Setting up a "practice" studio

[thetrooper37]

Hi all, I'm new here and I think I've found a very interesting place that'll hopefully teach me lots

This will probably be a long post and I hope that there are some of you who can sit through and read it all


My band and I have seriously been thinking about setting up a little recording "studio" in my basement. Now, its purpose won't be to do a record ourselves and whatnot, that's a little far fetched considering that none of us know anything about using recording equipment.
Our goal is to be able to have practices in my basement which we can record and listen back to.

Thing is, I live in a town house. Therefore, I'll want pretty much everyone to be going direct in (except drums and vocals obviously). My general idea is that everyone will have headphones through which they will hear the guitar, bass, vocals, and possibly drums. It sounds like it'll work theoretically...Can I actually make it happen though?

Here's the equipment that I think I need to get and what I have:

Quality instruments - we have

A good computer - I have (Intel Quad Core, 2 gigs of ram)

A recording interface - need 2 firepods (seems like the best bang for the buck?)

Recording Software - I have Sonar 7 and can get Cubase Studio 4 if needed

Mics - Singer already has a good vocal mic
- Drum Mics - this is not something I want to cheap out on, especially considering that I'm the drummer :P - So far, this is the best deal I've been able to find: Sennheiser E904 Drum Pack 1 includes 4 x E904, 1 x E902, 2 x E914 Microphones and Deluxe Aluminum Case - FREE! Sennheiser Tour Jacket - $60 Value - With this purchase! | Vancouver Montreal Toronto Canada

It'll let me mic all my drums...there'll be no specific hi-hat and ride mics. I don't think that'll be much of a problem however.

- Mic Cables

- Now, here is where I'm really confused. The headphones. What do I need to buy in order to be able to distribute headphone mixes to everyone around the room comfortably. I've seen the device in studios...is it called a headphone amp? What would you suggest as the best bang for the buck? I will need to be able to hook up 5 people and they'll be in different parts of the room so I'll probably need at least 2 of these things.

- Studio monitors, what would you suggest? Do I really NEED them at the beginning? Would quality headphones do the trick for starters?

Just to recap, this will be for practices. Band and individual. I've always wanted to be able to record myself well while practicing so I can hear back on how I sound.

Also, how long would you say it takes to get fairly familiar with recording software and equipment? I love music and computers are quite interesting as well. If I'm not playing, I'm usually on my PC. I will probably have the money for all this by may which is when school finishes. All I plan on doing is playing and recording

Geeze...this was long...I hope someone actually reads the whole thing

BTW, if anyone wants to see my drums, check 'em out here: Pearl Drummers Forum - here is my MMX/Masterworks!!!

that's quite an old setup but it gives a nice idea

[brandondrury]

Thing is, I live in a town house. Therefore, I'll want pretty much everyone to be going direct in (except drums and vocals obviously). My general idea is that everyone will have headphones through which they will hear the guitar, bass, vocals, and possibly drums. It sounds like it'll work theoretically...Can I actually make it happen though?

Sure! There is no reason why this wouldn't work.

I'm confused about your goals. Do you want something that sounds good or do you simply want to record practices for playback?

A recording interface - need 2 firepods (seems like the best bang for the buck?)

This is definitely a good way to go. The Presonus Firepod offers tremendous bang for the buck. You need to consider how you are going to acheive the headphone mixes. I recently picked up a Presonus Firestudio because I needed the fancier routing matrix/headphone mixer thingy.

Sennheiser E904 Drum Pack 1 includes 4 x E904, 1 x E902, 2 x E914 Microphones and Deluxe Aluminum Case - FREE! Sennheiser Tour Jacket - $60 Value - With this purchase! | Vancouver Montreal Toronto Canada

Is that American dollars? For $1,200 you could probably use my typical setup (minus a few high end mics I sometimes use).

Shure Beta 91 on kick drum $200 here
Shure SM 57 on snare top $100 here
Oktava MK012 on toms (I paid $100 a pop for mine, but they harder to find these days. By far, my favorite tom mic.)

