Discount Musical instruments - By 2Kool4Skool

Cirrus' Guide to a Quality Home Studio

Table Of Contents
Ears
Room
Monitors
The Computer
Digital Audio Interface
Software - DAW's
What about other software?
Mic Preamp
Microphones
Mixer
Patch Bays
Cabling and Connectors
Outboard Gear
Other Studio Items
Tips on Buying Gear
Mixing and Mastering
Final Notes

What Gear Do I Need To Buy In Order To Produce Electronic Music

This is the question we get asked more than any other. Almost every day, someone wants to know if they should buy this groove box thing or that, is Logic better than Digital Performer or, what can I buy that will make my mix sound more "professional"?

            The bottom line is:

• 1.    There is nothing you can buy that will make your mixes automatically sound pro.
  
  
• 2.    We don't know if Logic sounds better than DP or Cubase or if 192k is worth upgrading to if you are mixing tracks full of samples and synths, or if your mix will sound better if you record it while chanting and dancing around the room butt naked.  (Frankly, we don't want to know)
  
  
• 3.    There are no definite answers or rules when it comes to making music.  It is all subjective.

            However, there are guidelines that you can follow, and of course, we certainly have our own opinions.  Just remember that these are our opinions.  We may state them like facts, and we do practice what we preach, but there are many ways to go about this subject. We have been wrong about a lot of things before but the advice given here has worked for us (and quite a few others). If you value our opinions, we are very flattered.

            The first point to make is that producing well takes practice and time.  We are always learning new things.  It has been almost ten years since we started and we only recently feel like we began to get good at it.  Our latest work is on a whole different level compared to our "earlier" stuff.  Maybe we were just late bloomers, but it took time, inspiration, knowledge and a whole lot of trial and error to get to this point (and we agree we still have a lot to learn).

            The second point is, don't ever be discouraged by the first point.  The most important thing to remember is that creativity is paramount to producing music.  Luckily, creativity is not something that necessarily comes with experience.  Most people are born with tons of it.  If you haven't realized your creativity yet, producing or writing music may open a portal to your true potential.  The fact is, most people would rather listen to a great song in mono, on a crappy transistor radio, than the most wonderfully produced 5.1 surround piece of crap track on a perfectly tuned audiophile grade system.

            But, since the first point involves something you need to do on your own, and the second point is really difficult to talk about, we will concentrate on point number three:

Selecting quality equipment and using it properly can help you to produce better, cleaner, more professional tracks.

How to set up a quality studio and produce better sounding tracks.

We will start with what we feel are the most important things and continue in descending order. Each one builds upon the foundation that the previous one creates. Skipping important steps in creating your studio could compromise your end result dramatically. Some things you will need to buy (or make, or borrow). Other things you just can't buy. There may be some things we suggest having that you can't quite afford yet. If this is the case, just take your time. Use what is available to you and save up for the quality equipment that you really need. Don't waste your money on sub-standard gear, don't half ass your studio setup, and don't get yourself in over your head with debt in order to have the newest latest bestest gizmos. We have done all three and we don't recommend it.

(Note:  This article is full of links to more in-depth information. Clicking on these links will open a new window with that information, so that you wont lose your place while reading.  As you go, feel free to save these links (that hopefully still work) in your favorites so that you can refer to them later.)

Ears

            As far as sounds go, they all end up in two places. Your ears.  Take care of them.  When we were starting out, we put our heads inside every bass bin from L.A. to Berlin before we realized it wasn't a good thing.  These days we protect our hearing with earplugs and low volume levels and we try to stay healthy.  Don't mix, or make important producing decisions, when you are ill or in a poor listening environment.  Don't be discouraged if you already have some hearing damage. You can still be a good producer with practice and a little trial and error.  Everyone should read this information about protecting your ears.  Next to your soul and your brain, they are your most important pieces of music making equipment.

Room

            Before you start setting up all that new gear you just bought, you better think twice about the room you plan on putting it in.  The room that you produce and mix in is even more important than the monitors (speakers) you use.  Each room has it's own sound. The size and shape of a room along with the materials used to build it, and the things in it, give each room it's own sound characteristic.  The same monitor will sound different in each room you place it in.  Your ears will hear differently depending on the room. 

            Building rooms for recording and listening to music and other sounds is a science in and of itself.  It has everything to do with the behavior of sound waves traveling through the air and bouncing off of or getting absorbed by various materials.  Libraries are full of books on the subject and it can get incredibly complicated.  There are, however, some basic guidelines, especially if you aren't building a room from the ground up.  When we are talking about electronic dance music and the beginning producer, the type of room we are usually referring to is a dual use, recording and mixing (and sometimes sleeping and eating), home studio.  The goal is to create a listening and recording environment that is accurate and comfortable.  You need to be able to make good musical production decisions every step of the way.  Tweaking synths, selecting samples, and editing tracks require the same accurate listening environment as mixing and recording.  If you are really interested in room design for acoustics and you love to read until your eyeballs pop out of your head, you can find more information here.

There is no such thing as the perfect room. There is, however, such a thing as a bad sounding room and, while you can buy or make certain products that will "treat" a room's bad qualities, it is far better to have a room that sounds pretty good to begin with.

