Setting up a home "Studio"

TheBandit

I'm going to set up a mini home studio when money starts coming in and was wondering what ye think of the gear I’m thinking of buying. The recordings don't have to be great quality, i am just trying to get a set up that sounds nice and will help me put tracks together. I will be recording drums(I know loads of mic's would be ideal but loads of money would be to) digital piano with midi input, guitar, bass...whatever else I find to bang on. Here's the set I’m thinking of

Computer
Dell Inspiron 1520(All ready have this, good enough spec)

DAW
cubase LE(included with Audio Interface)

Audio Interface
Tascam 122L http://www.thomann.de/ie/tascam_us122_l.htm

Mic's
THE T.BONE SC300 http://www.thomann.de/ie/the_tbone_sc300.htm
THE T.BONE MB75 http://www.thomann.de/ie/the_tbone_mb75.htm
Not too sure on the mic front. I will be buying 2 as there are 2 inputs on the A/I and sure i might as well. Which is better for my purposes condenser or dynamic mic.

Throw mic stands, wire etc into this and it comes to about €250. Am I missing anything? Any help or advice would be appreciated, Cheers

i57dwun4yb1pt8

let me save you a lot of hassle and pain right now and say
dont bother recording drums unless you are going to do it well, you will not be happy with the results .
( unless you are going for that boxy , midrangy rehearsal room sound which i doubt you are.)

drums are where you need to have good gear if you are recording .
badly recorded drums ruin a track and spread the word "amateur" all over it .

better off with drum samples , using ezdrummer or such like .

or
you could get away with using a good pair of overheads for cymbals and cheap close mics for the drums
and use drumagog to trigger close mic samples for the drums . and use the overheds tracks for the cymbals
this would keep the feel of the drummer .




if you want to get a real image of a decent drum sound you will need

1/ a good sounding room and at least a good kick mic and good overheads , a good interface with at least 3 or 4 mic inputs .
and a good drummer who can balance levels well. ( ie doesnt bash the living crap out of the hi hats )
and use something like the recorderman method to position the mics .

or

2/ a totally dead room and a good kick mic , set of good overheads , and a good set of close mics like 57's or so and close mic everything .
also card with at least 6 - 8 mic inputs ( or 4 mics and line ins and a mixer to submix tom mics into the line ins )
( expensive )

TheBandit

Cheers for the reply. I'm not really going for a professional sound. The studio is just somehwere to get ideas of a track, a hazey view of it. If I like the track i could then go and record it somewhere else. Buy saying that i don't want it to sound sh*te

ZV Yoda

Not to put you off, but +1 to everything DaDumTish said. I've been there too. It's a long expensive road to getting acceptable/good drum sounds in a home studio. It can be done, but not for €250. For recording drums, you'll probably need to sound proof your room (to keep the sound from travelling outside the room/building). Then you’ll also need to acoustically treat the room (to ensure you get a good recorded sound inside). Acoustics are a whole world of pain. That’s even before you learn about how to mic a kit. In general, if you have a crap sounding room, you’ll need to close mic it (i.e. put a mic on every drum) so you don’t pick up too much room sound (which as DaDumTish says, will sound boxy & amateur). So, more mics = more channels = more $$.

It’s taken me 12 months, a lot more than €250, many nights cutting wood, rockwool, glass, doors, cables, endless hours on forums like this & lots of advice from others in the same boat just to get an acceptable sound. It’s been great to learn how to do this, but I envy anybody home enthusiast who doesn’t want/have to worry about recording acoustic drums. Having said all of that, each improvement gets you closer to “your” sound and that can be a hugely rewarding experience. Sadly, I wouldn't change any of it.

If I was in your situation, I'd get a cheap 2nd hand electronic kit (like this) & connect it via midi to your recording desk/software. Then you don't need to worry about the room sound or mics. You'll be able to get the "feel" of a real performance (to some extent) but then just use professionally recorded samples.

That's your best bet if you wanted to get started quickly/cheaply but with a drum sound that won't drag your recordings down. If you’re really serious down the road & want to get that live drum sound, then at least you’ll have had time to learn the basics of recording so you can start creating music before you get too bogged down in cost/hassle.

If despite all the above, you still want to go ahead with an acoustic kit, then PM me & I'll give whatever advice I can (BTW, I'm no pro, but I learned from the school of hard knocks on this). I'm sure others will chip in too.

