I LOVE owning a studio!

ahh great news... at the start I thought you might have been going in a different direction.

Have a fun night!

best,
mike

ORIGINAL: mike_mccue
ahh great news... at the start I thought you might have been going in a different direction.

It sure ended up being a great session. Fun, comfortable, excellent results... and my buddy (on drums) has been asked to do some other sessions now. May end up working with some really cool people out of this session, and he's been confirmed to do the whole album for this artist. I love putting good folks together!

ORIGINAL: Fog
worst one though, was a singer who had the backing track 1 week before and some lyrics.. of course they couldn't be bothered to learn them nad didn't tell me that till 4 of us got to a studio not near my house ( a friend gave me some time)

Every year, I give away two to four 8-hour gift certificates to non-profits for use as silent auction items. This means I spend at least a couple of days throughout the year working with some very amateur acts. Some are AMAZING... Uncle Bud gets a gift certificate from his niece. Turns out he toured in the 60's and is amazing, just took a job at the Ford factory instead of pursuing music. Other times... not so much.

Four weeks ago a kid came in to do some hip-hop work. Told me he had backing tracks all done... and came in with iTunes files. Ugh. We spent a few hours with him trying to come up with something and I said "Listen... you're throwing away an opportunity here. I'm not going to work with you anymore today... Go home, practice, decide what you want, get the original WAV or AIFF files, and come back when you're ready."

He took it to heart... we've completed two songs. One is solid, the other is AMAZING, and he's booked time, at normal rates, to come in and finish up has album. I'm actually looking forward to working with him now! LOL

You're right, Fog... it's a mixed bag! LOL

Corey

Hey, Jimmy. I've been burned twice by folks unable to pay... So, I have a pretty simple system. We estimate the number of hours, they pay me 50% when they walk in the door, if we hit the estimated total, they pay me the balance, and we move forward to finish the project, billing on an hourly rate. If I don't trust them, they pay me for the about-to-happen session the moment they walk in the door (i.e, walk in at 3PM for a session scheduled from 3-10PM - Pay me for the 7 hours we're about to work).

Regardless, no one walks out with anything to listen to until I have money in my hand. Period. I make this clear RIGHT up front.

Corey

Hey, Jimmy. I've been burned twice by folks unable to pay... So, I have a pretty simple system. We estimate the number of hours, they pay me

50% when they walk in the door, if we hit the estimated total, they pay me the balance, and we move forward to finish the project, billing on an hourly rate. If I don't trust them, they pay me for the about-to-happen session the moment they walk in the door (i.e, walk in at 3PM for a session scheduled from 3-10PM - Pay me for the 7 hours we're about to work).

Regardless, no one walks out with anything to listen to until I have money in my hand. Period. I make this clear RIGHT up front.

hey lazarus

now thats an very good idea. Ive thought about moving from
my small (one room) project studio into my master bedroom
(after its been treated). or use both. I thought about putting
an intrance to the bigger room and limit acess to just to just
the larger room with its own bathroom.

and keep people from seeing any other parts of the house.
maybe even a small counter top and small frig too. what i would
really like to do is only vocals, overdubs, mixing and mastering
etc and not do any "all in one recordings" unless the clients
played with only midi trigers for drums.

and theft is an issue too whether its "breaking in" or "stick it
in the pocket". maybe i can come up with some ideas on that
subject (for me). also a deck adjacent to the studio would be nice.
with a large window veiw to the outside.

a band i once played in rehersed in my little 12 by 14 project
room and even used real drums. it was cramped with all my
studio gear and the players but we did it.

im limited though to only 2 inputs without a multi channel interface
and using only the computor to record on. would muti computors
synced up work? or can it even be done without headachs.