• 1.         Don't be square.  Or cubed for that matter.  A room that is square, a 10' x 10' room for instance, will grossly emphasize one particular audio frequency (usually a mid to low end frequency), thereby distorting your perception of sound. Having cube shaped room, a 10' x 10' room with 10' ceilings for instance, compounds the problem, creating absolute havoc with mixes and makes listening to anything (even the human voice or a television) an unpleasant experience.  These emphasized frequencies are the result of standing waves. If you want to learn more about them, you can do so here.  Making one or more walls sit at an angle, so that the room is not perfectly square, will alleviate this problem to some extent.  This is not really practical if the room is already built and if you were designing a room from scratch you would stay clear from squares in the first place.  Avoid these kinds of rooms at all cost.  Rectangles or other shapes are much better for studios.  Just make sure your ceiling height doesn't equal another of the room's dimensions.  If your room is square or cubed and you have no other option, you should find appropriate acoustical treatments, mix at low volume levels with nearfeild monitors and headphones, and check mixes and production decisions often by burning CDs and listening in other spaces.  The appropriate acoustical treatments will most likely include, but may not be limited to, tuned bass traps and diffusers.
  
  
• 2.         Size does matter and there is such a thing as too big.  Home studio owners rarely run into the "too big" problem, but "too small" is very common.  We would never produce, mix, and especially record in a room smaller than 10' x 8' (and that is really pushing it).  The largest control room (mixing room) we would recommend would be 35 x 20.  Vocals tracked in tiny vocal booths tend to lack dynamics and depth.  Mixing or editing in a tiny room seems to take longer and the results are usually a flat, thin mix, or  a headache, or both. Small rooms also tend to have more problems with bass frequencies.  You can learn more about room dimensions and acoustics here.
  
  
• 3.          The materials that a room is made of are extremely important.  A room with wall-to-wall carpet sounds totally different that a room with wood floors.  A room with a sliding glass door will sound different than a room with one 2' x 3' window.  Hard surfaces tend to reflect higher frequency sounds and soft surfaces tend to absorb higher frequency sounds. The goal is to have a nice balance of both.  You want sound to be reflected around the room a bit, but not directly into your listening space.  Uneven surfaces can act as diffusers to spread the reflections around the room.  You want your room to sound alive, but not too lively.  It is definitely an art but there is a lot of science to it as well.  You can read up on this here. Low frequency sounds are not affected as much by carpet and drapes, etc. in a room. They are affected more by the shape and size of a room or by large items that can trap the huge bass wavelengths. The preferred combination of materials is different for every room. The key word here is balance. A room that absorbs all frequencies evenly is more likely to be a "flat" room. One of the challenges in designing a room for good acoustics is that every frequency behaves differently in relation to a certain physical material. Knowing how each frequency behaves with most materials is the key to using acoustical room tratments in your studio. There are many theories as to how "live" or "dead" (reflective or absorptive) a room should be, but we like to have the ability to change these properties easily in a room. Especially in a room used for recording and mixing / editing. We recommend starting with wood floors and bare walls. From there, you can add rugs, drapes, and acoustical treatments if necessary until your room has the desired sound. A room suitable for recording a powerful female vocal may need to sound much different than a room suitable for mixing the track she's singing in. If these two rooms must be the very same room, it would be nice to be able to change the sonic qualities of that room just by lifting a rug and pulling open some drapes
  
  
• 4.         It's what's inside that counts.  Once you have the perfect room, think before you fill it with a bunch of crap.  In fact, before you start to select your materials and dimensions and so on, it helps to have an idea of what needs to be in the room.  Large racks of gear, a sofa, a bed, even people.  All of these and more will change the acoustical properties of a room.  A Sofa can act as a bass trap, a bookshelf full of books can be a diffusor.  A mixing board right under your face can reflect sound into your ears.  These may be what you need, or maybe not.  It all depends on the effect they have on your particular room. Remember, the goal here is to create an accurate listening environment.  You may want a sofa in the back of your studio, but if it is sucking all of the bass at 60 hertz right out of the room, you might end up with some very boomy mixes.  Where you place your items is just as important.  Since the corners of a room tend to be the places where unwanted bass builds up, you may want to consider placing large items that will suck up bass there.  Since large bookcases full of books tend to diffuse mid to high frequency reflections, you may want to place them directly behind the mixing position so that the monitors are pointing directly at them.  There is much more to read on this subject of Reflection, Absorption, and Diffusion.
  
  
• 5.          Buying prefabricated acoustical treatment products to treat room problems is not the first choice.  Proper room selection or design along with thoughtful selection and placement of studio contents is the way to go.  Having said that, it is impossible to create the perfect room.  After you have set up your entire studio, you will almost certainly need some sort of acoustical room treatment device (such as a bass trap or a diffusor)  in order to make the studio sound accurate.  There are products you can buy and ones you can make.  The ones you make, or custom products, will be better suited to your room's specific needs, but you need to know what you are doing.  Read up on it to see if making your own acoustical treatments is something you want to do. (Hint: if you need to be concerned with sound leakage and neighbors, use bass traps.  Bass frequencies are the ones that outsiders usually are complaining about.  Putting a bunch of carpet on your walls will do nothing about the bass and will only end up making your room sound like crap.) 
  
  
• 6.          A room with a "Q".  In order for a room to be accurate, it needs to be as "flat" as possible (there are many pros who would argue with this opinion).  A "flat" room is a room that has the same frequency response across the entire audible frequency spectrum.  While you won't be able to get the room to be perfectly flat, especially in every position of the room at the same time, you can correct serious problems with a 1/3 octave EQ. A room EQ may be used in conjunction with a Real-Time Analyzer (RTA) and an acoustic measurement microphone to measure the frequency response of a room and correct it.  This works by placing an EQ into the signal path of your control room mix and making adjustments on it to compensate for your rooms frequency deficiencies or exaggerations.  RTAs help to accurately pinpoint where those deficiencies or exaggerations are on the frequency spectrum.  You may want to buy one, they come in all sizes and prices, but you can rent a really good one for a day or two and make your adjustments. You can even get a software RTA now. You will need to perform this test from time to time.  Especially when something physically changes with your room or when you get a different set of monitors.  The EQ will need to stay in your studio, however.  Read more about tuning your room with a room EQ and a RTA before you actually do it.  You can really screw things up if you don't set it up and use it properly.  Remember, the room EQ should only be used to correct serious problems, not to "flatten" your room or to make it sound "better".  If you find yourself making large adjustments to certain frequencies, chances are, you would have better luck using an acoustical treatment product to solve the problem in that frequency range.  Every major studio that we have been in uses a room EQ in series with their monitors, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you should.