MXL V69s or Audio Technica AT4033s for overheads
Room mic - depends on my mood. ($300 for each mic) here.

Basically, it goes like this. $1,200 is big bucks to shell out for a drum micing kit. I have no idea what the included mics in the Sennheiser kit sound like (except for the kick drum mic which I rate as "very good" but not "great". I would have to work way harder to get it to work in the mix vs my Shure Beta 91).

By going with SM 57s, Oktava MK012s, and V69s is you now have a pallete of mics that I KNOW work great on a number of sources. The 57 is great on electric guitars and many misc instruments. The Oktavas are awesome on acoustic guitars and any instrument you need to capture with a fast mic. The V69 is great on many vocals, electric guitars, acoustic guitar, and anything you'd ever use a large diaphram condenser for. (Fair warning: It's tube.)

No one ever buys whatever condensers come in this kit. I've never even heard of the model number. The tom mics are popular in the live world because the clip to the toms. However, I know of few big boy engineers who gravitate towards them.

Basically, more or less, they have crammed a bunch of "pretty good" mics into a package but are charging more than a pretty good price. I would go for great mics and save my money.

One other thing, I hate the fact that these packages put such an emphasis on close micing. Close micing has it's place, but they never include room mics in this packages. Your style of music may sound WAY better with just two or 3 mics. It's hard to say without knowing more about your situaton.

Now, here is where I'm really confused. The headphones. What do I need to buy in order to be able to distribute headphone mixes to everyone around the room comfortably. I've seen the device in studios...is it called a headphone amp? What would you suggest as the best bang for the buck? I will need to be able to hook up 5 people and they'll be in different parts of the room so I'll probably need at least 2 of these things.

This is the one Behringer product I've been happy with. They discontinued the model I use, however, but I would probably go with this one:
Behringer Powerplay PRO-8 HA-8000 Headphone Amp
Buy Behringer Powerplay PRO-8 HA-8000 Headphone Amp online at Musician's Friend

Now before you jump too deep with this, you are making the assumption that the routing matrix thingy in the Presonus Firepod is going to mate well with other Presonus Firepods. In other words, if the drums use up all 8 inputs on Firepod #1 and then bass, guitars, and vocals end up on Firepod #2 can you give your bass player a headphone mix with drum (from 1) and vocals (from 2). I'm not sure if this is possible or not. I didn't take any chances. I simply went with the Firestudio and used ADAT inputs (quite a bit more expensive to go this route, unfortunately).

If you can get 2 Firepods to daisy chain in regard to their headphone mixes, I think you will be a in great shape.

You can use headphones at first. Studio monitors are only needed if you need the mixes to translate well to the outside world. I wouldn't worry about those yet.


I hope I've helped out some. Consider buying your gear through by clicking on one of my links to Musician's Friend. I've got bills to pay!

Brandon




Brandon

[thetrooper37]

Thanks a lot for the reply, you've answered a lot of my questions and also sparked some new ones!

My goal is to potentially have something that sounds good. I know that it won't happen right off the bat but I want to make sure that I purchase quality products as I'm building this thing. I attend college for music performance and so this little "studio" will hopefully serve me for many years to come.

My concern right now is the drum microphones. The reason why I was going with that pack is because firstly, I live in Canada. Stuff here is usually more expensive and considering that the pack is $1200CDN, it seemed like a really good deal. If I were to buy those mics individually on musiciansfriend, they'd run over $1600US.

Also, with the stuff you've suggested, just the bass drum, snare, and overheads are hitting the $1200 mark (all this from musician's friend).
The best I could find for the Oktava mics was around $200 euros a pop. Where did you find them for 100 each? I have a feeling that these will be very difficult to obtain...can you suggest a good alternative that is easily available?
I'm thinking I might just start building on with the mics you've suggested. I'll get the 2 overheads, kick, and snare mics which will be just within my budget and later on I'll add on tom mics. It's not like I'll know how to mix them properly in the beginning anyway.

