New Recording Studio

[bcarrancho]

Hi there, I’m desperately looking for help in the setup of a new recording studio. I live in South Africa and the people here are either too ignorant to help or too selfish to share their knowledge so I’m looking elsewhere to see if I can find some help.

I have decided to start a recording studio in hopes to produce bands and form a business as a long term goal. However, I’m pretty clueless when it comes to hardware and rigging up a studio. Although I do already know a few items of equipment which I want I would like some advice on what else I would need to complement my purchases.

The actual studio building will be complete in due course now setting up is my next step.

The equipment which I want I the following.
1. Digidesign’s C24 (which come with all the software, protocols etc)
2. My monitors are Yamaha HS 80M
3. PC (although not sure what sound card to get or if I’ll even need one)

These are the only two pieces of equipment which I have in mind.

My question is, what else would I need to setup and be ready to record, etc.

A few questions.
Do I need pre-amps (how many what kind?)
Do I need a main amp?
Do I need a patch bay (for what reason would I need a patch bay?)

Basically the full question is.
Can you list all the equipment you would need to start a recording studio from scratch.

Your help would be extremely appreciated

[Chuck Harris]

Wow, you're tackling a big job. It also sounds like you have a big learning curve ahead of you. For example, you mentioned the C24 and that it comes with all the software that you need. Not really, the C24 is only a control surface that supports protools. You need to also purchase a complete protools set up which includes audio interfaces, PCI Cards, etc., etc.

There are different types of protools, for your situation wanting to record bands and such, you'll want to go with the HD which is not cheap. I suggest that you go to the digidesign website and do a lot of research on protools systems. Go to www.digidesign.com and look under products>protools>protoolsHD. and see if you can figure out what you think you'll need.

[bcarrancho]

Hi there, Thank you for your reply.
I have read up quite a bit on the digidesign website and that is where i found the C24.
The agent here in south africa will provide me with the c24 plus protools 8.
Protools HD is way to expensive for my budget, thats why i'd rather go with LE.
Still, they don't really help with setup and what ever else i will need, which is why I'm here.
would i even need a desk when running protools LE?

[daveoverreal]

My first question would be how much work have you done either as a recording engineer/producer or running a commercial studio?
Not to discourage you in any way but I really did wince when i read your post.
My opinion is that if you want to set up a studio, the sound equipment is in some ways less important than many of the other factors involved, ie premises, finances, renovations, sound proofing/acoustic treatment etc etc etc
The reason i ask is many engineers/producers would love to have their own studio and if finances allowed, they would know exactly what equipment they wanted! It would be the other factors that would be more of a headache to figure out.
This is just my opinion of course and i really wish you all the best!

Peace
Dave

[Dorian Green]

Wow...Great adventure!

You can really set a decent studio based on a LE system.
At least when you'll have enough money (as it's a long term project!) you will still be able to upgrade your system thereafter.

At the moment and because you may have to record up to 8 tracks, you could use a 003R, sold with a good bunch of plugins and PTLE 8.You can even expand you input to 18 tracks (8 ADAT and 2 SPDIF).

Now come the point about preamp!
There is all kind of preamp some are very cheap, some other really too expensive, but for voice tracking you'd better get a very good one (from famous preamp makers like : Focusrite, Avallon, SPL, TLAudio....).
The 003 has 4 built in preamp (a bit noisy for me!).
But this is a very important peace of gear to choose wisely.

You'll need a good bunch of mics (all kind: Large Condenser, medium, even Ribbon or dynamic ones).
All the cables aswell.

Patchbay.Very useful.At least you can route you signal without having to bend behind your equipement furniture to unplug and replug stuff.You just have to use patch cables to create your session configuration.

Be careful about the power, there is a lot of equipement running in the studio and you may need a very good power line, even an uninterrupted power supplier for the most sensitive equipement like the PC, sound interface, main preamp, one Screen.

You may have to soundproof the room and correct all the sonic issues that could occur during work and it's quite a budget.

Think aswell about all headphones, cue amp, double screen, DI rack or boxes.

In my opinion you should start with a small configuration (even "carryable") to get a reputation and some money.Then grow your studio step by step.
Just remember you must know all your equipement and signal path running in your studio like the back of your hand.Aswell being able to find very quick solutions in case a peace breaks, the paying client don't want to waste his money and time.They must get what they pay for.

I forgot you're gonna need few backup drives, ot can save your life.

I wish you all the best.And good luck.

P.S : I started with a soundblaster on a Pentium II and one crap mixing desk on Cubase VST 32.Growing and running a studio takes time but it's really worth it, with loadza hardwork.