Mixing and Production / Gear

[wastelandofyourhead]

[Place holder for those like TheYoungest and others to discuss this topic]

And if you are interested in general -- What is your gear? What do you like to listen to (or mix) music on?

I still don't have proper studio monitors. I'm holding on to a pair of 90's Bose Series 301 shelf speakers but their response is so colored I can't trust the mix and they are beginning to sound like garbage to my ears these days. I A/B mix with them and a pair of Grado headphones.

I did just pick up a pair of vintage monitor series loudspeakers at the local consignment shop:

1984 - Polk Audio Monitor Series 4a w/ passive high & low pass crossover filters (no bandpass).

I was impressed with how flat the response was compared to my $300 Bose Series 301s.

The problem with these speakers I found out when installing them at home -- one of the tweeters is out. Too bad because they sounded really nice as a poor-man's monitor until I get better. In the meantime, I removed both of the tweeters and installed some generic ones. The treble and high-mid is no longer balanced and I couldn't use these as-is. But they are serving as a nice listening speaker on the system in the garage. I'm still tempted to use these as a B mix reference (even though I can't trust the higher frequencies) because it could really help me to sort out the mid-range mud.

The rest of my sequencing/recording/mixing gear:

-Desktop PC running an AMD quad-core. Installed Renoise 3.0, Adobe Audition, many $ VSTis and VSTes.
-PC has an internal EMU1212m PCI audio card (two PCIs actually) with multiple digital/analog IOs.
-Denon amp run from the PC with digital optical
-Behringer analog mixing board (for recording vocals mainly)
-Multiple mics. Predominantly a Sure Beta 57A & some Behringer stereo condensors.
-The aforementioned speakers/headphones plus an Onkyo powered sub to fill out the lows.
-M-Audio o2 usb keyboard (I have a vintage Roland Alpha Juno II but it's being restored atm)
-Collection of acoustic guitars (Nothing too fancy - an Applause and a generic Spanish nylon string, namely)

 

[CrystalGeezer]

I play youtube clips and songs from my iTunes at the same time. That is all.

(Those are beautiful speakers.)

 

[FER]

The rest of my sequencing/recording/mixing gear:

-Desktop PC running an AMD quad-core. Installed Renoise 3.0, Adobe Audition, many $ VSTis and VSTes.
-PC has an internal EMU1212m PCI audio card (two PCIs actually) with multiple digital/analog IOs.
-Denon amp run from the PC with digital optical
-Behringer analog mixing board (for recording vocals mainly)
-Multiple mics. Predominantly a Sure Beta 57A & some Behringer stereo condensors.
-The aforementioned speakers/headphones plus an Onkyo powered sub to fill out the lows.
-M-Audio o2 usb keyboard (I have a vintage Roland Alpha Juno II but it's being restored atm)
-Collection of acoustic guitars (Nothing too fancy - an Applause and a generic Spanish nylon string, namely)

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but when I was building out a screening room in my home I frequented a variety of forums such as gearslutz so that I could educate myself on room treatments. There are definitely some characters there. Anyways, I was wondering what your studio looks like. Do you have any pictures or can you give a little more detail on the treatments, acoustics. Im assuming your space must be really dead?

I'm still thinking about getting some landscape diffusers for my space, Im currently using space decouplers over the listening position and while I'm satisfied with them, I really, really, like the look of landcsape diffusers.

 

[wastelandofyourhead]

I am by no means an expert on this topic, but when I was building out a screening room in my home I frequented a variety of forums such as gearslutz so that I could educate myself on room treatments. There are definitely some characters there. Anyways, I was wondering what your studio looks like. Do you have any pictures or can you give a little more detail on the treatments, acoustics. Im assuming your space must be really dead?

I'm still thinking about getting some landscape diffusers for my space, Im currently using space decouplers over the listening position and while I'm satisfied with them, I really, really, like the look of landcsape diffusers.

Haha, no I'm afraid it is not! Landscape diffusers do look really nice though. I'm not an expert by any means. Just have put my time in. I'm more DIY than audiophile. I put my gear together on the cheap. We bought this house a year ago and my "studio" is our office room. I'm not sure how much more adaption I can get my wife to accept atm.

I just bought another vintage synth and I'm wondering how to work that into the space equation. Room acoustics would be great, but that's a ways off for me. Draping bedding over the windows while recording is all I have done at this point.

*edit here's a couple pics

Nothing fancy about it -- just a workspace with a lot of wires. Extra messy atm while I program some patches on my new toy before taking it apart for a restoration job.
It has a couple damaged keys and all the contacts could use cleaning. Scored it for next to nothing. 1985 Korg DW-6000. Easy to program and has a classic sound.

 

[the raytownian]

PC recording is out of the question for me these days since I haven't got an audio interface, and the soundcard in my old Dell is just... really bad.
I've got a nice ghetto studio, though... Since I can't do PC recording, I run my mixer's tape outs into a number of recording devices hooked up via patch bay. The main recorder I use is an old Sony MiniDisc unit. I guess it's not "high-res", but it works really well for my needs.

I've got some crappy old gateway speakers plugged into the mixer to monitor... As I said, it's really low-rent. They are garbage for getting a good representation of the true signal, but they're really small and really easy to work into a shitty noise rig, so I can't complain.

I'm really only a hobbyist musician, so I never grew out of using FLStudio to record "computer stuff"... I don't even have a MIDI controller... since 2003, I've been using the mouse to record automation! It's a pain in the ass, but I'm too cheap to get a real controller.

 

[FER]

Haha, no I'm afraid it is not! Landscape diffusers do look really nice though. I'm not an expert by any means. Just have put my time in. I'm more DIY than audiophile. I put my gear together on the cheap. We bought this house a year ago and my "studio" is our office room. I'm not sure how much more adaption I can get my wife to accept atm.

I just bought another vintage synth and I'm wondering how to work that into the space equation. Room acoustics would be great, but that's a ways off for me. Draping bedding over the windows while recording is all I have done at this point.

*edit here's a couple pics

Nothing fancy about it -- just a workspace with a lot of wires. Extra messy atm while I program some patches on my new toy before taking it apart for a restoration job.
It has a couple damaged keys and all the contacts could use cleaning. Scored it for next to nothing. 1985 Korg DW-6000. Easy to program and has a classic sound.

Looks good, dude! I'd love to hear what you're up to in there . Easy to DIY some good panels, and might be useful at the reflection points. I'm sure you know that.

Looks like a nice room.

 

[wastelandofyourhead]

Looks good, dude! I'd love to hear what you're up to in there . Easy to DIY some good panels, and might be useful at the reflection points. I'm sure you know that.

Looks like a nice room.

Yeah, you are right about that. I should look into something. What I am up to in here is a little of this a little of that. I do these online competitions every month. Sometimes I mess around with making a cover, although I haven't lately. I've kind of still been defining my production method. I only switched fully to the DAW I'm using now a few months ago. And I'm not actually running midi at the moment. Need to get an adapter cable to inteface a midi mini-din to full-size so my soundcard can run the live gear. I can't really play keyboard live. Just use them to input composition one note or one chord at a time. I do play guitar though so I have my eye on a couple of those midi guitars. Using one of those to input and drive analog synths would be dope.

Here's my hack at live playing some patches on this new Korg last night. No effects added on the synth. Ran it over a drum loop.
http://directionless.mynoisebleeds.com/host/music/korg%20test.mp3