Also, thanks for the heads up on the potential headphone mix problem with two firepods, I'll look into that and see if it'll work (it better!)

Cheers

[brandondrury]

I didn't think about the Canadian/US dollar conversion.

Either way, I'm just not big on these package kits. They give you the "luxury" of not thinking in the very beginning, but are short sited in the long run. I'd get mics that work well on vocals and overheads, mics that work great on guitars and snares, etc.

It was a long time ago that Musiciansfriend carried the Oktavas at a really cheap price. They haven't carried them in a while, unfortunately.

Even though I gravitate towards the MK012s quite a bit, there are other good mics out there. As far as that goes, if I was on a tight budget, I'd just snag 4 used SM 57s. You can pick up packages of 57s used on Ebay all the time for a fraction of the price. I bought 4 SM 57s on Ebay for $250. That's a GREAT way to cover your toms, snares, and misc stuff. You'll never lose money on that deal. In fact, reselling them individually would probably give you a profit.

There may be some other SDC condensers out there, but none that I've used specifically on toms.

Brandon

[jdaug]

I used to play with a band that had the same setup you are describing, and this was back before PC recording was commonplace. They used a hard disk recorder with mixer as the core of their setup. They basically built a soundroom in one of the guys garage. It was way cramped, but you could fit 5-6 musicians in there. The main problem was the drums. Since all the musicians were playing no more than 10 feet from the drumset, it was hard to get the headphone levels right for each musician, and it was hard to hear or feel anything other than the drums. If you have V-drums it would make things a lot simpler and your neighbors would appreciate it too.

Yes you will need a headphone amp, and an interface with multiple monitor mixes, like the firestudio, would be ideal

[thetrooper37]

^ Thanks for the heads up on that. Question: Did you guys use sound isolating headphones? If it's TOO difficult to hear, then I might do this: Have everyone wear a pair of say...EC2's and then have them put construction sound muffs on top. That's bound to cut out the drums well and hopefully make it easier with the mix.


And 1 more question about the Oktavas:
Would you say that they work as good overheads as well? I might buy a pair of them for starters, use them as overheads and then once I get enough money, buy a couple of AT4033s. Then I'll just move the Oktavas to the toms (I'll probably just use a 4 piece).

The only thing I'm worried about when it comes to these mics is quality control. I've been reading up about them and apparently some places sell cheap knockoffs but I found this site: MK-012 Cardioid Capsule Factory Matched Stereo Pair from authorized reseller Oktava Canada MK012 which as far as I can tell is completely legit. But even so, I don't know how easy it would be to get things fixed if say...something broke or didn't work properly. Have you had to deal with their customer service at all?

Thanks

[jdaug]

I dont remember what type of phones we used. They were can type. It was doable, but the instrument players had to crank up the levels in the phones so high that it got painful after extended playing, and I remember having to concentrate pretty hard on the phones as opposed to the room noise. My ears would ring for a couple hours after the session, but hey, thats what being in a band is all about right?

[thetrooper37]

^ Sounds like you guys didn't use sound isolating headphones...I really don't want people's ears to get damaged...Now that I think about it, we shouldn't have much of a problem with this because I play along to my ipod all the time and hear things just fine.

Cheers!

Also, Brandon, look at my previous post!!!

[brandondrury]

The Oktava issue is a tricky one. Back in the day they were $100 at Guitar Center or Musiciansfriend. Now there are weird clones and places selling them for 3x what I paid for them. So I don't know. If they were $300 a piece, I'd probably just get Sennheiser MD 421 mics or something. Then again, I still like the Oktava's better for the work I do.

If you are broke, just buy a package of 4 use SM57 mics used on Ebay. You can probably snag them for $250 and sell them for $80 a piece when you are finished with them. I'd go that route before I went for any specific tom mics. The 57s have never gotten me my favorite tom sounds, but they work just as well as some of the audix "tom" mics I've used.

Brandon