Help my friend spend $5,000.00

[Ryan Silva]

It seems as if most of you are suggesting room treatment but lots of the records I like and I'm talking classic records made by legendary producers and engineers have been made in less than 'ideal' acoustic enviroments. Houses, Barns, Cabanas etc...... I don't put a lot of stock in fancy high end acoustic treament. I think some is needed but it can be achieved 'ghetto' style and as long as you are capturing great performances you will be making great records.

I see your point here, but just barely.

These albums you speak of may have been recorded in less than ideal acoustic spaces, but as you said these were 'Legendary producers and engineers' chances are they could have recorded a group of "Great" musicians in the men?s room at a bus station, and got good results. Most folks during the 'Startup' phase won?t have the kind of experience, time, or incredible musicians to create the magic (most of the time).

So yes, Good songs, Good musicians should come first, but having an accurate monitoring environment (even more so than a tracking environment) should be right up there.

When I started four-tracking I struggled so much with getting drum tones, and mixes that were under my control. I will stress "Under my Control" because it all felt so random and un-reproducible. What I heard in my tiny little nook of a control room never translated correctly.

I then was fortunate enough to assist in some good studios, with well treated control rooms, and I was like holy shit this is actually a lot easier than I thought. I was like hey I use a 57 on the snare why does this sound so much better? It wasn?t the pre-amp, it wasn?t the processing, it wasn?t even the player, it was the fact that the engineer could hear that the 57 needed to be moved 1/2" to the left or right or whatever. After it was moved it sounded right, and there was a difference that could be remembered re-created.

Anyway, ghetto sound treatment suggestments can often be treating the wrong problem. Like the bookshelves full of books, or the mattress turned on it?s side, or my personal favorite is when people cover there entire room with packing foam or egg crates. 99% of the time the problems with home studios (because of small dimensions, and low ceilings) are of course low end buildup. Nothing short of the correct materials (rigid fiberglass, mineral wool, ect) can even touch the more common problems people experience. Good news is these materials are not that expensive (relative to gear).

Sorry about the diatribe, but my enjoyment of recording improved 10 fold when I first started to properly treat my environments.

Thanks

[calaverasgrandes]

I think the acoutic treatment thing is doubly valid as lot of us these days are recording and mixing in the same space.
So that weird buildup at 250hz is on the recording and in the room when you mix. (of course thats a simplification, you could have a weird buildup at 250hz on teh recording and a weird null at your mix position that makes it less obvious).
Everyboady is telling you to spend it carefully, one bit at a time. Screw that! how many more times will this fella have to plunk down this kind of coin?
I would advise him to spend a couple hundred on acoustics.
Then go out and demo some monitors until he can settle on some decent ones in the $1-2000 range.
Then get some real nice conversion happening.
If he isnt wedded to the white macbook I would look elsewhere. Its an old chipset with the old bus speed and old ram. For less than the price of a macbook you can get a maxed out mac mini with 33% faster buss speed, ram and a faster chip than what is available for a white macbook.
The totals might run
cpu $700-1000
acoustics $100-300
monitors $800-1500
digi 003 rack w BLA mod $2000

$3600-4800
well it almost runs out before you get a nice mic or preamp.
One thing I would say for sure, 414's are nice mics but I wouldnt buy one (or a nuemann) unless I expected to be seeing commercial use. If you are just dicking around at home there are plenty of better values in mics.

If you can shoe horn in in under $3500 or so, Chameleon has that deal where you get a free opto compresor if you buy 2 7602 MKII's, by the end of Oct. (damn I hope I get some money in!).

[trodden]

It seems as if most of you are suggesting room treatment but lots of the records I like and I'm talking classic records made by legendary producers and engineers have been made in less than 'ideal' acoustic enviroments. Houses, Barns, Cabanas etc...... I don't put a lot of stock in fancy high end acoustic treament. I think some is needed but it can be achieved 'ghetto' style and as long as you are capturing great performances you will be making great records.

well he/she should spend the 5k on good players then...

