthegoodnamesweregone]

you would want to order mic's eg sm57/sm58 for gutair amps you might want more oom stands for the drum mic's dependign on what you get as well i recomend AKG over Shure...

you also want to get some software, Audacity will do but i recomend upgraging to Cuebase or Adobe Audtion/CoolEdit...

also in the future (a long time off) I recmend a new audio input rather than PCI

[jaykemurd]

Oh, I forgot to mention.
I have a custom built (by me) computer:

AMD Athlon64 3000+
Decent BioStar Motherboard
Windows XP Pro
1 GB 400 RAM
2x 80 GB HDDs
nVidia 5700LE Optima Video Card
and soon,
M-Audio Delta 1010LT

I better not have any problems with this computer....I built it for a reason.
i also have a working version of Cakewalk:SONOR 4 Producer Ed.
note: I cannot disclose the information regarding where I got the program....for free...:thumb:

[10571z]

you might wanna add a compersor and maybe a eq rack unit????? also yeh a sm57....

why are u building a home studio ???

[jaykemurd]

I play drums, guitar, bass, and sing. I'm a band in a box. At this point in my musical "career", the only musicians I;ve found I get along with/mix with are MYSELF, so I figured I should start experimenting with my own sound. Plus, I friggin love music, writing it, tweaking it, changing it, all that hoopty. I'm sure, in the next month or so, I'll be adding some sm58s and some sm57s, as well as some nice drum mics.

[Moseph]

for working on drums, etc I'd get a few more mics and cables/stands to go with.

for staters, you could double up on that MXL pack, that'll cover your overheads, and also provide you with 2 pairs of condensers for various tasks.

then I'd get a kick drum mic, and another general purpose dynamic for snare. I wouldn't necessarily put a condenser on the snare because the chances of it picking up unwante noise and stuff are higher, and they're more fragile than dynamics (especially on the low end).

Good luck with this stuff. It's rewarding, but a lot of learning is involved.

While I'm on the topic, is anyone else finding it annoying and distasteful the way everyone always needs to announce to the forum that they stole their software? I mean, I don't give a crap if you purchased it or not. To help you with your problem, all I need to know is what you're using.

If it's just me, I'll shut up I guess.

[jaykemurd]

I only say it in rebellion against software manuffacturers/publishers that charge 500+ bucks for a program. It's just a plain ol nuts. NUCKING FUTS!

[Strokes77]

have you ever thought about the fact they have to charge that much because everyone else steals it, and few pay for it?

[KKKKKocaine]

I only say it in rebellion against software manuffacturers/publishers that charge 500+ bucks for a program. It's just a plain ol nuts. NUCKING FUTS!

So you'd steal a top end guitar, bass, or drumkit?

Just because it's a much more intangible product doesn't mean it has less worth.
The fact of the matter is, whilst it might seem like a fairly simple product that cost a small amount ot manufacture. In the case of all sequencing programs. There has been massive R&D behind it.
When you buy Cubase SX 3. You're paying for all the years spent by programmers who created the cubase system, and turned it from that god awful program I had in highschool to a program that can easily be used to create top ten hits.

Afterall, whilst some sequencers might seem pricey, that's just because of their market. For example, Sonar Producer 5 costs £400 or so. (not sure of the exact price) Which considering the program allows you to make a song that's acceptable for the number one spot then £400 is nothing. How much does a basic audio pc cost nowadays? A unit witha good processor, and 1GB or ram with some hefty harddrives and quiet fans?
Even without a monitor, you're looking at around £600 for an utterly basic model.
Come January I'll be looking to spend about £800 alone on just the pc. And that's once again, not including the monitor and other items such as that.

You can pay well over £1000 for a top end guitar. How can you tell me that a piece of software with years of R&D priced at $500 is a ripoff when top end guitars can cost thousands? After all, there's only so much that bulk bought wood and wires can cost. The rest goes into the development for the product.

I'm not neccessarily saying that politicly I agree with the fact that because of the subjective theory of value we have to pay so much more for products. But it's silly to apply the logic that high priced software is a rip off so you stole it, when you probably bought your car, your pc, your cd player, mp3 player, tv, instruments legally.

Moseph!
I want to ask you something about PC specs.
I'm going to be running Sonar Studio 5. With About 10 instruments/mics coming in at once to seperate channels.
(DI 2 guitars and bass and run them through NI Guitar Rig whilst recording so you can record live but have isolated drums for later) then about 7 mics on the kit. With a 6 way headphone amp.