Best of luck either way

old gregg

in advance, I know absolutely nothing about drums and virtually nothing about how to mic them .....
a question though for the more experienced ... for the sake of maybe another 80-100 eurines the OP could pick up a pair of Shure (57/58 whatever) mics that would stay with him/her for years or are the t.bone doohickeys up to the task?

as an aside, the Tascam gets some pretty mixed reviews around the web, just basing this on a quick google. I've been using a http://www.thomann.de/ie/maudio_fast_track_pro.htm for the last year and though it may/may not be cool for drums it's been a joy to use both in the studio and on the road.

ZV Yoda

old gregg wrote: »

in advance, I know absolutely nothing about drums and virtually nothing about how to mic them .....
a question though for the more experienced ... for the sake of maybe another 80-100 eurines the OP could pick up a pair of Shure (57/58 whatever) mics that would stay with him/her for years or are the t.bone doohickeys up to the task?

Yip, the 57s will last forever & are a standard mic for snare, but also used on kick & toms sometimes. Very versatile mic.

Though, when it comes to recording drums, the mics are the easy/cheap part... the hard part is getting a good "sound source". In order of importance, that means a decent kit, with good, well tuned heads that's played properly... and you'll need all of this in a good sounding (i.e. acoustically treated) room.

Once you have that, all you need to do is capture that sound. It's only at this stage that the mic/pre-amps come in. A lot of the standard drum mics are not that expensive. For well under €1000, you could have 2 x SM57s (top & bottom snare), AKG D112 (kick), 3 x Sennheiser clip on mics (tom) and a matched pair of overheads (I use Rode NT5s, but it's a matter of taste/budget really).

Bottom line though, get the source as good as you possible can & then worry about how to capture it. A €100 set of Thomann mics used to record a great drummer on a good, well tuned kit in a treated room will sound finitely better than the best mics used to record a crappy kit in a crappy room played by a crappy drummer.

That’s why I’d recommend not worrying about all of that stuff until you really need to. If the OP just wants to get decent recordings of his music, then he’s taking the hard route by trying to get a good drum sound on such a tight budget. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it’ll take time, money & effort to get it right. All the while, there’s very little music being created, which can be frustrating.

TheBandit

Cheers for you reply. I'm not really looking for a good sound for the drums, i know they aren't gonna sound great. I'm just interested in a good cheap audio interface(A bit dubious about the tascam now because i have seen the mixed reviews.). The studio is just gonna be me messin around, i'n not looking to make quality e.p's. I just want a decent setup for recording audio/midi that is pretty cheap. Anyone have any experience with the aelsis IO|2http://www.thomann.de/ie/alesis_io2.htm

Seziertisch

You should maybe consider something like the Apogee Duet (Mac only, I think) or maybe something like the Focusrite ISA One (although that only does AD conversion). You don't need 8 channels of recording power for home use, 1 or 2 should cover most of your needs.

As for drums, the lads are dead right, either go for midi and software (the cheapest "good" option), go the whole hog and get your room sounding right and get good quality mics and pres (and a good, well-tuned kit), or else just plan for a day in a studio sometime.

Otherwise, when I started recording I asked a pro-engineer what I needed and he said to buy the best channel strip I could afford, an AKG 414 and a good set of headphones. His argument was that you will mostly be recording one channel at a time when working at home, the 414 is a good jack or all trades (at the time there wasn't much in the way of affordable condenser mics available) and a good set of headphones are far more useful for monitoring (even mixing) than using possibly not so great monitors in an untreated room. Also the portability of headphones means you can use familiar monitoring in an unfamiliar location.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

good advice re the phones

i would defo go with great phones , if you cant treat your room and have good monitors - all of the home stuuf I have heard suffers from bad monitoring - my own did until I fixed the room and got great monitors.

I reckon you need to spend at least a 1k or more on room treatment and monitors to mix well in at minimum -

so paying 200 or more for great phones is not a bad idea if you cant fix the room.

its the secret of success.

TelePaul

As USB interfaces go, the Tascam is fine. Decent pres, line mic and hi-z inputs.

Seziertisch

DaDumTish wrote: »

good advice re the phones

i would defo go with great phones , if you cant treat your room and have good monitors - all of the home stuuf I have heard suffers from bad monitoring - my own did until I fixed the room and got great monitors.

I reckon you need to spend at least a 1k or more on room treatment and monitors to mix well in at minimum -

so paying 200 or more for great phones is not a bad idea if you cant fix the room.

its the secret of success.

Another important thing with monitoring is that you are familiar with what you are using. You hear of pro mixers using NS-10s and getting great results. NS-10s are not without their flaws but if you know what way it should sound on them it doesn't really make a difference.

A good set of headphones that you can use to listen to music on the bus every morning and then use for a bit of recording a couple of times a week are better in some ways than a set of monitors that you only turn on for a couple of hours for recording.