Under Construction: Project Studio

OK so Pre's, compressors, and EQ's?


Whatcha got in there?

HardWare or plugs?

Hi All,

Over at my day job, I have the second of a two part series on building the studio, with lots of under construction photos. And because of the height of the control room, I had to learn my digital camera's panorama mode, where you aim at a particular direction and then tilt up or down (or rotate left or right), and it then digitally stitches the images together (usually...) to get the whole room in:

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/03/25/building-home-studio-part-two-of-two/

OK so Pre's, compressors, and EQ's? Whatcha got in there? HardWare or plugs?

Click to expand...

I'm still making the transition from recording in my den to actually having a dedicated control room, so I only have a modest amount of hardware, although that will be changing in the not too distant future. Mainly I wanted to be able to hit the ground running and start up where I left off in California. Right now, I have a Neve Portico pre-amp, a Peluso 2247 U-47 clone, an AKG-414, and a Neumann TLM-103, plus a few Shure dynamics. (And a VoiceLive 3 unit to generate harmony vocals, which is fun.) Next up is a good tube pre-amp and compressor. (The Warm Audio WA-2A, based on the old LA-2A appears to get great reviews, so that's a possibility there.) Plugin-wise, I have the Eventide Anthology series, Melodyne Studio 4, and from Izotope, Ozone 6, RX4, and Nectar.

Ed Driscoll said:

Hi All,

Over at my day job, I have the second of a two part series on building the studio, with lots of under construction photos. And because of the height of the control room, I had to learn my digital camera's panorama mode, where you aim at a particular direction and then tilt up or down (or rotate left or right), and it then digitally stitches the images together (usually...) to get the whole room in:

https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/03/25/building-home-studio-part-two-of-two/

I'm still making the transition from recording in my den to actually having a dedicated control room, so I only have a modest amount of hardware, although that will be changing in the not too distant future. Mainly I wanted to be able to hit the ground running and start up where I left off in California. Right now, I have a Neve Portico pre-amp, a Peluso 2247 U-47 clone, an AKG-414, and a Neumann TLM-103, plus a few Shure dynamics. (And a VoiceLive 3 unit to generate harmony vocals, which is fun.) Next up is a good tube pre-amp and compressor. (The Warm Audio WA-2A, based on the old LA-2A appears to get great reviews, so that's a possibility there.) Plugin-wise, I have the Eventide Anthology series, Melodyne Studio 4, and from Izotope, Ozone 6, RX4, and Nectar.

Click to expand...

this is looking awesome. congrats

I'm a few years behind you but I"m working on the same thing here in NC

I had some plans drawn up for a free standing studio next to my house but I think I need to hook up w you and get some advice!

so you went w a control room and a separate live room? was there a consideration to just have one big room and just use dividers?

are you going to have lots of outboard hardware or are you planning to record and mix entirely in the box ? or some hybrid?

these are the things I'm wrestling with abstractly right now... I'm just not sure

A few updates from the last six months:

Peluso 2247SE mic (A U-47 clone that doesn't completely break the bank):



It's plugged into this patchbay:



Which then routes it into a Chandler Redd 47 pre-amp (based on the tube pre's during the Beatles era at Abbey Road) and a Warm Audio WA-2A, a tube-based compressor (an affordable LA-2A clone). Lucky Strike ashtray was a gift from a former girlfriend who did ad work for them, just before it was verboten for cigarette companies to offer swag; it holds my guitar picks:



This is also a great guitar DI as well. (The screaming guitar on "Revolution" was recorded with two Redd 47s, one into another.) And those tubes on the front end can make guitar modelling software sound really warm and smooth.

The Redd 47 and the WA-2A (and a transistor-based Neve 5017 pre I've had a for a few years) sit inside this Omniraxx desk, which was the final* piece of the puzzle:



Having everything organized in the desk makes the workflow so much easier and flexible. I can route audio in and out of the Fireface via the patchbay.

* Who am I kidding, when there's still room for expansion in the desk? :hee

Cool!

Mixing in the box. You need bigger screens.

J T said:

Cool!

Mixing in the box. You need bigger screens.

Click to expand...

Heh. I thought about going the route that Sweetwater's Mitch Gallagher went and using a single large repurposed LCD TV, but I'm so used to using dual-monitors for at least a decade, and I like the view of the cows outside.

Yeah. Whatever works for you.

One engineer came in and actually asked that the second monitor be removed for his sessions. So it's all in what you're used to.

Fantastic projects. I was very inspired by you.