$15,000 to spend, big life decision...please help!

[nikki-k]

Oh yeah- rooms.

Grab a good omni and an app for shooting the room (buy, rent, lease, whatever).
Dont overtreat the room.
Probably the biggest problem one will face with a home studio is the small size of the control room, which will lead to problems, most noticably the low end. Bass traps first IMO, then treat for additional taming as needed. If you can budget in an acoustician, do it.

Highly recommended treatments

As far as the room(s) you will be placing the sources: It is doubtful you will have a "pro caliber" room for that. (I could be very wrong tho! ) If so, I would opt for mobile treatment. Buy treatment, and mount on stands for optimum flexability

[nikki-k]

Yeah, HD Accel is quite nice...I would seriously consider a 192+HD2 Accel, or the 96+HD2 and grab some prestine ADC and DAC, 2 channels to begin with.

I still suggest checking out the Blue Sky System One monitors as well. IMO, only thing better would be ADAMs.

Funny "Who" ,, . Exactly what kind of property are you referring to?? $15k for property ???? Maybe in Montana buddy,,, But where I live (San Francisco,CA.) you couldn't put a down payment on a bathroom out here for $25k !!!!! Seriously !!! And that would be a bathroom the size of a matchbox !!!!!

Now - allthatsleft , you got $15k to spend, and you have a 002 ?? So I guess track count is not important to you ?? Because I would go HD first things first. Then get whatever else I had money for that was left over. Then as the months went by, and you made some income from a more elaborate system as HD, then you could get the rest of the gear (and even better) that you planned to from the beginning. AND you will be in HD land !!!!! (nice property)

[who]

"Funny "Who" ,, . Exactly what kind of property are you referring to?? $15k for property ???? Maybe in Montana buddy,,, But where I live (San Francisco,CA.) you couldn't put a down payment on a bathroom out here for $25k !!!!! Seriously !!! And that would be a bathroom the size of a matchbox !!!!!
"

I'm guessing that allthatsleft hasn't owned property, therefore qualifying him as a first time buyer. In such a case, 15k would be plenty as a down payment. Dropping out of school probably won't help him get a loan though.

[RSSstudio]

WOW, thank you guys so much for your quick responses and feedback...I didn't think any one would get back to me so fast. As for my rooms, I'm in a slight bind. I do understand the importance of room quality, so out of my 3 choices of environments to record in, the best of the 3 is our drummer's house in New Jersey (hence the reason i need to buy stuff soon...i need to get up there and start tracking!). The room I would be tracking drums in is his foyer, which has nice wood floors, it's 2 stories, and a stair case to the 2nd floor would allow great placement of stereo room mics. My other choices are my tile-floored house (no way!) or our rehersal space, which is just too small. When it comes down to it, i plan to use my ears and if the sounds really suck, then off to a cheap studio I go for a few sessions. Im recording our full length, so I have about 18 songs to track.

As for plugins, you name it, I have it. Waves, Bomb Fact, etc etc etc. 'Nuff said. So all else really really fails, atleast I can use the IR-1 or something of that like to add a little ambience to a dead room.

As for those suggesting HD, it's really out of the question. For me, the return on the investment into the HD realm isn't enough compared to selling off the equipment I want to buy if my endevours go wrong. If all else fails, from the cheap prices I'm getting all this for, I won't lose too much money if I have to get rid of it. HD is something I will step up to in a few years when I have 9 grammy awards. HA.

My track count is not a big deal, as I dont plan to make final mixes, and as I track I will mix down temporarily to keep my CPU from melting. My drummer has a huge house, his basement (Basements here in south FL...well, they dont exist.) is very dead, totally carpeted with acoustically treated ceilings. It's also the square area of his whole house, so reflections shouldnt be an issues, as I can set up in the middle of it. I have a small budget for some auralex anyhow if need be.

As for gear, being a touring band, we all have very nice equipment. We use PRS guitars, fender and ernie ball basses, mesa, marshall, and ampeg amps, our drummer has a DW and Orange County kit, and I have quite a few people helping out and lending me other prized instruments. I have a ton of tools at my disposal, I just really need to make sure my singal path is up to par. If anyone is terribly more interested on our progress through demoing, hit up our website and click on the "Track Factory" studio journal. And please no comments if you catch the fact that I dont know what Im talking about


Thanks again guys, if anyone has any other opinions on the pre's or my proposed recording environment, please fire away!

[nekycram]

You can always make some nice portable, sort of portable, broadband bass traps out of some 703 or 705 FRK rigid fiberglass wrapped in Guilford of Maine FR701. Better than nothing.
So are you looking for a killer portable rig? Sounds like you are going to have some fun by the way.

Ken

[IntelDoc]

My GOD! NIKKI-K is alive! My girl is around! How ya doing lady! Hope all is well! Gotta call you and caht soon!

Also, on the 15K thing! Space is a huge thing and I agree, get the space right before you unload a lot of gear. Trust me, I spent a ton getting my space somewhat decent, but still needs a lot of work. Overhaul soon and ideas are flying...

NEW TBR SOUNDROOM CONCEPT
NEW TBR CONCEPT ANGLE 2

Granted this is only a rough render and YES the speakers are blue skies and they are WIDE. The bass traps are what I am trying to place. Going by their designs, and you can make them fairly easy.

TRAPS 1

GREAT SITE FOR MAKING TRAPS AND GETTING NUMBERS

Like they said, pace yourself and really think about it before the money burns a hole in your pocket..... Gear is expensive and I am a GEAR HOUND! Think about what your focus is and go from there. Gear is not everything with this science!

Good luck!

- Doc

[Calvin]

ADAMs ADAMs ADAMs, I agree with your monitoring and room conditions being the most important. Get some trully nice 2 channel converters and some ADAM S3As or you might want to try the new S4VA whichever I'm sure would blow you away and make you want to trash every speaker system you have in your house. If only I had the money.

[RSSstudio]

Once again, thanks for the continued opinions on my situation. One more thing..the focusrite ADC card is supposed to be a good one...not Apogee-esque, but certainly above the 002r's A/D capabilities...so atleast 8 of my channels going in should be above par. as far as D/A is concerned, my only other tool to use is the Presonus Central Station's S/PDIF or TosLink inputs as my D/A converters, then off to the mackie HR824's. I'm going to guess that the Presonus D/A is probably a little better than 002r's, but does anyone have the Central Station unit and can confirm this? Also, what exactly should I look for in the specs of any AD/DA converters to get a general idea between "budget" and high-end in comparison to the specs of the 002r? Ultimately my ears will tell the difference I know, but still...

thanks so much!