help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

Hi guys

I am currently considering setting up a computer based recording studio.
I already chose the recording software but when I tried the microphones
I bought from currys etc the recording is pretty bad.

My idea is to have a small foldable soundproofing booth in the front
room, a good quality mike, a good soundcard and perhaps some sort of
equip that goes between the mike output and soundcard input ? mixer.

If anyone can shine some light on it, I would appreciate it. As you can
see I am a newbie to this.

Is is a mixer or preamp that I need to be able to connect good quality
microphones to the soundcard input!

Also my budget for soundcard and microphone is around £200 . If anyone
has any suggestions please fire away. It will be used mainly to record
voice.

Thanks
sreekant

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

sreekant wrote:

Hi guys

I am currently considering setting up a computer based recording studio.
I already chose the recording software but when I tried the microphones
I bought from currys etc the recording is pretty bad.

My idea is to have a small foldable soundproofing booth in the front
room, a good quality mike, a good soundcard and perhaps some sort of
equip that goes between the mike output and soundcard input ? mixer.

If anyone can shine some light on it, I would appreciate it. As you can
see I am a newbie to this.

Is is a mixer or preamp that I need to be able to connect good quality
microphones to the soundcard input!

Also my budget for soundcard and microphone is around £200 . If anyone
has any suggestions please fire away. It will be used mainly to record
voice.

Thanks
sreekant

I'd take a look at http://www.soundonsound.com for a start.

Cheers.

James.

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

In article ,
sreekant wrote:
Is is a mixer or preamp that I need to be able to connect good quality
microphones to the soundcard input!

Also my budget for soundcard and microphone is around £200 . If anyone
has any suggestions please fire away. It will be used mainly to record
voice.

Decent voice recording tends to be as difficult a task as most mics ever
get - we all have the chance to compare it to the real thing quite easily,
after all.

Most decent mics suitable for this will be capacitor mics and phantom
powered - which usually means using them in conjunction with a suitable
mixer, and would be hard to achieve new within your budget. However, good
secondhand mics etc are available on the likes of Ebay.

I'm not sure about your portable sound proofing booth. It's likely to make
the sound very 'boxy'. I'd prefer a slight amount of natural room acoustic
- even if this means a slight increase in background sounds, which you're
unlikely to eradicate with a booth anyway. Experimenting with the mic
distance will give a good compromise.

As regards makes for mixer and mics, I'll leave that to others - I'm more
used to pro types which will be rather outside your budget.

--
*The most common name in the world is Mohammed *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

Most decent mics suitable for this will be capacitor mics and phantom
powered - which usually means using them in conjunction with a suitable
mixer, and would be hard to achieve new within your budget. However, good
secondhand mics etc are available on the likes of Ebay.

There are a few mixers under £100. Does anyone know their suitability!
They are at

http://www.jbsmusic.co.uk/validate07...orig_rowid=525
http://www.jbsmusic.co.uk/validate07...orig_rowid=149


I'm not sure about your portable sound proofing booth. It's likely to make
the sound very 'boxy'. I'd prefer a slight amount of natural room acoustic
- even if this means a slight increase in background sounds, which you're
unlikely to eradicate with a booth anyway. Experimenting with the mic
distance will give a good compromise.


I was thinking of creating a soundbooth with double layered styrofoam
kind of material with dimensions of approx 6ftx8ft. Would it still give
boxy sound or would it be fine. I need quite good quality sound but
after counting the amount of hours possibly needed for all the voice
chaps at studio, the bill seem to run too high, hence the home recording.

Thanks
sreekant

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

Hi there

There are a few mixers under £100. Does anyone know their suitability!
They are at

http://www.jbsmusic.co.uk/validate07...orig_rowid=525
http://www.jbsmusic.co.uk/validate07...orig_rowid=149

Besides can any one comment on these two below !

http://www.gear4music.com/index.php?...code=STUDIOPB1
http://www.gear4music.com/index.php?...ls&pcode=UB802


I was thinking of creating a soundbooth with double layered styrofoam
kind of material with dimensions of approx 6ftx8ft. Would it still give
boxy sound or would it be fine. I need quite good quality sound but
after counting the amount of hours possibly needed for all the voice
chaps at studio, the bill seem to run too high, hence the home recording.