            Designing and acoustically treating a room for sound recording and production is an exhaustive subject.  We have spent some time on it and yet we have grossly oversimplified the process.  Whether you want to become an expert or not, it is worth investing some serious planning time in your room before setting up your studio equipment.  Once you set up your gear and do the wiring, it may be more difficult to make the most effective changes to your room's acoustical properties.  We know it is not as fun as buying gadgets but there is a very good reason why it's near the top of our list. We constantly refer to the Handbook for Sound Engineers . If you ever buy a book to learn anything related to audio engineering, it should be this one. It 's The Bible for audio professionals.

Monitors

            Everyone has an opinion about what monitors are the best, but there are many factors in selecting the ones that are right for you.  You can spend more money on these than any other single piece of gear in your studio, yet you don't always get what you pay for.  While the quality of a monitor tends to go up along with the price, certain high-end monitor designs may not be what you need.  The type of room you are in and where you place them, along with your personal tastes and even the makeup on your ear structure plays a big role in the type of monitors that best suit your needs.  The type of music you work on and whether or not you are used to listening to music on a certain type of speaker system is just as important.  Here are some guidelines for monitor selection for electronic dance music and home studios.

• 1.             Don't get the middle of the road, pro-sumer monitors if what you really need is a more expensive model. Save up until you can afford what you need while making do with what you have, such as headphones or cheapies.  It is better to work towards having the highest quality gear, than settling on second best.
  
  
• 2.             Don't buy huge P.A. speakers just because that is what the clubs are using.  Remember, the same monitor will sound different in different rooms.  You need a set of professional studio monitors and the size and power should be relative to your room size.
  
  
• 3.             Home studios generally sound best with nearfeild monitors.  There are many different brands and sizes.  Home stereo speakers are generally  not the best choice for studio use.  They are designed to sound good, not necessarily accurate.  Pro studio monitors with 8" or 12" woofers are usually appropriate.
  
  
• 4.             Active studio monitors (monitors that have built-in amplifiers) are usually a good way to go because they take the guesswork out of selecting the correct amplifier for your monitors.  They are usually bi-amplified, which is better for reasons we don't need to go into right now.  But you can read more about it here.  You can certainly use passive monitors (they require an external amplifier).  In fact, some of the best monitors in our opinion are passive.  It's really up to you.
  
  
• 5.             We suggest incorporating a subwoofer into your system.  In our opinion, the type of music we create, along with the relatively small size of home studio monitors, requires an extra device to create clear sounding bass.  Clearly hearing the bass in your productions will prevent muddy mixes and allow you to make informed decisions about the types of bass sounds to use.  If you want your tracks to have great bass, you need to be able to hear it at moderate levels.  Hearing deep bass on near field monitor systems may require high volume levels inconsistent with accurate sound reproduction in your room.  Setting up your subwoofer with your monitor system requires some adjustment.  For this reason, it is sometimes best, especially for the beginner, to buy an active professional studio monitoring system that includes a subwoofer.  All of the components will be designed to work together, and setup will hopefully be a lot easier.
  
  
• 6.             Placement of your monitoring system is crucial.  There are different theories about this.  Most recommend that the monitors are placed so that when you are sitting in your mixing / producing position, there is an equilateral triangle created between you and the 2 monitors.  We prefer them to be placed on individual stands, decoupled from the ground with spikes and at a level that puts the tweeters just above our hairline when sitting down.  We also recommend that the monitors be placed away from the wall behind them. The size and materials of the room will determine the distance.  The subwoofer should not be right under your chair. Finding the proper placement for it and your other speakers may take some experimentation.  Take the time to do it right.  Setting up a surround monitoring system is more complicated and there is even less agreement on the subject. You should read more about setting up your monitors.
  
  
• 7.             You will most likely need to spend more than $1200 to get an active stereo professional studio monitoring system of decent quality that includes a subwoofer.  If that is not in your budget, it is better, in our opinion, to use something cheap while saving up for the best system for you.  We like Genelec, Tannoy, Westlake, and  Event among others.  Make sure you buy the monitoring system from a dealer that will let you try them out in your studio before you actually purchase them (or one that will let you return them if they are not right for you). Listening to the wall-o-studio monitors at your local pro audio dealer is a waste of time.
  
  
• 8.             A great set of headphones such as Sennheiser HD600 s or Grado's etc. is an absolute necessity for any producer.  They are invaluable when trying to hear artifacts in audio editing or when trying to make production decisions in crowded control rooms.  A good set of headphones will get you by while you are saving up for the proper monitoring system and is perfect for laptop producing  while on airplanes and tour busses.  We have written a review of the Sennheiser HD600 headphones here.  Open back headphones are advantageous to closed back headphones for even frequency response, while closed back headphones are better for reducing background noise.  Never use open headphones in an airplane or for tracking acoustic instruments or vocals.  Try not to use closed back headphones for mixing. And always use quality pro studio monitors as your main point of reference whenever possible. Just like everything else, don't waste your money on the cheap stuff.
  
