Putting Lipstick on a Hog

That's about what I'm doing these days. Putting lipstick on a pig.

The Short Version
I made my home spare-bedroom/office studio into a better home recording studio. Lots of new functionality and capabilities.

The Long Version
Before I start, I'm sorry about the length of this. I've been working on this for almost an entire month. I made a lot of changes in my office studio. I've described the journey from "need" to delivery and some of the set-up below. I do hope at least a couple of you read it. I could have broken it out into various threads, but I decided that i would write one thread to give you the hollistic view and approach that I took when planning it all out. I really did design this in that approach, and did so with an eye towrds expandability of I ever need it. Doubt that I will, but who knows.

The Announcement
In spirit or TR's Man Cave update, I've got an update of my own to announce. My make-shift home studio has officially become Home Studio & Live Jam Space V2.0 and is fast being assembled and installed.

The Needs
I spent a good deal of time searching out what would fit me the best down the road as a guitar-centric home studio dweller, but be able to record some of the occasional jams or bits of playing when two or more of us get in here.

First thing's first, I had to choose a new interface. I needed a way to handle the drums and bass input lines.

Next up is guitar, of course. I either wanted to make a upgrade to my digital rig or go away from it completely. Stay tuned.

Next up is that I wanted a mic pre-amp and interface so that I didn't have to pickup vocals by placing the USB mic built for podcasts in front of the Behringer PA/Keyboard amp. I also wanted to be able to mic my tube amps.

I also wanted to pull the keyboard out of the closet and see what I could do. It's a cheapo Casio WK-1350 purchased at a wholesale club over 10 years ago.

The room is the biggest challenge. usable space is mere 124 inches X 127 inches. My last requirement was that a guitarist, bassist and drummer could play together and look at each other instead of the drummer facing the wall.

And finally, I wanted to get all my music song books and other instructional books all in one place.

The Research
Much of my research branch out of looking at the many articles on TweakzHeadz Lab site, but was certainly not limited to there. The Internet is a wonderful way to research things. I did have a budget, but it was based on thinking Active Monitors would be a lot cheaper than they are. A final budget-buster was that I was going to put a new set of head-phones on the list for the first upgrade shopping spree next year. Well, I broke mine on the day I set aside to make my order.

Some of the research was done right here in our forums. Laz had some advice on monitors for me, and many others in various threads and in other forums had different types of mics, monitors, interfaces, recording software and guitar processors, etc, etc. I also had to consider my ears and determine which size of speaker would give me the most detail at lower volumes.

The Decisions
I kept looking back at one piece of gear. The Eleven Rack by Digidesign/Avid. It supposedly could satisfy my cravings for a better digital sound. Even the boys at the GT-10 forum were raving about it. The more I dug into that unit, the more I discovered that I could do with it.

I could simultaneously run line ins from the little bass amp, MIDI in from the drum kit, Guitar in to the main guitar port, mic in for a vocalist and line in from either my Fender Super Champ XD (line output is on the back) or that keyboard I have. The coloring that the 11R does is only on the one guitar signal at a time, but you can set it to whatever input you want.

Simply put, for one price I could get most of what I wanted from a single unit, at least for now. It became the obvious center piece for the studio. The Eleven Rack (or 11R) was the first decision.

Everywhere I look here were people beating the drums of the Active Studio Monitor. I researched what I could get the most detail out of when playing it at the lowest volumes and went for the over-sized 8-inch variety. I did want to go with JBLs, but I could not quite pull that trigger. I went with Mackie MR8mk2 Monitors. Limited budget I'm afraid, but i am happy with the way these sound.

Up next was another mic. Something not super-cardioid like what I have. I got the Studio Projects B1 mic kit. I'll let you know how I like it when I set it up later this week.

Next up was my new set of cans. Headphones, as I call them. After doing a ton of last minute research, a lot of people everywhere I looked were raving about the mid-priced Audio Technica ATH-M50s. I don't think they are as comfortable as what people say, but I have needs beyond most in that department. They cetainly will work for small periods of time. Not all day, but then again, none will do all day. Sound? Simply fantastic.

I filled out the order with some studio essentials, such as bunch of cables to tie it all together, a short mic stand, monitor pads and an auxillery experssion pedal. (I have to sell my GT-10 to help finance this endeavor of mine.)

The Gear Spirits were on my side. I had, um, exceptional timing. Long story short, I ordered my gear about an hour or so after it was announced that I would not only get a 2 version upgrade of the Pro Tools 10 software for no additional cost. If I bought this a month ago, it would cost me $599 to upgrade from version 8LE to version 10.

Kind of like Christmas in October.

Putting it All Together
I had to do some re-arranging of my office and started right after I ordered the stuff. I did a little bit each day so that I didn't over do anything. All of the physycal attributes I wanted were acheived within this little room. The boxes came yesterday. I set my monitors up on some yard-sale found stands which are working great. I got the 11R set up and all the software should be set up and running by tomorrow. I have to wait for some security license key thing to come tomorrow. I can use the 8LE version right now to at least explore 11R's desktop functionality.

My first impression of the 11R is, simply put, "Wow!" (For reference, they refer to patches as "Rigs") I got only maybe about 30 rigs in out of 208 that are in there. Sweetwater had people including Joe Satriani create rigs to fill out the user slots. I can save them off and build my own when I know how. Back to what I got to play around with so far, though. I got 30 rigs deep into the factory "Rigs" and can say that there might be one that I could not use as is. One. The first one I hit took me a good half hour to play. I kept on playing and playing. I could not set it down. I would have several more like that. I have never imagined tones just so perfect. This is really a whole new experience for me. The 11R is worth the price of admission alone, without the PT-10 software. I'm very pleased.

Well, that's that. All that gear for my nasty sounding vocals and my poor guitar playing skill. Like I said in the thread's title, it's like putting lip stick on a hog.