Thanks
sreekant

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

sreekant wrote:


I was thinking of creating a soundbooth with double layered styrofoam
kind of material with dimensions of approx 6ftx8ft. Would it still give
boxy sound or would it be fine. I need quite good quality sound but
after counting the amount of hours possibly needed for all the voice
chaps at studio, the bill seem to run too high, hence the home recording.

If you are looking at mixers under 100 pounds then a Soundcraft Folio
Notepad is worth looking at. Go to http://www.studiospares.com and
browse their cataloge.

If you want to improve your acoustics on a tight budget then duvets are
apparently the way to go - see most of the Studio SOS articles in Sound
On Sound magazine. Styrofoam won't really help much.


Cheers.

James.

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

"sreekant" wrote in message
...
Hi guys

I am currently considering setting up a computer based recording studio.
I already chose the recording software but when I tried the microphones
I bought from currys etc the recording is pretty bad.

My idea is to have a small foldable soundproofing booth in the front
room, a good quality mike, a good soundcard and perhaps some sort of
equip that goes between the mike output and soundcard input ? mixer.

If anyone can shine some light on it, I would appreciate it. As you can
see I am a newbie to this.

Is is a mixer or preamp that I need to be able to connect good quality
microphones to the soundcard input!

Also my budget for soundcard and microphone is around £200 . If anyone
has any suggestions please fire away. It will be used mainly to record
voice.

Thanks
sreekant


I don't want to put a damper on your enthusiasm, but I wonder if
you will achieve results that will please you on such a shoestring budget.
You might be better off renting some time (for vocals at least) in a
professional studio with a competent engineer who can offer you a
Neumann condenser microphone, a good compressor/limiter, and some
realistic sounding reverb for the vocal. Most vocalists perform better when
the foldback and monitor reverb for the vocal is "just right" . This takes
some
skill to achieve. I think you should put yourself in the hands of a
professional
who knows how to achieve the sound you are looking for. if you have some
particular vocal sound in mind, take a CD for the engineer to listen to, and
work with him to achieve your goal.

Many studios offer "cancelled time" at very cheap rates. By taking advantage
of this, you have a much better chance of reaching the standard you are
seeking.

Cordially,

Iain

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

In article ,
sreekant wrote:
I need quite good quality sound but
after counting the amount of hours possibly needed for all the voice
chaps at studio, the bill seem to run too high, hence the home recording.

Are you aiming at recording the spoken word (as I assumed), or someone
singing? If singing, what type of music?

--
*How many roads must a man travel down before he admits he is lost?

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

"James Perrett" wrote in message
...
sreekant wrote:


I was thinking of creating a soundbooth with double layered styrofoam
kind of material with dimensions of approx 6ftx8ft. Would it still give
boxy sound or would it be fine. I need quite good quality sound but
after counting the amount of hours possibly needed for all the voice
chaps at studio, the bill seem to run too high, hence the home
recording.

If you are looking at mixers under 100 pounds then a Soundcraft Folio
Notepad is worth looking at. Go to http://www.studiospares.com and
browse their cataloge.


I agree that the Notepad is very good. The Behringer you mentioned is the
right kind of mixer, the earlier 2 were aimed at DJing. Soundcraft also have
a new series (see
http://www.gear4music.com/index.php?...pcode=RW5677UK on the
site you previously mentioned) which apparently have been set up for ease of
monitoring when used with computers. However, since you are using a
computer, you may find it better to forget the sound card and mixer and go
for a dedicated computer interface. I use an M-Audio Firewire 410
(http://www.gear4music.com/index.php?...&pcode=FIRE410 ) with a
Mac laptop, but there are cheaper alternatives.

I had no idea that the Studio Projects B1 mic was now available for £59.
They get a good write up amongst the bedroom studio brigade. I might buy a
pair myself. The AKG C1000 is one of the classic mics for recording acoustic
instruments but a bit pricey (though not for the performance).

Oh and yes, as mentioned before, read Sound on Sound. The website
http://www.soundonsound.com allows you to look back at older articles free
and is a goldmine of information. There is also an excellent reader's ads
section.

Roy.

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

Hi

I will try and harass my local studio :-)

Thanks a lot
sreekant
Many studios offer "cancelled time" at very cheap rates. By taking advantage
of this, you have a much better chance of reaching the standard you are
seeking.