  
• 9.             Most engineers and producers have their favorites, but also rely on other monitors such as ones that emulate cheap TV speakers.  Alternatively, you can burn CDs and listen in car systems or boomboxes or, if you have the time, take a disk with you to your next DJ gig and check your mixes.  Many producers use a few different sets of near-field monitors to switch between while mixing.  This gives them a more objective sense of the tonal balance of the mix.  We do all of the above and recommend it.

The Computer

We consider the computer to be the heart of the modern production studio. Not many people today would disagree. It is so important that we have put it above many other quality-critical pieces of studio equipment. If your computer is not state of the art, you run the risk of being frustrated with your work and unable to keep your studio on the cutting edge of music production technology. A slow computer, or a lack of hard drive space can bury your creativity in a fog of unnecessary system maintenance and thumb twiddling.

            It really doesn't matter what computer operating system you use.  It is a matter of preference.  Many people use Macs, Windows PCs or even other systems to produce music.  The monopoly of the Mac in the world of the creatives is no longer.  We use Apple Macintosh computers.  We have used them since the early 90s (when 80 megabytes was a huge hard drive).  There is no incentive for us to change our ways.  If you are a long-time PC user, you may feel the same way.  That is fine.  Use what works for you.  Great quality hardware and software is available for both platforms, and since the prices for PCs tend to be quite a bit lower than Macs, PCs may be the better way to go if you are on a tight budget.  We just can't help you with a lot of specifics if you use a PC.

            What we don't recommend is using a proprietary hardware based DAW or MDM or Sequencer system as the heart of your studio.  That would include Akai MPCs, ADATs, Fairlights, and Roland VS systems.  I know we are going to get a lot of emails from hip-hop producers.  But, before you start looking for our address, let us make our point.  Our point is not that these systems suck or that you can't make pro tracks on them.  ADATs alone have been used for more hit songs than I care to imagine.  MPCs have been the staple of the hip-hop and early electronic dance producer communities.  We have a few of each around the studio and we do use them from time to time.  There is just something about the feel of a drum loop created on an MPC or an EMU SP1200 that we love.  They can be great tools for producing music and many people are still writing hits using nothing but these tools.  What we are saying is that, in our opinion, a computer is the best choice for the heart of your studio.  It can be used for recording, editing, mixing, mastering, archiving and so much more.  It has an incredibly flexible architecture for upgrades, software and hardware choices and options for new technology.  Most importantly, you are far less reliable on the whims of a single audio equipment manufacturer.  When you invest all of your money and time in one company's product, a problem with that company or piece of equipment can bring your entire music production process to a halt.  The speed and flexibility of modern computers make them the obvious choice for our studios nerve center.

            When selecting a computer for music production, get the biggest fastest latest and greatest one that you can afford.  You don't want to be playing catch-up all the time.  Audio software is getting more bloated with options and features every minute.  Sampling and bit rates and channel quantities are rising every year.  File sizes are getting bigger all the time and digital audio hardware is becoming more and more demanding on computer system resources.  You need to have a pretty screaming machine if you don't want headaches.  You also need to keep it performing well by performing routine maintenance tasks and cutting down on unnecessary system software.

            Here are some tips to guide you when selecting a computer for serious professional music production.

• 1            Get the fastest processor available.  Make sure the bus speed is fast too.  The size of the cache is important as well.  Bigger is better.  If you ever do upgrade your computer, it pays to have the fastest foundation to build upon.  The very fastest Macs and PCs are comparable in all practical accounts.  If you only have one computer for music production, make sure it's a desktop unit.  If you will have more than one, make sure one of them is a laptop.
  
  
•  2           Get as much ram as you can afford.  There is no such thing as too much ram.  Buy good quality ram too.  Having a lot of ram is important for running plug-ins and lots of tracks.  It also can decrease your audio system's latency and increase overall system performance.
  
  
•  3           Get as much hard drive space as you can. Keeping your current project on it's own drive will help you work faster and with less problems.  Keep archived and non-active projects on a separate drive. And  software and system files on another drive if you can.  The speed of the drive is also important.  SCSI drives have larger throughput and are generally faster, but IDE/ATA drives are almost as fast.  Since SCSI drives tend to be much more expensive and need a special SCSI PCI card installed for most computers, we generally recommend IDE/ATA.  Check out this article and make up your own mind. Make sure you get at least a 10K rpm drive to use for your current audio projects.  Two 40GB drives are better than one 80GB drive.  Just like a needle on a turntable, the access point on a hard drive can only be in one place at a time. Accessing and writing multiple files at once can really put a drive through its paces.  Having your files spread across multiple drives allows for faster performance and less stress on the drive.  You can do this to a limited extent by storing different types of files on different hard drives, as I mentioned above, or you can utilize a RAID array.   A RAID array drive system can be much faster than a traditional hard drive and is much more expensive.  A side benefit of RAID, depending on the system, is redundancy. That means you may have a better chance of recovering files if your system crashes. You can read more on RAID arrays here.  You can use SCSI or IDE, firewire, internal, external.  They will all get you there, but we prefer to have at least a few 10k rpm IDE internal drives in our Macs.  We also use a 10K rpm SCSI drive for editing our current projects.  Just don't try and use a USB 1.0 drive or even an early model firewire drive.
  
  
•  4           Dual display monitors are a great luxury.  If you have the means, we definitely recommend it.  The more screen real estate you have, the easier it is to integrate software synths and plug-ins into your DAW.  It also makes mixing within the computer much more feasible.  Flat panel LCD / TFT displays or good old CRT. It's up to you.  Keep in mind that CRTs take up more space, give off more heat, and are prone to resonate.

