descripción del evento

Jul 07,2015

Roy Silverstein is the owner of Rarefied Recording, a professional studio in San Diego CA. He developed this very insightful guide on how to build your own studio. He talks about everything, including choosing a proper location, building, sound proofing, purchasing gear, and much more.  He spent many years researching in order to create his studio, and now this information is available to help you make the best decisions. His story and process of creating his studio will help you prepare for what’s next.

Big Concepts

Delayed Gratification

Never stop recording

Build it up slowly

Identify the weakest link

Do it for the love, not the money

Plan, plan, plan. Then execute

Outline for Home Studio Basics

• Roy's story

• Brief

• Intersperse details in the rest of the presentation

• The Space

• Parent’s house?

• Bedroom

• Basement

• Attic

• Other

• Renting or Buying

• Apartment = bad

• House

• If you can’t afford the entire rent/mortgage, get roommates who are cool w/ it

• Rural location? Lots of space so you’re not bugging your neighbors.

• If urban, look for

• Corner house

• Quiet street

• Decent sized living room w/ adjacent bedroom

• High ceilings

• Hard wood floors

• Room treatment for Control Room

• High frequency absorption (foam) at first reflection points and ceiling above mix position

• Explain how to use mirrors to find first reflection points.

• Diffusion on back wall

• Use a book case

• Build your own

• Couch at back of room

• Good place for clients

• Acts as a nice absorber/bass trap

• Bass trapping

• Don’t use the foam stuff

• Use rigid fiberglass

• Treat corners of the room

• Select a setup that provides the most symmetry

• Room treatment for Live Room

• Generally recommend limited or no treatment

• Use soft furniture if you need to reduce ambience in the room

• Gear

• Start with the basics

• Computer (desktop or laptop)

• DAW

• Plug-ins (don’t spend a lot)

• Interface (probably w/ integrated mic pre’s, DI’s)

• Basic mics

• Shure SM57: guitar, snare, general

• AKG D112: kick drum

• Sennheiser MD421: toms, guitar

• Electrovoice RE-20: floor tom, bass

• Pair of LDC’s (AT 40 series?): Drum overhead’s, vocals, general

• Powered monitors

• Headphones and headphone amp

• Misc.

• Mic stands

• Cables

• Post-basic setup

• Identify gaps and weakest links and buy them first

• Buy hardware over plug-ins

• Resell value

• Can’t become obsolete

• More fun!

• Potential gaps

• Analog compressor

• Analog EQ

• Good mic pre

• Good DI

• Spring reverb

• Instruments

• Drum kit

• Keyboards

• Guitars

• Basses

• Amps

• Other

• Other mics

• Ribbons

• Tube mics

• Effect mics

• Specialty processing

• Transient designer

• Tape machine or tape machine emulator

• Effects

• Trashy compressor/limiters

• De-esser

• Gate

• 500 series

• Patchbay

• Once you have a lot of gear, it will become essential.

• Learn how to organize, setup, and use a patchbay. It will become a valuable tool/skill later on.

• The weakest link concept

• You signal chain is only as strong as the weakest link

• Where did you skimp the most? Start there.

• Likely items to upgrade

• Your interface

• Your mic pre’s

• Your monitors

• Your mics

• The long tail

• You’ll never want to stop buying gear!

• Continue to identify gaps and weak links and fill/fix them.

• Look for deals and jump on them.

• Buy classics or good copies of classics

• Their classic for a reason!

• Research copies carefully

• Consider your work flow

• Would an analog mixer improve your flow?

• Summing buss?

• Control surface?

• What do you tend to need multiple of?

• Mic pre’s

• Compressors

• Buy stereo pairs when you can

• Flavors

• All types of gear have specific variants (e.g. opto compressor vs. vari-mu compressor, vs. FET compressor)

• Collecting different flavors gives you a wide sonic palate to choose from.