Cordially,

Iain

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

Hi

I did have a read through the articles on SOS and it seem very good. I
have also been searching more and found a MXL1006 condenser mic and a
Yamaha MG102 analog mixer with builtin phantom power. The pair of those
seem to cost just under £150. I don't know how good the recording would
be to record the dialogues of an animation. I will mainly be using it
for voiceovers.

The main reason I am favouring Yamaha mixer is the builtin phantom power
supply.

If you are looking at mixers under 100 pounds then a Soundcraft Folio
Notepad is worth looking at. Go to http://www.studiospares.com and
browse their cataloge.


Duvets noted. I would probably raid the local market hall over this
weekend to get a few.

If you want to improve your acoustics on a tight budget then duvets are
apparently the way to go - see most of the Studio SOS articles in Sound
On Sound magazine. Styrofoam won't really help much.


Cheers.

James.

Ta
sreekant

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
sreekant wrote:

I need quite good quality sound but
after counting the amount of hours possibly needed for all the voice
chaps at studio, the bill seem to run too high, hence the home recording.


Are you aiming at recording the spoken word (as I assumed), or someone
singing? If singing, what type of music?


Hi

I am mainly looking to record voiceovers for an animation I am making.
It is unlikely that there will be any singing soon :-)

Thanks
sreekant

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

In article ,
sreekant wrote:
Are you aiming at recording the spoken word (as I assumed), or someone
singing? If singing, what type of music?

I am mainly looking to record voiceovers for an animation I am making.
It is unlikely that there will be any singing soon :-)

Right - that's what I thought. A mic that might be ok for a singist buried
within a music mix is not necessarily going to sound good when exposed
with the spoken word. And frequently will sound horrid.

The industry 'standard' for this sort of thing would be a U87 - but even
used scruffy ones will fetch more than your budget. However, there are
several Chinese and Russian large diaphragm mics that do a similar job. I
wonder if you could find a friendly local shop that would allow you to try
perhaps secondhand ones and decide which one suits you best?

Few want this sort of mic - compared to PA type mics - so there might be a
larger selection of them available secondhand.

--
*Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

sreekant wrote:

Also my budget for soundcard and microphone is around £200 . If anyone
has any suggestions please fire away. It will be used mainly to record
voice.

Microphone - Superlux CMH8A
http://www.baldbeat.com/shop/catalog...roducts_id=160
62 quid including shockmount and pop shield

USB audio interface with phantom power http://www.dv247.com/invt/16189 160
quid.

So a little over 200 quid but much better results than you'll get with a
cheap internal soundcard.



--
"Get a paper bag"

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

USB audio interface with phantom power http://www.dv247.com/invt/16189 160
quid.

So a little over 200 quid but much better results than you'll get with a
cheap internal soundcard.




Hi there

Would an audio card with 96Khz sampling, still fall below that US122
external sampler! I remember reading that ensoniq has one of the decent
A/D Converters among user range snd cards.

Thanks
sreekant

help setting up a recording studio at home!
 

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote:

In article ,
sreekant wrote:
Are you aiming at recording the spoken word (as I assumed), or someone
singing? If singing, what type of music?

I am mainly looking to record voiceovers for an animation I am making.
It is unlikely that there will be any singing soon :-)

Right - that's what I thought. A mic that might be ok for a singist buried
within a music mix is not necessarily going to sound good when exposed
with the spoken word. And frequently will sound horrid.

The industry 'standard' for this sort of thing would be a U87 - but even
used scruffy ones will fetch more than your budget. However, there are
several Chinese and Russian large diaphragm mics that do a similar job. I
wonder if you could find a friendly local shop that would allow you to try
perhaps secondhand ones and decide which one suits you best?

Few want this sort of mic - compared to PA type mics - so there might be a
larger selection of them available secondhand.

I don't know - nowadays it seems like everyone wants a studio at home so
studio type mics are in demand. Maybe when home recording goes out of
fashion we'll see glut of cheap Chinese mics on the market but the
Chinese seem to be undercutting themselves already - take a look at
http://www.red5audio.com - they're selling a U87 lookalike for around 50
quid (and I've seen similar mics for $39 in the USA).

Cheers.

James.