            There are quite a few more options to be confronted with when buying a computer system.  We covered the most important things.  Everything else is bonus.  Don't get sidetracked with other stuff.  Stick to the basics and get the best equipment you can afford.  Don't skimp when it comes to the computer.  Unfortunately the "use while you are saving up for the best" line doesn't work here.  You need the best computer you can get right from the beginning.

            Once you have your computer setup it is important to keep it well maintained.  Just like a car, you should do regularly scheduled maintenance of your computer and the files stored in it.  The number one rule is BACKUP.  We repeat BACKUP your files.  All of them.  Back them up on CD, DVD, other hard drives.  We learned this the hard way.  It is no joke.  If you don't backup your files, you will get burned sooner or later.  You should backup your files every day that you work on your computer.  There are programs that automate backing-up and make the process faster.

            Defragment your hard drives regularly, this will make your system run faster and could prolong the life of your drives.   An easy way to defrag your disk is to copy all of the files on the drive you want to defrag to an empty drive, erase the original drive and then copy all of the files back again.  This is one reason why you can never have too much disk space.

            Keep the software installed on your computer to a bare minimum.  If you have another computer besides the one you use to produce music, then you have no excuse.  Unplug the modem.  Trash the internet applications.  Run virus scans regularly.  Remove all unnecessary system files.  On Mac OS9 we had this down pat.  OSX is a bit trickier.  For Windows, we have no clue.  But hopefully this info on optimizing your PC for audio helps.

Digital Audio Interface

            You need to get sound into the computer and you need to be able to hear it once it's in there. We can't think of anything worse to use for this purpose than the sound card that comes with the computer. Just about any interface you can buy in your music superstore mega catalog of goodies is better than your computer's built in audio interface.

            But let's take it a step further than that.  Poor quality digital audio converters can dramatically distort your perception of the sounds you are listening to and ruin your audio even before you start to work on it.  Just as the right room and monitors are crucial to making good audio judgements, the right converters in your digital audio interface are an essential part of faithfully encoding and reproducing your sound.  Bad converters can take the life out of your recordings, leaving you with flat, narrow, blunt, lifeless recordings.

            We like to look at the Digital Audio interface in three parts.  There is an analog to digital converter (ADC), which converts the analog audio signal into a digital audio signal that the computer can process.  Then there is a digital to analog converter (DAC), which takes the digital signal coming out of the computer and converts it into an analog signal that we can hear.  The third part is the hardware (the digital audio interface) that takes these digital signals in and out of the computer, interfacing the actual digital signals with the software that you use inside the computer to edit and process your tracks. 

            These three parts can be bought all in one box, or they can be purchased separately. Everyone will need the actual interface part but, depending on your style of music production, you may not need to splurge on an analog to digital converter (ADC).  If you use all soft synths and digital samples to produce your tracks, then all of your audio originates in the digital domain.  There is absolutely no need for an  ADC.  However, if you record vocals or even analog synths on a regular basis, an ADC will be extremely important.  The digital to analog converter (DAC) is always important.  You need to be able to hear a faithful representation of your audio while making production decisions and while mixing. Even if you are mixing down entirely in the digital domain, you should have the best DAC you can afford.  MOTU and many other companies make good all-in-one units.  Apogee, Nagra, Lucid and a few other companies make excellent DACs and ADCs.  The quality of the digital clock inside audio converters plays a big part in audio quality.  You get what you pay for.  Aardvark makes a stand-alone digital word clock that many pros use to improve the quality of their digital conversions.

            We prefer to use a digital audio interface such as the MOTU 308, which brings digital signals in and out of the computer and has digital audio connections in different formats on the rear.  These digital signals are fed to our converters. For ADCs we like the Apogee Rosetta or PSX. And for DACs we use Panasonic WZ-DA96s.  We also use Digigram interface cards for the laptops and  Digidesign interfaces for working with Pro Tools.  There are many high-end converters out there.  We can recommend what we use, but we are not experts on the subject.  More info on what to look for in an audio interface can be found here.  Things to be concerned with include sample and bit rates, Jitter, channel and format handling abilities and clock quality.  You should definitely have a system that can handle at least 24 bit, 48k digital audio.  The minimum professional standard is 16 bit, 44.1k (CD quality).  The high-end standard is rising all the time.  The jump from 16 bit to 24 bit is a noticeable improvement for most audio material.  The jump from 48k to 96k is an improvement, but how much of an improvement it is will largely depend on the dynamics of your tracks.  Beyond that, the subject is always being argued.  It is beneficial to record and mix in a higher quality format even if you are eventually going to be down-sampling and dithering to a 16 bit, 44.1k CD.  It's difficult to explain why, but trust us.  It is.

            As you can see, digital audio can get very complicated.  If you are unsure and don't want to mess around, get an all-in-one unit.  If you plan on mixing entirely in the computer, you shouldn't need any more than 2 channels of DACs (or 8 channels for surround mixing).  If you don't plan on recording a drum kit, a horn section, or a whole band at once then you probably don't need more than 2 channels of ADCs.

