Pro Audio Gear – Good Deals for You!
You may or may not have a recording studio. However, if you play music, record music or WANT to record music you will need some gear to pull that off. Depending on what kind of instrument you are trying to record you need either to use microphones to pick up the sound in the room or some way to get the signal into your recorder from an electric instrument such as a keyboard or guitar.
My first recording studio started out with a reel to reel tape recorder and later migrated to a (gasp!) multi-track reel to reel tape recorder. Now days everything is recorded on the computer giving us amazing flexibility and capabilities. We can record everything “dry” which means without effects and come back and add the effects later.
We can use DAW (digital audio workstation) software to automate just about everything. Back in the day when we wanted to change all of the volumes on the fly it took several of us sitting around the mixdown console twiddling knobs to change things while we mastered the whole shebang.
Now you can change volume, pan, effects, tone and so much more at the click of a mouse and do it over and over again until the computer does it just the way you want it. Nothing is destroyed and everything has an “undo”.
Yes it has come a long ways.
Fortunately for today’s aspiring musicians it takes a very modest setup to start your recording career. You can take a laptop, a USB audio capture box (A/D converters) and some software and plug in the instrument (or mic) and record away.
In fact, since those little boxes (usually two channel) run off USB power from your laptop they have the side benefit that you can take your guitar out in the middle of the beach or the woods and record to your heart’s content as long as your battery holds out. Kinda fun actually.
So along with your laptop (or PC) and USB audio capture box (I use an Edirol UA-25) you need software. I use Cubase SX2.0 myself. I haven’t upgraded yet. It works fine for me. I have a ton of plugins that emulate everything from vintage fuzz tones to old keyboards. Yes you can have “virtual” instruments and effects.
Of course, a lot of folks still want the vintage tones from old analog tube equipment. I am one of them. I use it all. New – Old…each have their time and place. I try to avoid the noisy old effects but take the warmth from the vintage boxes when I can.
I have converted a room of my house into a makeshift recording studio. I have built a recording desk that holds all of my rack mount equipment, the mixdown console, power amplifiers, monitor speakers and is the working surface for the keyboard and mouse for the computer. The computer goes underneath the whole rig. There is an 8 channel 24 bit rackmount A/D converter box that digitizes the incoming audio for the computer.
Dual computer monitors allow me to stretch out the DAW screens so that I can have a mixer on one side and effects on the other or whatever combination I desire.
I have a couple of HUGE drawers built in that hold the miriad of guitar cords, sound effects boxes, electronic drum machines, picks, midi cables, guitar slides, metronomes, guitar strings, microphones and on and on. You get the picture. You want some storage that is not out in the middle of the floor. The “poor boy” method would be to get some plastic tubs, rolling drawers or garage storage cabinets and set off against a wall to store all your equipment.
Sure you don’t need all this to get started, but you will always find…”Hey I need one of those” or “I wish I had one of these”. It is adictive and is not only a great hobby but who knows, you may find yourself famous and on TV. It has happened before and will happen again. You can make such high quality demo CDs in your home studio that they can hold up to pretty intense scrutiny.
So if you are like me and love music. Love to play music. Love to record music or WANT to record music, then you can look around here and see what all you can find.
You can find great buys on new and used equipment all over the internet these days. Here at The Sound Spot Studio you will find links to all kinds of great buys on new and used equipment.
Have fun!
Rex
