The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Not really sure if this "helps" or teaches anyone "how to", but maybe it will from the standpoint of knowing what everyone is dealing with as far as their own personal studio. I recently posted a tour of my studio on another board and felt like it gave some insight to the capabilities of my antiquated setup. So here it is for you guys, and I would really like to see some other tours.

So here we go.

Enter This sign is on the second level door that leads to the steps leading up to the attic. Sometimes my family actually takes the hint and doesn't come up. Other times not.

Top of the steps Your first look in.

You're in! This is after you've made it all the way up the steps. Not too much different from the previous photo, but I wanted to give you perspective of the steps in the last shot.

Mixing Board This is as you turn left and standing in front of the couch visible from the previous shot.

The lounge This is an about face from the mixing area. In the top left you can see the guitar storage area. On the couch are a not so inconspicuously placed mandolin and an old Hohner concertina.

Drums This is my new drumset I got for $300. I had been borrowing it but the guy had to sell it to me because he was moving and his wife said not to hold me up the price. Note the microphone setup, thanks D'ah Net.

Vocal Booth This is looking into the vocal booth from in front of the board. It's a bit cramped getting in there.

Vocal Booth Inside Looking left as you enter. I can't believe I forgot to put the microphone in.

Vocal Booth All the way in and looking at the microphone. Well, where the mic would be if I had put it in there.

Guitar Booth Ok it's the same area, just pulling double duty. This is looking left from in front of the vocal mic.

That's pretty much it except for the left wall area (as you enter) which was messy and I didn't want to show it. Oh and the close-ups. You gotta have close-ups.

Board Yamaha RM800. 24 channel / 8 buss.

Recorder Fostex D160

Monitor KRK Rokit 8

Keys I forget the model Yamaha this is. (PSR 540 maybe?) It's not bad for what I need it for though.

Rack From the top, an unused (so far) DBX patch bay, power conditioner, Behringer compression, Art tube pre-amp, Lexicon reverb, Midiverb.

Various stuff The Pioneer RT901 reel to reel, a Teac meter bridge, an old Kenwood amp and a Pioneer EQ.

Blast from the past A Tascam 388. My first decent recorder. I need to have it serviced and my thought is to use it to record drums. We'll see.

Well that's it folks. Tour's over. Please let me know what you think and post pictures of your own setup.

That's very cool. But I so don't miss hardware.

Very cool tour Dan, you are quite the host.

Well, I don't have a cool tour, but here is a quickie of my little studio. This will soon be gone as I build my DAW. But that will be a little while off.


My Gibson Explorer2 is to the left and cut out of the above picture. It's my work horse. Here I am playing it (center stage). I love that guitar. I don't have a lot of fancy equipment, but what I do have gets quite a workout.

I just got a new (used) desk! And I'm finally using some monitor speaker stands that I bought (used) a while ago.



I'm probably going to move the speakers farther apart and pull the desk forward. Also I'm probably going to take off the rack shelf that the computer monitor is on. Otherwise though things seem to fit nicely on the desk.

hey, what's that red keyboard off to the left?

-craig

Nice, Sam! Way more cleanly arranged than mine, that's for sure.

And hey, I'm glad to see another person uses a Presonus TubePre.

starfinger wrote:hey, what's that red keyboard off to the left?

-craig

Yeah, that is a classic Roland SH101 in red with the Pistol grip! You can hear it on a lot of Loyalty Day tracks.

Ken

ken wrote: Yeah, that is a classic Roland SH101 in red with the Pistol grip!

sweet!

ken wrote:

starfinger wrote:hey, what's that red keyboard off to the left?

-craig

Yeah, that is a classic Roland SH101 in red with the Pistol grip!

I used to own a SH101 (silver though, not red). Never quite understood what people saw in them, I thought it sounded pretty weedy.

What's the spinal cord chart thingy of?

The SH-101 is awesome. I should be using it more.

I got the TubePre during Nur Ein II, thanks to a tip from Ken about a good deal on a used one on Craig's List. It immediately made a noticeable improvement in the tone of the bass and vocals of our songs, as first heard in our entry for "No One Else". It was one of three improvements to my setup that I made during that competition, the other two being purchasing Reason Drum Kit 2.0, and another 1GB of RAM so I could actually use RDK. (I used it for the drums on "No One Else".)

That chart is titled "The Microcosmic Orbit, Small Heavenly Cycle, The Governor Channel (Yang) as taught by Master Mantak Chia", and it's from the "Healing Tao Center of Taoist Esoteric Yoga". It's a rear view and there's also a front view (same title only it's the "Functional Channel (Yin)"). Erin picked them up somewhere before we met.

I love how the iPod dock jacks into the Governor Channel.

We will all soon benefit from my new studio set up in the main bath room. I've draped my insulating curtains around and it's sweet. Even get somebody's wireless in here

When we moved over the summer, I lost any semblance of private recording space, but I have a decent setup (all thing considered) in the dining room now. everything locks up in a big desk, so the kids can't fart around with things when i'm not looking.

for mixing purposes everything sounds terrible, being in this big box, but what can you do.. it's not like i'm actually making anything!

-craig

Lunkhead wrote:The SH-101 is awesome. I should be using it more.

What's so awesome about it? (Not asking 'cos I want to pick an argument, asking 'cos even after owning one I just don't get why people rate them so highly).

Rabid Garfunkel wrote: And hey, I'm glad to see another person uses a Presonus TubePre.

We can be the TubePre Triplets.

starfinger wrote:everything locks up in a big desk, so the kids can't fart around with things when i'm not looking.

It's great because it's like his secret superspy lair that secretly folds out from this mild-mannered looking dining room. Fantastic.
-bill

Well, to be honest, I haven't really played around much with any other analog synths, so it's entirely possible that what I like about it is generic to analog synths and not specific to the SH-101. Mostly I just like how it sounds, and that it's fairly easy to play around with the parameters and get anything from simple useful synth lead or bass sounds to other stranger stuff. It could be that other synths can do all the same things but better. I'm no synth expert, like I said, so my opinion is not necessarily very well informed.

OK, that makes sense - the SH101 is certainly an easy-to-program synth. Dunno if that explains it's almost mythical status, but at least I can see why some folks would like it now.

HeuristicsInc wrote:We can be the TubePre Triplets.

Doing Del Rubio covers, heh.

OK. Here we go. The new Octothorpe Studio:

General view, from the vocalist's perspective.

Right wall with piano, Note the booth in the back.

Left wall with keyboards, Note posters.

View from the drum set. Note garage door..

The posters. Note SongFight! bias.

TOTALLY HIJACKING IT WHEN I VISIT FOR THANKSGIVING

Looks great Spud, I am so copying the cable hanging system.

How about a picture of what's going on INSIDE "the booth"?

EDIT: I love the "Spud" collection of Mr. Potatoheads on the shelving near the top of the room. They obviously add just the right amount of acoustic soundproofing.