Software - DAW

            We are probably about to open a can of worms here.  Actually, this topic is better suited for a regularly updated forum.  But, in saying that, there are always basic guidelines to follow.  The most important piece of software is your digital audio workstation (DAW).  This is your main sequencer, recorder, editor, mixer, coffee maker, and more.  There is no one DAW that everyone can agree is the best. There is one that is right for you.  Some of the most popular ones today include Pro Tools, Logic, Digital Performer, Ableton Live, Nuendo, Reason..the list goes on.  One is not more professional than the other as long as they all support professional digital audio format standards.  Some are more preferred by professionals because of their features or because of their compatibility with other studios and software.  We use Digital Performer.  Most people have a love-hate relationship with their DAW and the company who writes the code and who is responsible for updating it.  You need to find the one that is best for you based on your computer platform and your requirements.  DAW software can be a substantial investment in time and money.  Here are some things to consider when choosing.

• 1.                      There are unofficial internet user forums for every major DAW software title. Check them out and see what their hardcore users have to say about the product.  Beware of the usual whiners begging for updates and threatening to switch to another DAW.  But, you will undoubtedly find some pros that will be more than happy to answer your questions.
  
  
• 2.                      Find a DAW that will be compatible with the plug-in formats and hardware interfaces that you want to use.  Plug-ins and soft synths are an important part of music production today.  If you really want to be able to use plug-ins that are only compatible with Pro Tools, you need to buy Pro Tools.  Likewise, the digital audio interface that you want to use needs to be supported by the DAW and computer operating system that you select.  It is ok to choose your OS based on the software and hardware available for that particular system.  Likewise, It is ok choose a DAW based on plug-in formats and hardware that it supports.
  
  
• 3.                      Choose a DAW from a reliable company that is in good financial shape and that releases timely updates to the product.  There is no foolproof way to predict this, but past behavior and their length of time in the industry should be a good indicator.  Again, check the forums.
  
  
• 4.                      Write a list of the things you want to accomplish with your DAW and then compare features.  For instance: Do you want to score films?  You need to be able to import video and lock to picture.  Do you want to mix in 5.1 surround?  How about 7.1, or 10.2?  You will need a DAW that can handle multi-channel formats.  Features shouldn't be the only consideration but they are important as you can see.
  
  
• 5.                      Ease of use is extremely important when selecting a new DAW.  This doesn't mean that you should buy the simplest one, but anything that might help you with the learning curve such as a user interface that is intuitive to you, or previous experience with the company's other software, may help.  There are third party tutorials available for most DAWs.  Not too long ago, we decided to buy a set of third party tutorials for DP4.  Thinking that we were experts, and doing it as half joke and half test, we were surprised at the number of new things we learned about a DAW that we had been using for almost ten years.  You will be investing a lot of time into learning the DAW you select.  Make it as easy as possible on yourself.
  
  
• 6.                      Are you going to be working with other producers or in other studios?  Will you need to exchange projects and work on them in each other's studios?  Compatibility is an important feature for some people.  A few DAWs support the Digidesign's OMF format, including, but not limited to, Logic, Digital Performer, Nuendo and of course Pro Tools.  You can save your project as an OMF file and open it in any DAW that supports the format.  You may want to choose a DAW that a consistent producing partner, or a studio that you spend a lot of time in, uses.  Being able to share and work on projects in a DAWs native format is a big plus if you do this often.
  
  
• 7.           Make sure that the DAW runs efficiently and without problems or crashes on your computer system.  More often than not, the problems can be traced to bugs in your own computer system, but there are some buggy DAWs out there, so beware.  Again, read the forums, but take bug reports with a grain of salt.  Give weight only to problems reported consistently by many experienced users.
  
  
• 8.                      There is a lot of noise out there.  People claiming to use one DAW for this project and another on Wednesdays and another when it rains.  Stick with one.  If you learn that one and you have the need and the time to learn another, go for it.  But stick with a main DAW that you like and want to use for every project. There are crossgrades and upgrades and new features and must-haves.  Don't believe the hype.  All of the major DAWs "sound" great.  Hits have been produced on all of them.  You record and cut and paste and process with plug-ins and when your all done you mix and save and burn a CD.  They can all do that.  They can all sound good doing that. Many people claim that one particular DAW "sounds" better than another. Do they all sound the same?  The verdict is still out.  Some people have done A/B tests comparing the audio quality of different DAWs.  Some of them swear there is a difference.  We have done tests too.  We don't hear a difference between any of the major contenders when using the same hardware.  In fact, our own FFT analysis comparison tests show there to be no discernable difference between the major DAWs that we used.  Ears are the best judges though.  If you have to argue about it, you are wasting time better spent on producing.  (we wasted ours so you don't have to)
  
  
• 9.                      What matters at the end of the day is: Can you figure out how to use it?  Does it do what you want it to do?   Is it compatible with your other hardware and software?  Is it reliable and efficient? Does it run well on your computer system?  If you can answer yes to all of these questions then you have found the right DAW for you.

What about other software?

Plugins, software synthesizers and format converters etc. - You will need some other things to go along with your DAW. In fact, there are, in our opinion, some must haves. You can spend a small fortune on all of this stuff and you may not need or want all of it. But, If we are going to load up our laptops for a transatlantic flight of non-stop writing and editing, we need to have these apps on our G4s in addition our DAW (Digital Performer)

(This list will probably be out of date by the time we finish this. We'll try to keep it updated.)

• 1.    The Waves Platinum plugin suite. Well, at least the renaissance bundle and the L1. The PAZ meters are handy too.  We use Waves all the time.  You need some great compressor plug-ins for sure.
  
  
• 2.    Altiverb.  Simply the best software reverb.  Use sparingly and only use high quality IRs.  We never got excited about reverb until we heard this plugin.  CPU takes a huge hit but it's worth it!  You need to have a good quality reverb plugin.
  
  
• 3.    Bombfactory Fairchild compressor and Pultec EQ plugins.  They give a nice characteristic to tracks.
  
