Rimskidog

[quote name='ahpook' post='521302' date='Jun 22 2009, 11:22 PM']you know an awful lot more about this than me.[/quote] We're all still learning feller!

[quote name='51m0n' post='521240' date='Jun 22 2009, 10:22 PM']Getting the right mics for drums if you have the time can take ages. Really![/quote] Hell yeah. I know one engineer who took over 3 months getting the right snare sound for one song. Seriously! [quote name='51m0n' post='521240' date='Jun 22 2009, 10:22 PM']Saying get a condenser is fine, but you can in certain circumstance do way better with a great dynamic (RE20) or a nice ribon (Cascade Fat Head) or something different (Heil PR40 - its a dynamic but not as we know it Jim, it uses neo magnets). Not to mention the sheer number of bad condensors out there.... I'd bet on a dynamic up to £500 over a Condenser up to £500 myself for vox, over that and the condensers start getting interesting IMO...[/quote] Yep. Agree here (mostly) too though I find the shure sm7 is a more flexible dynamic (with the RE20 a close second) and have never yet found a voice that works well on a fathead (awesome on overheads or heavy guitars though). I'm more likely to stick up an R84 on vox if I really want the ribbon vibe. That has it in spades. I havent really found a condenser I really liked for less than £500 (though the Rode NT2a and Mojave MA200 are pretty useable)

[quote name='ahpook' post='521174' date='Jun 22 2009, 09:26 PM']that's why i'm suggesting trying to get hold of a condensor mic, so the choice is there.[/quote] Yeah I get what you are saying but "a condenser mic" is a very wide church. I have a locker full of them and every damn one of them sounds different. One condenser might sound awful with that voice in that song. Another might sound amazing. Try a condenser mic is a bit like saying 'try a stringed instrument'. Here's a good example. Listen to the tracks SDC1 and SDC2 here: [url="http://www.myspace.com/circledemos"]http://www.myspace.com/circledemos[/url]. Each of them is a high end small diaphragm condensers recording exactly the same performance. Both pointing over the players shoulder directly across the picking hand toward the thigh. Both sound very different. As it happens both work pretty well in this clip but imagine it was a voice being captured. One might work very well. Another might not. Make sense? Sorry, not intending to labour the point. Just trying to open people's eyes/ears to a whole new way of thinking about recording.

[quote name='ahpook' post='520878' date='Jun 22 2009, 04:36 PM']sure you can't get your hands on a condensor mic for the vocals ? each to their own of course, but i've always got much better results using a condensor than a dynamic mic for voice.[/quote] Horses for courses. Depends entirely on how the singer sounds and what the song needs. Sometimes one mic is better, sometimes another.

Try all the mics. To be hnest you need a decent pre to get the best out of any of them. Good advice re popshiled given above. Presuming you havent got a great sounding room so get a duvet and hang it up in the corner of the room so it follows the 90 degree angle. Get the singer to stand with his back to the duvet and sing out into the room. The cardoid pattern of the mics (not sure about the Senn) will prevent reflections coming back into the mic from the room, and the duvet behind ill prevent reflections from the wall behind you. Cheapest and most effective vocal booth I know of! Better still if you have access to a reflexion filter. Good luck!

Thanks man. Don't be humbled hough. Horses for courses and all that! Anyways, yesterday I spent the day sanding down the plaster. Today it was time to start painting! First coat is a white matt emulsion made especially for fresh plaster. Here's the long wall (not quite finished the first coat): And the short wall (with first coat done): Here's a different angle: And then as procrastination levels set in I thought I'd stand my reversible rpg panels roughly in place to see how it's gonna feel when it's finally done:

Walls are now all plastered, electric sockets and wall uplighters are in: and the booth got a bit higher:

[quote name='lozbass' post='519121' date='Jun 20 2009, 10:20 AM']Whoaaa! That's done it...I was fine but I realise I want a Spyder now - just fabulous! I'm pretty sure the sound of this lives up to the looks[/quote] Make me an offer I can't refuse...!

Here ya go: And another (yes I deleted the serial number... you can't be too careful): And the crazy headstock:

[quote name='lozbass' post='518980' date='Jun 19 2009, 11:47 PM']The Spyder - oh yes! Absolutely bl**dy marvellous - not really a bass for the wallflower player. I just love Alembic's ability to make the outrageous look classy and cool. Any chance of some close-ups?[/quote] No probs. Will get some up

[quote name='jwbassman' post='518954' date='Jun 19 2009, 11:12 PM']Ouch - I'm guessing it's a case of I've started so I'll finish - I'm sure it will be well worth it in the end [/quote] Yep. Not a lot you can do with a half finished studio! I bloody hope it'll be worth it!

