Thoughts on "starter" commercial recording setup

[deepwaste]

Hi all,

Long-time reader, first-time poster...first of course I'd like to thank everyone who contributes to this forum for providing tons of priceless information and opinion over the past few months.

I'm a longtime home recorder and planning a major, major upgrade soon...as in, upgrading from a Focusrite 2 i/o MBox running ProTools 6.9. The main motive is to record my own projects, but with an eye toward monetizing the gear and recording other people as well, and not just my friends' bands. Basically I'm envisioning a compact (mobile) 8-track digital recording rig with a tasty set of outboard gear and good A/D.

So rather than going over the old "X sounds better than Y" conversation, I'd like to focus on what kind of rigs GS readers have worked with, owned, etc, that were commercially successful without costing the value of a small house. Here's my current wish-list:

RME MultiFace II
Focusrite ISA428 4x mic pres ("A" pres)
Sytek 4x mic pres ("B" pres)
Neve Portico 5043 Comp/Limiter for vocals
Waves plugins (compressor/reverb)

Plus headphone amp, power conditioner etc...and a laptop of course (running Reaper). I already have a decent mic collection and can rent the really expensive stuff instead of buying outright.

It seems to me that the above setup provides a very competitive signal path that could record drums, band demos, string ensembles, church choirs, high school musicals etc., in addition to providing pro-level tracking capability. And could all fit into a mobile 8- or 10-u rack unit (Gators seem nice).

Does anyone else have experience with this model? Thoughts on the signal path? Any other high-quality (reasonably priced) outboard gear or interfaces a better value? Thanks for reading!

[The Byre]

For mobile recording, I would take a long, hard look at the new JoCo Black Box. This is a fully professional unit, specifically designed for mobiles. It is completely transparent for other units, so no compatibility and export problems. Record, plug in the DAW for editing and mixing and that's it! Prices start around $2k, which, considering what it can do, is dirt cheap!

That way, you will not need to buy any other gear (other than the usual cables and similar stuff) and you can continue to use whatever you are using now. It also means you can do 24-track, which is pretty much the minimum for a flight-case mobile rig.

AudioMedia - January 2010

JoeCo BlackBox Recorder Summary

[deepwaste]

Byre, thanks for the response...I've actually worked with something very similar to this, helping a buddy record live sets during SXSW in Austin, running straight out of the mixer into a 24-track HD digital recorder. We didn't even have a computer-the unit recorded to hard disk and he exported into a DAW to mix later.

Thing is I'm not necessarily looking to record live sound...by "mobile" I just mean having a high-end rig that's small enough to move from place to place rather than building into a brick-and-mortar commercial space, although the gear is scalable in case I end up doing that after all.

It seems to me that with gear becoming more compact and laptops more powerful, more artists and bands are opting to record at home or borrowing/renting a space rather than blocking out weeks or months at a studio for $1000 a day. The last Grizzly Bear and Animal Collective albums were recorded in regular 2br houses, and Radiohead is known for tracking string arrangements in old stone churches. That's more what I'm aiming for.

[deepwaste]

p.s. just took a gander at your website, Byre. F***ing intimidating, it is

[The Byre]

Well, it's not there to frighten anyone! Just to not get in the way of the recording process.

Anyway, yes I take your point about laptops and stuff, but in all things, don't believe the hype. To that end, here's a story -

One of my regulars was working here and I came in with the coffee or beers or whisky or whatever it was that they needed to continue and we got to talking about home recording. I said that no home recording has ever made it into the charts or done anything massive. I said that it was all just marketing hype.

No it is not, he said. What about (Name of Really Big Act) and their record (Name of fantastic and ground-breaking record).

Oh rubbish, I said. You can't tell me that they did that at home.

"Yes, I can!" he said - and we went off for a while in a "Yes, they did!" "No, they didn't!" kind of routine, rather like Abbot and Costello in 'Who's on First!'

After several 'yes they did' and 'no they did nots,' I had to ask him how he was so certain.

"That's easy!" he said. "I recorded them!" and he then described how FX Rental of London shipped out a huge SSL 'J-Series' desk, 48 IOs of HD3, racks and racks of outboard, monitors, cables, foldback, mics of every shape and size and vintage and turned one bedroom into a control room, complete with acoustic treatment, the living room into a drum recording area, another bedroom into a vocal booth, other rooms into backline recording booths and so on, and on and on and on . . .

A friend of mine runs a large mobile recording outfit and they sometimes have to go to people's houses to record. Not often (at $4,000 a day!) but it does happen, so don't believe all you read, that invariably starts with some PR person looking for an angle to get some column inches in the fan mags!

But my 30 Cents is to not worry too much about the commercial viability of various options, but to go for what you know and are comfortable with. I say this, because the chances of getting people to pay for a budget operation are very slight - that end of the market is totally over-saturated.

But a lean, mean, mobile machine, well, that requires know-how and specialist kit (Specialist Kitt - Gadd, how I loved that woman!) and you might just be able to carve out a niche for yourself.

With abit of luck anyway!

[emdub123]

Originally Posted by deepwaste

Here's my current wish-list:

RME MultiFace II
Focusrite ISA428 4x mic pres ("A" pres)
Sytek 4x mic pres ("B" pres)
Neve Portico 5043 Comp/Limiter for vocals
Waves plugins (compressor/reverb)

Plus headphone amp, power conditioner etc...and a laptop of course (running Reaper). I already have a decent mic collection and can rent the really expensive stuff instead of buying outright.

I would suggest you start by asking different questions: How much can you get per hour in your area? How many hours/month are you working now?

If you're getting $30/hr and working 10hrs/month, it will take you a very long time to pay off that gear. Even at 20 or 30 hours/month, the initial expense is way out of line for what you'll be earning.

Bottom line: If you just want to buy $8000 worth of gear, no problem, be honest with yourself. The idea that it will pay for itself is probably silly. If you were trying to make money you'd buy a cheap laptop and an M-sonus digi-something, right? The cheapo rig would be cash-flow positive after 40 hours, while the fancy rig would take 300+ hours. Your call, I'm just trying to provide a reality check.