Newbie....Tips on putting together a small home studio

[pushplay]

Hi There,

I am a regular reader of this forum but this is my first ever post….so go easy on me! I was wondering if you guys could offer me some advice/opinions on setting up my home studio. Firstly a bit about myself and my tastes…..I’m massively into house (particularly deep and electro house). I listen to and love stuff like Boys Noize, Daft Punk, Booka Shade, Justice, Wolfgang Gartner, Etienne de Crecy and Alex Gopher. I play out (DJ) on a regular basis and tend to play these sort of tunes as well as some ‘classic’ house tunes.

Ok that’s enough about me….Basically to cut a long story short I have been working my arse of for past couple of years to get together enough cash to build a home studio so that I can start producing my own stuff. I already have and know my way around the following gear….

Studio Gear:

Apple Mac Pro (2 x 2.8hz Quad Core), 6 GB 800MHZ
Krk Vxt 6 (pair)
Apogee Ensemble
Novation Drum Machine V2 (love the 808 and 909 but can’t afford the astronomical prices!)
Focusrite Compounder
Roland Juno 106
Arturia Studio(Brass 2, Analog Factory, ARP26000V2, CS-80V2, MiniMoogV2, Moog Modular V2, Prohet V2, Jupiter 8V)
Ableton Live
Logic Pro 9

DJ Gear:

Traktor Scratch Pro
Allen & Heath Xone 4D
Rane TTM57SL (use with Serato)
2 x Numark TTX1s

I’m really keen on setting up a studio that has a combination of analogue and digital gear and have saved about £5000-£7000 ($7500-$10,500). However the most important thing is to build a studio that suits my workflow. As a Dj I’m used to the ‘hands on approach’ however I have slowly begun to take on digital djing (however I still like to maintain ‘physical control’ of software using a midi interfaces).

Here is what I was thinking for my next step. Opinions welcome….

DAW:

Either

Ableton 8 controlled using a Akai APC 40 controller

Or

Logic Pro 9 controlled using a Mackie Mc Control

THE REST:

Nord Lead 2x Rack or Virus TI2 – Cleaner sound to contrast with analog gear

Korg MS-20 – I know it’s a old synth but when I heard Soulwax playing one at Brixton academy it blew my mind. Gritty, aggressive, guitar like!

Mutronics Mutator – Another oldie but has awesome character I really like the sound of.

Oberheim DX - Old but relatively cheap and very ‘hands on’ and love the sounds.

Emu SP1200 – Now I realize I could just start sampling in Logic or Ableton but I want something with boundaries. I don’t want a set up that I can do anything I want on as if feel I will just spend the next 10 years learning how to use it all. Plus it will force me to be more creative (only 10 secs of memory and all). I was looking at an Elektron machine drum (with sampling) instead but I think they may be too clean and there may be too much to explore on this unit.

Studio electronics ATC-Xi or Moog Voyager – For a heavy, dirty sound (basses etc)

Possibly……Roland TB-303 (If I can afford one). Watched Etienne de Crecy mix live between 3 of these units and they sound so incredible.

Your opinions would be much appreciated. I know some of you are thinking that I’m just another wanna be throwing money at it and expecting to become the next big thing but that really is not the case. I’ve worked hard for the money for this studio and now I want to take a year out putting it together and mastering every piece of equipment I purchase and the foreseeable future learning to produce great dance music. Please forgive me if I seem pretty wet behind the ears I am relatively new to music production.

P.s. I’m also aware many of you will want to give me advice such as….”buy one piece at a time and then move on once you’ve learnt to use it”. The only reason I want to ‘fast track’ my studio purchasing now is that this may be the last/only opportunity that I have to spend 1 whole uninterrupted year learning about my studio and I want to pick up as much as possible in the time I have.

[Dr. Mordo]

You may want to do some serious (as in, at least a few hours) research into VSTi. You can get many, many, many free virtual instruments, and the vast majority of them are synths. There appear to be millions of synth fanatics who program emulations of every imaginable synth that has ever existed. So you could possibly save thousands of dollars (pounds?) by getting one keyboard you really like and using virtual instruments for everything else.

All that money you save on keyboards could be spent on outboard gear, and or lessons to make you a better engineer.

[Kazim Bo]

Hi pushplay :-),
the virus ti2 surely is a great synthesizer.Also it´s very modern and you can easily integrate it into your computersetup.When you are after the tb303 sound,then maybe add a software drumsampler with a good library.
I think the tb303 has been sampled over a 100 times...
Also when you record hardware synthesizers,drumcomputer,grooveboxes,etc.,a good di or a preamp with di helps the sound.
best regards

[pushplay]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the quick replies and the good advice/tips.

@Kazim Bo - Yeah the Virus looks amazing the only thing that concerns me about it is than it almost offers too many features. I could spend months and months just digging through some of the features of this synth! Also I'm aware you can get VSTis such as audiorealism's Bassline 2 that do a pretty good 303. I'm just concerned I will lose that hands on feel I am so used to as a DJ.

@Dr.Mordo - Thanks for the tips. I have done a lot of research into VSTis. I realise that If I spent the next couple of years learning a just couple of VSTs (even just Logics pre-installed ones) I could produce pretty much any sound I wanted. However I am keen to start producing music now and know what sort of sounds really interest/inspire me. Buying the gear I have suggested just gives me a set of tools (that I'm not going to get lost in) to start working with. Also I'm just worried that I will lose the 'hands on' feel I love so much (although I am aware I would be able to assign many..but not all..the parameters of the VSTs to a midi keyboard). Please correct me if you think I'm be naive or you have any further tips.

Many thanks to you both for the advice!

[pushplay]

Having just read my post above I make it sound like I am not prepared to put in the hours to get to the bottom of my studio gear! This is not the case I just don't want to get into the world of VSTs and end up with 50 different virtual instruments that claim to do different things but end up not knowing how to use any of them PROPERLY. I just feel certain hardware gives me boundaries and allows me to focus on quality of instruments (and production) over quantity.

Cheers

[Kazim Bo]

Oh sorry,I made a mistake...the tb303 is for bass-sounds.
Also less is often more.
Nowadays I have many hardware and software synthesizers
and sometimes it´s a bit hard to manage everything.Maybe I have too many possibilities.Earlier,as I had not so much equipment,the songs were done faster,because I just had to concentrate on one ore two synthesizers.But I don`t want to go back...
In your first message I read,that you already have many great software synthesizers.Maybe just add a nice midicontroler-keyboard.Then you can tweak the softsynth-parameters in realtime.This is like having a great virtual analog synthesizer,but a lot cheaper.
With the setup you already have,you can make great music.
best regards

[Dr. Mordo]

Originally Posted by pushplay

Having just read my post above I make it sound like I am not prepared to put in the hours to get to the bottom of my studio gear! This is not the case I just don't want to get into the world of VSTs and end up with 50 different virtual instruments that claim to do different things but end up not knowing how to use any of them PROPERLY. I just feel certain hardware gives me boundaries and allows me to focus on quality of instruments (and production) over quantity.

So, the question is what is 'proper' use of a musical instrument? Is there an improper use for an instrument? Inappropriate sound, yes, but improper sound, no.

I turn the knobs, check the presets, if it doesn't sound interesting I move on. In my admittedly limited experience with synths, I mess with it til I have a sound I like and then record it. Or better yet, record it as a midi file, and then tweak the sounds in the VSTi til I like it. For me, the tweaking process is no different if I am using a hardware or software synth - tweak til it sounds good. But sometimes the software presets help show what a synth can do.