  
• 4.     Audio Ease Periscope. A nice surgical EQ with no noticeable phase problems. Comes in handy all the time and doesn't degrade the sound like some EQs can.
  
  
• 5. UAD-1 Powered Plugins. These things sound amazing. Probably better than the Bombfactory, but it's hard to tell. Their LA-2A and 1176LN emulations are just about perfect.
  
  
• 6.    Antares AutoTune.  A necessity if you work with vocals.
  
  
• 7.    Audio Ease VST Wrapper, Necessary in order to run VST plug-ins in DP and Pro Tools.  Pluggo does a similar job, but it comes bundled with some cool plugins.  One of the most useful is M2M. Too bad doesn't deliver as reliable performance as VST wrapper.
  
  
• 8.    Native Instruments Kontakt.  A great software sampler. Rivals the great hardware samplers in features and is even easier to use.  We like having our favorite sample libraries within a couple of mouse clicks.
  
  
• 9.    Recycle!  Useful tool for chopping up beats in a hurry.  Don't rely on it all the time though.
  
  
• 10. Audio Ease Barbabatch.  Simply the best audio format converter and MP3 encoder we have found.
  
  
• 11. Bias Peak.  Great editor, especially for compiling your CD and getting it ready to burn.
  
  
• 12. SoundHack and Argeiphontes Lyre.  Quirky but always interesting.  Great creative tools. There are Soundhack Spectral Shapers plugins as well that are excellent.
  
  
• 13. Metric Halo SpectraFoo.  Great quality meters and analysis tools.  Sometimes you need to see what you're doing. Channel Strip is another plugin they make that is very good.
  
  
• 14. Traktor. Probably the best DJ software we have used.
  
  
• 15. There are too many software synthesizers to mention, but here are a few of our favorites.  Atmosphere, Trilogy, Reaktor, Absynth, FM7, Pro52, Reason, Waldorf Attack and PPG Wave 2.V, Arturia Moog, Minimoog and CS-80V.

There are more plugins and ancillary apps, but this is the desert island list.  If your platform doesn't support these particular software titles, we suggest that you find some comparable ones that perform well for you.  Like we said before, it is entirely acceptable to base your selection of a DAW and even a computer operating system on which software titles and plug-ins are compatible with it.

Mic Preamp

Most producers need at least a one-channel preamp. Many have a selection of preamps for every occasion. If you record vocals or guitars or any live instruments, we recommend that you have a good quality mic preamp. Two channels is good to start with. Preferably, class A discrete.  We have used Neve, Avalon, Focusrite and TLA preamps with great results.  If you are on a budget, Presonus and Joemeek, among others, make some pretty good pieces of gear.  Even if you only record synths and turntables, it's a good idea to have a good stereo preamp.  We suggest a solid state preamp if you only have one.  Make your second a tube preamp.  Then you'll have some choices when it's time to record.

Microphones

If you record acoustic sources, you'll need a mic. Maybe two or three. We suggest a large diaphragm condenser for vocals and a matched pair of small diaphragm condensers for almost everything else.  It's also handy to have a SM58 lying around (especially if you do a lot of vocoding vocals). 

            If you record drums, you may need more microphones, namely a PZM/ boundary mic or  a large diaphragm dynamic, and few other small diaphragm mics.  It's good to know, however, that some great drum recordings have been captured with only one mic.  Ask around for more info though.  Here's some more info on recording drums.

            We have had a lot of luck with B.L.U.E. mics (the Dragonfly is great on female vocals), an Oktava MC012 with a U87 capsule (great for male vocals), a Sony C800 (vocals, very expensive), Soundeluxe (female vocals, excellent), AKG 414 (for electric guitar amps), Schoeps (nice on vocals, pianos and strings), Sure SM81 (on drum overheads and acoustic guitar), Radio Shack or Crown PZM (placed inside kick drums),  Neumann U47 (vocals, strings), and the R0DE NT1 (great value, can use on almost anything).  If you are on a limited budget and can only buy one mic, get the RODE NT1 or NT2. They sound great for the money.  If you need to record general sources in stereo, pick up a matched pair of condensers such as the Shure SM81 or Oktava C12. Also, buy or make a "popper stopper" if you record vocals. 

            Remember this, every mic will "sound" different depending on your recording subject and the environment you are recording in.  Just like monitors sound different depending on the room, so do instruments. Always move the mic and/or subject around and even change microphones until it sounds good to you. While we have made some generalizations here, there are no specific rules for mic selection.  Pro engineers and producers usually have a large selection of mics to choose from, so that they can find the right one for each situation.  They will usually set one up, record some takes, and then switch it out with another mic and listen again until they have the right one.  We are trying to guide you in the right direction when looking for a microphone that may be your only one for a while.  Plus, if you are always recording the same person or instruments, in the same place, on the same day, with the same relative humidity and the same acoustical treatments and same number of bodies in the room and the same... well, nevermind.   But, everybody does have his or her favorite mics for certain situations.  If you spent $7,000 on a mic, you'd say it was your favorite too. There are tons of places on the net and in libraries to find info on microphone placement and recording techniques. Some of it is very helpful, but it is probably the most exhaustive subject in the recording arts. The bottom line is, you really need to use your ears and experiment. You'll eventually figure out what works for you most of the time.