[losthighway]

With any luck/practice/passion the good players are free. Or even pay you to be there. This is the variable that is hardest to define. Talent or t divided by room lameness times vacuum tubes plus German microphone technology minus impatience plus integrity= goodness level.

I still don't have a proof that defines t. There are journals like Rolling Stone musical journal that are constantly attempting to define that variable, but the word around the community is that their results are inconsistent and somewhat dubious.

[trodden]

With any luck/practice/passion the good players are free. Or even pay you to be there. This is the variable that is hardest to define. Talent or t divided by room lameness times vacuum tubes plus German microphone technology minus impatience plus integrity= goodness level.

I still don't have a proof that defines t. There are journals like Rolling Stone musical journal that are constantly attempting to define that variable, but the word around the community is that their results are inconsistent and somewhat dubious.

ahhhhh!! stop with the maths!!!!! maths are nervous.

[calaverasgrandes]

If I was gonna spend $5k:
API a2d which I think will work well with my BLA-ed 828MKII and hold its value as I migrate to other interfaces in the future.
$1500
some tube condenser like the (new)Telefunken ak47
$1300
Some nice monitors, I like the JBL 4328 or maybe some PMCs?
I also like the old Tannoys. Heck even some big Genelecs. Just get me out of crazy town.
$1500
TT patchbay, Dsub on the back with nice cables.

Or a fitted out API lunchbox.
Jeez $5000 doesnt go as far as you would think.
Like my Musicman stingray 5 string fretless, and a boogie bass 400 (if they still made them) plus cabinets. Easy $5000.

Minimoog Voyager, and a few moogerfoogers. $5000

A nice mac. $5000

[Catoogie]

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I understand there are going to be differing opinions, thoughts and philosophies regarding how to spend $5,000 and that's precisely why I ask the question here. I like the exchange.

My opinion is that a lot of the the records I like that were recorded in untreated spaces were, as someone mentioned, recorded by legendary producers and engineers........or it would better put to say they went on to become legendary producers and engineers. When they recorded the records I like, they were younger and probably more inexperiend than I am now. Also, the gear wasn't always superior and at the time it was usually less than ideal compared to recording in Western Recorders or something.

My friend isn't a kid or some newbie, he's a drummer who's done tons of recording with legendary producers and engineers in the past. He's had a little budget project 'studio' in his basement, no contruction just packing blankets and cobbled together gear. He's always been into recording but he never really had the space or cash to put something together. Now he's gonna come into a little bit of bread and I want to help to make sure he spends it right. That he gets the most for his money, He doesn't really know about gear and he operates from a gut level so he's developed ideas about what gear he wants (the 414 for example) when his money could be better spent elsewhere.

As far as mixing is concerned, great records...hit records, whatever....have also been mixed in less than ideal acoustic enviroments. I think it's all about have great ears and checking your stuff in a variety of different listening enviroments. I have a friend with an AMAZING old Neve board, tube everything, amazing mics. His recordings sound killer at his spot but they don't translate to the outside world. It's not all about the gear and the space.

Thanks for your opinions guys, please keep them coming

[???????]

With any luck/practice/passion the good players are free. Or even pay you to be there.

whaHUH?

We must not know the same 'good players.' Or maybe our definitions are different.

But if good players are expected to pay to play, then I need to find another line of work!!!

[calaverasgrandes]

I think he means, recording for peoples for moneys.
It sure is humbling recording people that can play (and write) songs around you. Much less getting paid for it.
It's also disappointing when the money thing gets in the way of music.

[losthighway]

Yeah. I meant it's free when it's you playing your own music with your own musician friends. And you get paid when it's someone else. Getting paid to record cool music is one of my favorite things in the world, and getting to record cooler music all the time has been so rewarding to me that I haven't asked for more money in a long time.

I realize not everyone's here for those reasons, but I also like most of the reasons most people are here.

[???????]

word!

[???????]

In regards to the OP's question:

$5k will get you started pretty good. It will not get you everything you will ever need. No matter what, you will have some gaps/holes in what you have that will eventually limit you. They probably will not limit you, no matter what they are, until you are experienced enough to realize they're limiting you.