I'm shitting my pants about latency.

I'll list the computers processor and ram and let me know if you'd advise upgrading it at all.
Processor: AMD 64-bit 3500+ skt 939
Ram: 2GB DDR400 PC3200 Dual Channel Memory (4x512mb)

Am I likely to encounter any massive problems with that?

[Moseph]

have you ever thought about the fact they have to charge that much because everyone else steals it, and few pay for it?

That's not typically the case. While piracy is always a problem with any software industry, audio software is one of the least affected by this.

Quite simply put, audio software is expensive because it needs to be. It takes a lot of skilled people working a lot of hours to put together high-quality software packages, and audio is no exception. Add to the fact that a lot of audio routines are fairly complex and require a lot of testing and that means more man-hours of labor to build these things. Most of the top software packages nowadays have very effective anti-piracy protection in the form of hardware dependency. This of course, means additional man-hours for programming.

I think piracy is relatively prevelant on this board because of two major things: immaturity and inexperience. A lot of the users here are young, and are therefore more likely to not have a steady, well-paying job, and are also more likely to carry a philosophy that piracy is justified because software is expensive. Additonally, since they're inexperienced, they often think that they have to have the absolutely most powerful software (and I'm betting 90% of the users here wouldn't have any reason to use the $500 software over the $30-99 software). On top of this, because they lack experience, they're often unaware of other, less expensive programs available that will suit their needs (often for free).

That being said, I think the atmosphere of this forum would be improved if everyone stopped announcing that they were stealing software all the time. Like I said, who gives a crap about how you obtained the software. We're not going to think you're "cool" b/c you did it, and it's not funny or anything. Let's just leave it out: it's annoying as hell.

[Moseph]

I'll list the computers processor and ram and let me know if you'd advise upgrading it at all.
Processor: AMD 64-bit 3500+ skt 939
Ram: 2GB DDR400 PC3200 Dual Channel Memory (4x512mb)

Am I likely to encounter any massive problems with that?


I think you'll be fine. I'm running the Tascam FW-1804 on a Pentium M, with only 1.8 GHz processing and 1GB RAM. I use the ADAT connection for expansion to 16 channels (granted that's 24/48k, whereas your Firepod does 24/96k) and I have experienced no latency problems yet. Just make sure your drivers are solid.

As for the extended bitrates, I don't know. I'm limited to 48k, because I'm using the ADAT connection, and I haven't tested out the other 8 channels for 88.2k or 96k, because I'm mostly planning on using the 16.

[jaykemurd]

That's not typically the case. While piracy is always a problem with any software industry, audio software is one of the least affected by this.

Quite simply put, audio software is expensive because it needs to be. It takes a lot of skilled people working a lot of hours to put together high-quality software packages, and audio is no exception. Add to the fact that a lot of audio routines are fairly complex and require a lot of testing and that means more man-hours of labor to build these things. Most of the top software packages nowadays have very effective anti-piracy protection in the form of hardware dependency. This of course, means additional man-hours for programming.

I think piracy is relatively prevelant on this board because of two major things: immaturity and inexperience. A lot of the users here are young, and are therefore more likely to not have a steady, well-paying job, and are also more likely to carry a philosophy that piracy is justified because software is expensive. Additonally, since they're inexperienced, they often think that they have to have the absolutely most powerful software (and I'm betting 90% of the users here wouldn't have any reason to use the $500 software over the $30-99 software). On top of this, because they lack experience, they're often unaware of other, less expensive programs available that will suit their needs (often for free).

That being said, I think the atmosphere of this forum would be improved if everyone stopped announcing that they were stealing software all the time. Like I said, who gives a crap about how you obtained the software. We're not going to think you're "cool" b/c you did it, and it's not funny or anything. Let's just leave it out: it's annoying as hell.


Sorry if that came off the wrong way. I actually didn't steal/pirate it. My uncle is a record producer and has the real version. He let me have it. He has a version that can be installed on many computers or something. Believe me, it is advanced, and I probably don;t need all that power. But, nonetheless, I have it, so I'll use it! Sorry again if I sounded like a little turd!:rolleyes:

[Chippy569]

moseph is there a way i can get a hold of you via AIM or something? i have a few questions i'd like your input on.