I do as many as 30 tracks of stuff and all kinds of plugins. six
or so effects buses full of plugins. its remarkable how much can
be done with sonar 8 and a computor with only a dual core
processor at about 3 meg.

without knowing first hand id guess that multi channel recording
simultanteusly would really choke it though. maybe you can give
me some insight on that.

jimmy

I do as many as 30 tracks of stuff and all kinds of plugins. six or so effects buses full of plugins. its remarkable how much can be done with sonar 8 and a computor with only a dual core processor at about 3 meg.

without knowing first hand id guess that multi channel recording simultanteusly would really choke it though. maybe you can give me some insight on that.

Check my specs below. You'll see I regularly do 24 in/6-8 out on a MUCH older machine than you have. I run projects with over 100 tracks, 10-16 buses, OODLES of FX, EQ, etc.

Get a decent interface, and you should be able to run rings around me. :-)

Track list from last night:

1- Kick - Beta 52
2 - Kick - PZM outside in a tunnel in front of the kick
3 - Snare top - SM57
4 - Snare bottom - EV Cobalt (57 knockoff... nice top end)
5 - Hat - Apex 430
6 - Rack - SM98A
7 - Floor - SM98A
8/9 - OH L/R - Oktava MC012's into Focusrite ISA 110's
10 - Bass guitar into SansAmp Bass Driver DI
11 - 12-string Guitar SCRATCH - Oktava MC-012
12 - Vocal - SCRATCH - Beta 58

Easy peasy. Slick, no hiccups, and I'm running Sonar 7! LOL

Corey

LOL - well, really... The Bass doesn't need more than one track, and drums MAKE or BREAK an album, in my opinion. Plus, she'll come back later and lay down her vocals and guitar, and then we'll bring in additional musicians to fill things out a bit.

So, yeah... drums were the main focus. Bass sounds AWESOME through that DI.

Corey

im limited though to only 2 inputs without a multi channel interface and using only the computor to record on. would muti computors synced up work? or can it even be done without headachs.

Jimmy, you'll DEFINITELY need more that two inputs if you want to sell time. Look in to a Mackie Onyx 1640 or 1620 (either with the firewire option) as one possibility, although there are surely others.

All the best,
Ed

Jimmy, you'll DEFINITELY need more that two inputs if you want to sell time. Look in to a Mackie Onyx 1640 or 1620 (either with the firewire option) as one possibility, although there are surely others.

hey ed
thanks for the info

corey
i went and checked out your web site. i see you have quit a massiv setup.
i could only get 1 out of 4 tunes to play. but the one sounded very nice. at this
time i dont even use a mixer because i just use (mostly) tubes pres into the
interface. for a one man self production.

i had a 24 channel board set up years ago and this CBr with megawatts of
power was haunting my system. i treid many things like grounding and isolation
but nothing worked. even the fcc wouldnt do anyting about his ilegal setup.

covering the intire room with copper sheathing was out of the question.
Ive got a few differemt mixers. but i just said to myself ill just go without one
and the soundquality instantly improved. but then again none of my boards
are any where near "high end". (and the cbr didnt bleed through anymore)

its very incouraging to know that one can get as many real time inputs
at the same time that you mention. (on the computors) you and i have.
i thought about building a computor "rack" instead of using a "tower"
i dont know if i ever will. but one things for sure its time to deal with
computor fan and drive noise.

i think what is happening to me is im at a stage of getting my own
stuff in pretty good shape and now im wanting to see how ill do with
someone elses stuff.

the timing just happened to be right reading your post about owning a studio
and me thinking about doing this on a small scale. thanks for starting the post.
oh you know what? this might be a subject for a post:

what have they done to my song ma?

(which makes me think of many others but ill stick with this one for now)

i did a production and played almost all the instruments for someone. sent it to them
and they totaly destroyed my work and mixed it down to an awfull sounding mix.
i wanted to crawl in a hole when i heard it.

and what does a person do (engeneer) when the guitar player says they want
the guitar louder when its allready too loud anyway? ive thought about having
an intervue with a poteintal client and saying ok ill do your recording but i have
some rules. lets exchange ideas but let me have the final say so.

such as if your thought or idea is better then we'll go with that. if not we''ll go
with mine.

jimmy