• Once the racks are full

• Focus on mics and instruments

• Plug-ins

• Choose wisely

• If you already have the HW version, do you really need the SW?

• If you absolutely can’t afford the HW, an emulation may be a good choice.

Outline For Attaining Your Wildest Studio Dreams

• Never stop recording

• No matter what your current situation is, record as much as you can

• Keep your chops up

• Practice makes perfect

• Start making a name for yourself (track record)

• Forget Recording School

• A good way to rack up a lot of debt and come out with no marketable skills

• Big studios are mainly gone and barely hiring

• Smaller studios can’t afford to hire

• Adjacent markets may exist, but do they pay good money?

• You can learn a lot from reading, watching, and doing

• Instead, seek a career path that pays well

• The case for Engineering

• The gear you love is made by electrical engineers and/or computer scientists

• Learning these disciplines improves your:

• Understanding of what gear does

• Troubleshooting ability

• Ability to design or build your own gear/plug-ins

• Discuss my personal education story

• Pays great

• Only requires 4 years of college (no Masters or PhD required)

• Huge job market.

• Think of today’s biggest companies. Most are tech companies.

• Serious lack of engineering talent graduating from universities (especially in the US).

• Starting salaries are awesome

• Southern California rate for entry level Electrical Engineer:~$70k typical

• Pay scale advances rapidly

• You can expect to make six figures in under 10 years

• They usually pay out bonuses and give stock options

• FREE Money!

• 401k

• Important to start from the very beginning to build that future nest egg.

• Benefits, sick time, and vacation

• All equates to more time for recording!

• Save Save Save!

• To build something like Rarefied, it simply costs a lot of money.

• Do not buy gear or build out a studio on credit or loan.

• A recipe for financial ruin.

• Judiciously save money from every paycheck, bonus, stock sale, inheritance, etc.

• Invest your money conservatively.

• Stocks are too volatile and may leave you in a lurch right when you’re ready to pull the trigger. Keep the amount you invest in stocks modest and diversify!

• Work with a financial planner to identify the best investments to meet your goals.

• First you need somewhere to build

• You need to save for a down payment on a house

• Do not build a studio on or in a property you rent or lease

• Most realistic to plan on building a studio at your residence

• Carrying two mortgages is very costly

• Definitely buy a house, not a condo or townhouse!

• Existing granny flat?

• Zoned for having a granny flat?

• Room to build in back or add on to house

• Check Municipal Code before buying

• What % of property can you build on?

• How much space does the existing house take up?

• Don’t buy more than you can afford!

• Consider worst case scenario if your income fell a lot

• You don’t want to build your dream studio and then lose your house in a foreclosure.

• Personal story about the space I found

• Then you need enough money to do the build-out

• Construction costs vary from area to area, but studio construction is extra costly

• Because you are building rooms within rooms and doing other unusual things, the cost can be double or triple what it normally would cost if you were just building a basic living room or bedroom.

• If you’re handy you can save some money

• Obviously, the more work you can do yourself, the more you save, but consider:

• Your time is money and you don’t have a lot of it to begin with.

• If you screw something up, it can ruin the project or cost a lot to fix.

• If you want something done right, hire a pro!

• Where to definitely use specialists

• Studio design

• You can read books and design it yourself, but a professional studio designer is going to bring a lot more to the table.

• Acoustic related build-out

• The basic shell of a building can be done by a general contractor.

• But when it comes to the “weird” studio stuff, an acoustic specialist is best.

• General contractors are going to be baffled by things needed for proper studio construction. They may think the plans are crazy. Choose one that is humble and watch their work closely. Send pictures to your architect or acoustics guy.

• Audio wiring

• You may be tempted to do it yourself, but it is a lot of work!

• Tons of soldering

• A lot of cable running

• A lot of patchbay configuration

• Local architect

• Good for understanding the details of your local code so your studio designer doesn’t design something that can’t be permitted

• Good for walking your design through the permitting phase.

• Can act as a construction over-seer.