Incremental studio upgrade plan, any comments?

[Jan1973]

Hi folks,

I'm relatively new to GS and read many of the articles, and I have to say I'm really impressed. Now I'll finally post, and do it right length-wise for the first post :-)

I live in an appartment in Graz, Austria right now, where my "studio" is very limited acoustically, but I still enjoy spending my time writing and recording music in there. Styles vary a lot, from late Pink Floyd like, to blues and rock, to Chillout music and Electronica, and sometimes even a clarinet concert with sampled piano and me playing live.

I plan to self construct a real studio in the basement once I'll build a house, that is control room, recording chamber, machine room (we'll see whether I have enough dedication to think about a floating floor :-) ).

I'm able to put about 500 Euros away per month right now, just for equipment (including instruments).

I want to ask for comments on the approach I'm taking right now...

What I do these days is put together a relatively low end solution that allows every task to be done smoothly, with sound quality not being the first priority. Diversity and options are the first priority right now. The rig is kind of my production technique school environment now and is supposed to be the songwriting scratchpad environment later, when my skills justify and when I can afford a high end gear solution. Today, it also doesn't make much sense to opt for high end gear given the room I have available for recording and mixing right now.

That said, today I work on a Behringer MX9000 running 6 of the busses and the main out (for mixdown) into a Delta 1010. I inserted 2 Alesis PEQ 450 units into the groups for parametric EQ, and groups 1 & 2 also have a dbx 166XL inserted (side chain fed by group 3 & 4 outs). Sends 1 & 2 run into a Lexicon MPX1. Its outs are connected to channel 19 & 20 on the MX9000.

I monitor through half decent Lansec PC speakers with a sub, which I'll replace with Yamaha HS80Ms this month.

Instruments I use include a Korg N5ex, a Poly 800, an Akai S2000 (with 8 Outs), a Waldorf MicroQ (the ins are fed by the desk's group outs 5 & 6 for effects), a US Stratocaster into a Marshall Valvestate through a Korg A5. 2 Behringer MIC200 Preamps are used to record vocals and sometimes clarinet or guitar (i most often record the guitar direct and use Voxengo Boogex for the amp sound, my Marshall is noisy and too loud in the appartment). Vocals and clarinet goe through an Studio Projects C1, while guitars are recorded off the amp with an SM57.

Then of course I have a lot of plugins. Some Audio Damage stuff, some PSP, most Ohmforce, some Kjaerhus, z3ta+, Polygon, sfz+, Kubik, PPG Wave, Jamstix, and some more. They all are run by Cubase SX 2.2 on a P4 1,8 Ghz with 2 GB RAM and 360 GB of hard disc space. I control the plugins and Cubase partly with a BCR2000.

This is going to be my setup till I can afford building a house in about 5 years or so. Then I'll use the setup for quick scratchpad-recordings during writing music, while doing the real recording and mixing in a new environment I'll set up.

Ok, now for the plans for both rigs:

I plan to fill the empty slots on my existing rig like this:

- Buy HS80M near-fields. Use the Lansec on games ;-) and as a second pair of speakers through the lofi onboard SB128 for "consumer" reference
- Get rid of the Marshall combo and the Korg A5. Direct recording is enough for now, and will be enough for scratchpad recordings in the future. Buy a steel string guitar, nylon string guitar, and bass guitar.
- Buy a second Delta 1010 to have 16 Channels at mixdown. Connect the 8 busses to the first Delta, and the main outs and channels' 19-24 direct outs to the second (those channels will carry all the effect returns).
- Buy a Kurzweil Rumour as the second reverb unit, connect it to send 3 & 4 and returns to channels 21 & 22.
- Buy a Liquid Mix to remove stress from my P4 1,8 Ghz CPU at mixdown.
- Add an FM synth - probably a used Yamaha FS1R.
- Add a Compounder as the second compressor for busses 3 & 4. Feed the sidechain with groups 1 & 2
- Update Cubase to SX4 (once available) for freezable effects and for mixermaps, and add a BCF2000 for in the box "pre-mixing".
- Add a SM81 for recording acoustic guitars.
- Add a laptop for composing on the road (at least with plugins).
- Add a Saffire LE to the laptop for recording on the road.
- Buy NI Komplete, mainly for Reaktor, B4, Absynth, and Kontakt.
- Buy a pair of SP C4 mics for stereo recordings.
- Add Korg legacy collection (by then, digital and analog edition I hope). Mainly for the Wavestation and the Poly61. Maybe get rid of the Poly 800.
- Add a Kurzweil Mangler to insert into busses 5 & 6.
- Add a Helicon VoiceWorks to insert into busses 7 & 8.
- Add an SPX2000 as the third reverb unit.
- Maybe add a medium rate preamp (RNP + RNC combo comes to mind).
- Maybe add a used Oberheim Matrix 1000.

Ok, again, this is the temporary main environment, while I'm living in the apparment and learning, later it's the prototyping scratchpad to not use the costly gear so much. Maybe it will even go to a different location (for composing on weekends and holidays).

The main studio rig I plan to build around two Speck Xtramix mixers. One for mixing off the DACs, the other to connect all synths and preamps to the ADCs. Converters are supposed to be 16 ins and 16 or 24 outs of Auroras or Apogees. I'd still use Cubase, but upgrade the computer to a dual 5 Ghz or something (by the time). I'd probably add a Duende for reducing CPU cycles, if I want to compress or EQ in the box.

For effects I have the KSP8, the new Eventide 7600, and the TC FireWorks in mind right now. A Lexicon reverb would be nice, too, I guess. And maybe a filterbank.

Compressors I'd like to add would be 18 channels of Distressors, Millenium, Avalon, or others in the same league (price-wise). The same counts for EQs (16 channels of high end EQ). I'll insert 8 channels of those compressors and EQs into the recording mixer groups, and 8 channels into the mixing mixer groups. Plus 2 channels of compression for mixdown into the main outs of the mixing mixer.

About the same for preamps price-wise. Probably one or two APIs, Pendulum Quartet, Millenia, DAV, Great River, Cranesong, Avalon, maybe I'll build a SeventhCircle box.

And I'd like to add a mastering setup later as well, massive passive, maybe 2 channels of Cranesong (or likewise) conversion in and out, a multiband mastering compressor (don't know what to get yet), just as a plain chain, no routing options.

Synths I could imagine buying right now would be a Virus TI or Poly Evolver (probably the latter, or both), a Fantom XR with the Piano card, a Motif Rack ES with the FM and VL synth cards, maybe a used Triton Rack with the MOSS card, and maybe a used Microwave XT, unless Waldorf releases a new comparable or better wavetable monster.

I'd want to buy a Gibson LesPaul and buy a Marhsall amp and speaker cabinet for guitars. I also plan to buy a grand piano at some point in the far future...

I'm not sure yet about mics and monitoring, but I'll seriously upgrade and add options in that area as well of course :-)

I'd probably start compiling the rig with a Speck mixer, 8 channels of conversion, a nice preamp/compressor combo, one or two mics, nice nearfields, and one of the effect boxes, probably the KSP8. Puh, probably about 25000 Euros spent at once, not to mention the studio itself. Tough :-)

Does this all make sense and sound like a reasonable plan? Thanks in advance for comments,

Jan.