[quote name='jwbassman' post='518945' date='Jun 19 2009, 11:00 PM']I like the shot of the floor makes it look huge Thanks again for the thread and the constant steam of photo updates - what's the project timescale for getting it totally finished?[/quote] Totally finished? No bloody idea. This phase was supposed to be finished in April. It overran by about 3 months and £40k! At this point I just gotta make some money as I'm hurting so I'm pushing back the control room phase. Happily I've got work to see me through most of the year so it probably wont start until Christmas at this point. I'm giving the old control room a facelift and it will do the job for the time being.

Here's my Spyder. No.4 of 50 made. No pictures of me playing it. I've reached the age that it's just too bloody heavy to use on stage (in fact I sometimes worry it's gonna bring that wall down!)

Nice to see another Brummie around these parts!

[quote name='horribleman' post='518209' date='Jun 19 2009, 11:13 AM']Jazz neck![/quote] Yes indeed. Geddy Lee Jazz neck in fact.

Here's a shot of the booth being plastered inside. This probably gives the best idea of scale so far:

Spent a bit of time cleaning the place up and tried to take some better pics. What do you think? Do these give a better idea of size? One with a bit more ceiling showing: And one with a bit more floor:

Scaffolding is finally down! The two big walls are plastered and most of the ceiling. Ran out of plasterboard (about one sheet short!) Booth needs to be finished and boarded out, doors, lights etc are going in soon. Need to get someone in with a decent camera as mine makes it look about the size of our boxroom at home! Here's a shot toward the booth: Here's the wall to the left of the booth: Here's one half of the long wall: and here's the other half:

[quote name='51m0n' post='518156' date='Jun 19 2009, 10:28 AM']If you have the shell of the room finished like this - ie so its its own great big f off diffuser, what does it sound like in there at the mo, I know its not finished by any means, but I'm fascinated to know! You know how if you clap you hands in an empty room with bare plaster walls you get masses of flutter echo off the parallel walls, I would imagine its even in this state a far shorter and smoother reverb in there (though still very bright) - or am I talking complete plop? So record a clap for us [/quote] No flutter echo whatsoever. Medium length but (maybe 3 seconds) but smooth even reverb tail. Dont really have a particularly mobile rig (PTHD/mac pro) so difficult to record anything for ya and there's no gear in the studio at the moment. Anyone got a decent 24 bit handheld recorder?

I have both a geddy lee jazz and an old precision with a geddy lee neck. Cracking!

[quote name='barry44' post='515284' date='Jun 16 2009, 01:42 PM'][attachment=27158:DSC00090.JPG] what about black/black/maple? yum [/quote] Now yer talkin! You can't beat an old P bass. Here's my old faithful:

[quote name='jonthebass' post='517873' date='Jun 18 2009, 09:48 PM']Great thread you're running here and great pictures. Thanks for doing this for us all to see. Hope all's going well still? Cheers, Jon.[/quote] Thanks man! All going great. Things are happening really fast now. I'll get more pics up over the weekend to bring you up to date!

Oops/// I got a bit out of sequence here. Ceiling was plastered before walls were finished: and another shot: and another:

[quote name='escholl' post='515728' date='Jun 16 2009, 08:43 PM']No, that's just how they sound They're more than just hype though, they really are very good for what they're used for, supported by actual science even! There's a reason why they became the near-field speaker of choice for so many studios -- and as mentioned, if a mix sounds good on there, it's likely to sound good anywhere. Acoustic Energy have now released a significant update on the theory which I intend to get a hold of when I've got the money. [i]Supposedly[/i], the woofer makes a good kick mic as well, if you reverse wire the speaker up as a dynamic mic. I've heard a few different studio types mention it, but I've never tried it, so it could be complete bollox.[/quote] NS10's are awful. That's the whole point. When they became popular it was because they were as bad as most cheap home stereo's of the day. The idea was that if you checked your mix on them and it sounded ok then 1. that's how it would sound on a crappy home stereo and 2. it would sound great on anything even marginally better (they really are that awful!) Now what happened from there was that they became pretty ubiquitous (i.e., every studio had some) and people who had regular access to them 'learned' their flaws. Put those two things together and you've got dynamite because for freelancers (like me) it was possible to walk in any studio and 'know' how a mix should sound on those nasty things. What can you learn from that experience? Well, you can learn that even crappy speakers can be learned. For these purposes every one of the models mentioned above fit in this category. They are not flat but can be learned. The entry level reasonably flat studio monitor include Adam A7's, Dynaudio BM5a and Genelec 8030. Anything lower than that and you are going to have to work much harder to get a decent mix. Period. But (and it's a big but) if you are willing to put in 2 or 3 years of work on them eventually you'll start doing decent mixes even without anything else. Nw what are you waiting for... get to work! And FWIW, you don't need an NS10 driver to do the subkick trick. Any speaker will do it.

Finally pretty much all of the plaster-boarding (save for inside the booth) is finished. Here's a sample shot: Plastering can now begin in earnest!