old_skul

i want to build a studio

tell me what i need.

http://www.tribalwar.com/forums/private.php?do=newpm&u=231

If you want advice from someone else, here ya go...
It totally depends on your budget and how serious you want to go. Is this a home "project" studio or a real studio?

Start with the room.

For home - If you're doing vocals or miking lots of things, consider a Whisper Room (http://www.whisperroom.com/) if you have space and can afford it, or try building your own. Properly isolate your control room/mix room as well. Get rid of reflections. After that, choose some good reference monitors and gear that suites what you're doing. Go with ProTools unless you're pirating all your software (if this is going to be a business where you make money, then buy your software!). A good pro digital console is the Yamaha 02R96. For cheaper interfaces, go with PreSonus (http://www.presonus.com/).

There are obviously a lot of details to talk about. Here's a good article to get you started:
http://www.studiodaily.com/main/training/trainup/10160.html

Don't pick up a hammer until you've read up on what other people do when making their studios. One of the most educational places on the web I've found is Gearslutz - and they have their own forum dedicated to project and pro studio builds:

Studio construction & acoustics - Gearslutz.com (http://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-construction-acoustics/)

Take a look in particular at Michael Wagener's studio he's building down in Nashville. MW has recorded a few bands you might have heard of such as Metallica, Dokken, Skid Row, King's X, maybe a few other unknowns. His studio is moderately sized but is really taking shape.

It depends on how much room you have and how far you want to take it. I break it down into three major areas - the control room, the live room, and the booth.

The control room is where you control the recording, do your mixing, and generally run the show. The live room is where the instruments that take advantage of room sound will play. The booth is a place where you can isolate instruments (bass cab, guitar cab, etc), and then eventually overdub vocals.

There's loads of information on how to acoustically treat each of those spaces, but the general rule for the control room is to avoid parallel surfaces, have at least an 8 foot ceiling, and control bass buildup in "nodes".

For the live room, most engineers go after a LEDE format (live end/dead end) with a parquet tile floor on one end and carpet on the other.

For the iso booth, you just want to foam it up with Auralex.

Another consideration is soundproofing. We don't really care what gets out of the room, but you don't want your live room to pick up a lot of noise from outside. So if you live on a busy street, it's a consideration.

Now, if all this is Greek to you, and you only have one room (like me), you can just put up a bunch of Auralex foam, carpet the floor, and go for it. For the rock band format, this works fine. I'm getting into voiceover stuff now, so that's definitely NOT fine - which is why I'm getting ready to do an iso booth in my attic, on the side of the house away from the street :)

cool, thanks for the info.

how about some equipment too?

equipment like what, specifically?

Depends on what you need to record. If you're recording rock bands, then you need an assortment of mics, which have gotten a lot cheaper recently. And an audio interface. And a computer. And some software.

You can record drums with three mics - condensor overhead, a dynamic on the snare, and a larger dynamic on the kick.

Record electric guitar with an SM57, acoustic guitar with a small diaphragm condenser.

Record bass with a DI. Most decent audio interfaces have decent instrument inputs, too. Same with keyboards.

Record vocals with a large diaphragm condenser.

For audio interfaces, I recommend Firewire interfaces, since all the decent computers have Firewire ports. Presonus makes decent, cheap interfaces; so does M-Audio and even ART has one now.

My usual setup for recording band practices looks like this:

1: Kick, AKG D112
2: Snare, Blue Ball
3: Overhead, R0DE NT5
4: Bass, DI (sometimes I'll mic an amp with a LDC)
5: Backing Vocal, Shure Beta 87
6: Elec Guitar 1, R0DE NT5
7: Elec Guitar 2, Sennheiser E609
8: Vocals, Shure SM7

I've made some halfway decent recordings of band practices with this rig, like this one (http://markszabo.net/music/whitney/051609/alive_051609.mp3).

Depends on what you need to record. If you're recording rock bands, then you need an assortment of mics, which have gotten a lot cheaper recently. And an audio interface. And a computer. And some software.

You can record drums with three mics - condensor overhead, a dynamic on the snare, and a larger dynamic on the kick.

Record electric guitar with an SM57, acoustic guitar with a small diaphragm condenser.

Record bass with a DI. Most decent audio interfaces have decent instrument inputs, too. Same with keyboards.

Record vocals with a large diaphragm condenser.

For audio interfaces, I recommend Firewire interfaces, since all the decent computers have Firewire ports. Presonus makes decent, cheap interfaces; so does M-Audio and even ART has one now.

My usual setup for recording band practices looks like this:

1: Kick, AKG D112
2: Snare, Blue Ball
3: Overhead, R0DE NT5
4: Bass, DI (sometimes I'll mic an amp with a LDC)
5: Backing Vocal, Shure Beta 87
6: Elec Guitar 1, R0DE NT5
7: Elec Guitar 2, Sennheiser E609
8: Vocals, Shure SM7

I've made some halfway decent recordings of band practices with this rig, like this one (http://markszabo.net/music/whitney/051609/alive_051609.mp3).
All good recommendations. I'll add some that I like to use:

- I generally prefer a Sennheiser e602 or Shure Beta 52A over the D 112 for the kick. Better low punch.
- Sennheiser e905 or SM57 for snare.
- Shure SM81 (condenser) for hihat.
- Sennheiser MD 421's for toms, or e904/e604's (clip-ons).
- A pair of Oktava MK-012's for overheads (I love these mics).
- I like a MD 421 on a guitar amp, also the e609 as old_skul suggested.
- An ElectroVoice RE20 can be good on vocals, as is the Shure SM7. Both are used a lot in talk radio. I've also had decent results with the Audio-Technica 4050.

Heh. The only reason I'm not using an SM57 on the snare is because my friend loaned me 3 of them a while back, and recently wanted them back. I don't actually own a 57! :)

421s are indeed go-to mics for both toms and electric guitar.

I've been hearing great things about Peluso mics, if you are willing to spend a grand on a LDC. It's basically a U87.

Another option if you've got the money are the Earthworks mics. They excel as drum overheads and actually do really well as vocal mics for singers with big, thick voices.

Both are used a lot in talk radio.

More like the only mic used in talk radio. The RE20 is a legend.