The growing room to grow into $5k worth of stuff is decently long.

My advice is to try to spend smartly. In other words, get stuff that can serve one purpose now and maybe another purpose later. This way, you're not throwing your money away on stuff you have to "upgrade." You're getting stuff you can use for one purpose now, and 'shuffle over' to another purpose as you flesh out your gear locker.

Let me explain.

For starters, a cheap pair of small diaphragm condenser mics like ATM-450 or Oktava MK-012 will be good 'beginner' overheads for drums. Later, if you decide you prefer pricier/sexier mics for that application, they will still be very useful on toms or other sources.

A cheap medium-to-large diaphragm condenser like an AT 4033 is a good, solid vocal mic. Later, you will like the 4033 on bass cab or reso-side bass drum, maybe. Maybe you will still like it on some vocalists, even when you have pricier/nicer mics for that application.

When possible, emphasize 'quality' over 'quantity,' within reason. I mean you don't want to blow your whole wad on a single nice mic and have nothing else to show for it, BUT you don't want to end up sitting on piles and piles of disposable prosumer gear that retains zero resale value, either.

Finding an affordable but decent small-format console with direct outs on the channels just to 'get you in the door' with 'quantity' preamps might give you the ability to spring for one "nice" preamp or better yet a pair of nice preamps. This will allow you to have a good pair for critical stuff and a nice chain for overdubs, and you can use the 'quantity' stuff only for those situations where you need to be tracking live, etc. Eventually you can build up more of a rack full of different flavors of "nice" stuff, or spring for a nicer console.

A lot depends on what you want to do.

It is good to have a few different flavors of stuff within reason-- large diaphragm condenser, small diaphragm condenser, dynamic, larger dynamic (like an RE-20 or M88 or similar), perhaps a ribbon of some sort. It's also nice to have at least one pair of SOMETHING for stereophonic recording. LDC or SDC are good things to have pairs of.

For the stuff that will eventually be upgraded, resist the urge to buy stuff brand new. If you can live with 2-year-old technology for something like a prosumer interface 002/003 style thing, you will save a pile of money.

Monitoring is important, too. Room treatment can be, but the importance of that varies according to just how bad your room is on its own. Both sides of that argument here have a point. Many good records have been made in someone's house. But many bad ones have, too. And there are advantages to an 'acoustically predictable' space.

Lastly, here is my advice: If your budget is strictly fixed, buy (or get the supplies to build) cables--and also mic stands, etc.--FIRST. This is the kind of shit that people toss off/take for granted as inexpensive, and before they know it they're $1,000 over budget just trying to get enough cables to hook everything up and enough stands to put the mics on. Whoops.

If you are handy, you can save substantially buy rolling your own cables and building certain preamps, etc. from kits. I have nicer shit than I could've otherwise afforded for two reasons: I built some of it myself (7th circle preamps, Royer Mod tube mics, etc), and I bought other stuff broken for real cheap and repaired it myself.

Hope that helps in some way.

[calaverasgrandes]

I meant to mention that as well. You could easily get into several grand just on cables, mic stands and power conditioning. Not to mention headphones, di boxes and furniture. I have assloads of cables now but man I used to hate running out of xlr or trs cables!
One thing I do a lot when making these kind of decisions is try and figure out what choice will either:
A-increase my options or capabilities. Like buying a zoom h4n allows me to do more field recording, and rough demoing when I am travelling.
B-improve the quality of my rig. Sometimes I get gear lust for stuff that simply Isn't better than what I have. This would be a lateral step that isn't an improvement and doesn't open up my options.

[joel hamilton]

"I have a friend with an AMAZING old Neve board, tube everything, amazing mics. His recordings sound killer at his spot but they don't translate to the outside world."

That statement bums me out. "sounds great" doesnt mean anything without "translating" so I dont even know why there is distinction.
tree falling in the forest....

[Catoogie]

I hear ya Joel. When you're in the room, the monitors are rocking, it sounds as badass as you can imagine. Then you take a reference out and put it in the car and it sounds REALLY soft.