Mixer

You will need some sort of mixer, even if you are mixing your tracks completely inside the computer. If you want to mix on an analog mixing console, not only will you need to buy the board, but you will also need an appropriate number of DACs in order to get your individual digital tracks into the individual channels of the mixer. Analog mixing is a great way to go. We did it for years. We used an expanded Mackie 8 bus mixer with a total of 56 channels.  Feeding the channel inputs on mixdown was a series of MOTU 1296s.  It wasn't the most high-end system we could get, but it sounded warm and clean.  It was also nice to be able to have instant access to eq and knobs and faders just by leaning over the console.  That has to be the one feature that bugs people most about mixing inside the computer.  No real knobs or faders.  Of course, you can buy a virtual knob and fader board, but it's still not the same thing.  If you really think you need to have the knobs, or if you must mix your tracks in an analog console because you love how it effects the sound, then go ahead.  Be prepared to spend quite a bit more money to mix outside of the computer rather than inside.  And if your productions include more than 40 channels of audio on average, plan on your board taking up a lot of studio real estate.

            We went from analog, to digital consoles, and then finally gave up on the idea of the mixing board altogether.  We found that we were only using our 48 channel digital boards to monitor a 2-track mix from the computer.  Getting rid of the mixing board was a no-brainer.  We are in the position where we can afford all but the most ridiculously expensive recording equipment.  The problem is, especially when it comes to mixing consoles, there seems to be a plateau on the quality versus cost chart  You don't get to the very best large format consoles, in our opinion until you start to spend close to $50k.  So, in our opinion, if you don't want to part with that kind of dough, and you are not impressed with a Mackie or a Soundcraft, stick with mixing in the computer.  If you are planning on getting a digital board, try mixing in the computer first.  Honestly, the only worthwhile reason to have a digital board, even a really great one like the Sony Oxford, is that it wont crash nearly as much as your computer.  And remember what we said earlier about being beholden to one company for a key part of your studio.

           So, we got rid of our mixers and we had nowhere to plug-in our headphones, or monitor our laptop and turntables etc.. until we took a look at the line mixer we were using to submix our hardware synths.  A Mackie LM-3204.

            The circuitry is clean and the headphone amp is powerful.  There are other manufacturers of good line mixers, but this one is pretty much the industry standard for producers who have a lot of synths.  It is rackmounted, so it stays out of the way and, if you need more channels, it is expandable.  The current setup for our studios involves routing the outputs of the DACs in to the line mixer, along with everything else that we need to monitor.  I suppose you could get away without any hardware mixer, if all you needed to monitor was your DAW, but we don't know any producers that don't have turntables or a CD player, or at least a couple of hardware synths. 

            If you want a cleaner, shorter audio path while mixing or making other critical production decisions, you can patch out of your DAW directly into your active monitors or amplifier(s).  For mixing in surround, you will probably have to do this.  You can also bypass the mixer for your headphone output and feed a high-end headphone amplifier with the DAC.  In all of these situations, be very careful with your levels, you will need to control the master volume from inside the DAW or maybe from the front panel of your DAC (if that if that feature is available).  Controlling the master level from each amplifier or active monitor is not practical.  It is recommended that you use a monitor matrix control station for these applications, but you can get away without one.  They can be expensive, especially for surround sound.

Patch Bays 

The patchbay is a very important part of a professional studio. It can also be your weakest link when it comes to audio quality. It is mostly viewed as a convenience item but, as with anything in your audio signal path, it needs to be taken seriously. Don't get cheap when it's time to hook everything up. If you have more than 2 pieces of gear, you need a patchbay. Patching out of a synth into your preamp. Patching out of your preamp into your ADC. Patching out of your DAC into your active surround monitors. There are many reasons to have a patchbay, but the most important one is: it's totally impractical not to have one. Here is some patchbay terminology.

            Poor quality patchbays can severely degrade your audio quality.  Hooking them up incorrectly can be even worse.  The best type of patch bay for audio quality is generally 1/4" Longframe TRS with solder connections in rear.  Some studios go so far as to remove the jack connections from their outboard gear and solder their cables directly to the circuit boards.  The really high-end mixing console such as Neve, SSL, and Trident don't have jacks at all, just a bundle of cables coming out the bottom.  You don't need to be a professional tech to make punchdown connections, but if you really want to get a patchbay with 1/4" connections on the back, make sure you get a good one.  TT/Bantam patchbays are ok too.  They are great if you have limited rack space, but if you do have the space, go with 1/4" longframe.  When planning for how many patchbays you need, allow for future expansion of your studio and try to work in 4 or 8 mults if you can.  ( note: 1/4" and 1/4" longframe are different..make sure you buy the correct patch cables for your patchbay ).  A patch bay cleaning or burnishing tool is a good investment.  Here is some more info about wiring patchbays. It's also good to plan out your patchbay and label it well.

Cabling and Connectors

Speaking of cables, don't buy the cheap stuff, or cheap connectors. Most people, us included, usually underestimate the cost of cabling in their studio budget. We recommend buying high quality bulk cable and connectors. It pays to wire your own studio with good cables and connectors. You should be able to save money and your studio will actually sound better. You can make your own digital cables too.  Most store bought cables are sub-standard.  Of course there are some exceptions, but the main point is, if you buy a cable, and you don't know what you are getting, it could possibly ruin your sound.  Audiophiles can hear a dramatic difference between a cheap radio shack cable and a monster cable.  The difference between a ten dollar music store guitar cable and high-end pro studio cable should be equally distinguishable to a music producer.  Companies like Mogami and Canare make excellent products, as do Switchcraft and Neutrik.  But even if you can't afford these, don't use the really cheap stuff.  And don't use the RCA cables that came with your CD player, with 1/4" adapters on the ends..aaaghh!  A cable tester is a good investment.  So is a good quality soldering iron.  Learn how to use it. Here is some more info related to cable and connectors.

Outboard Gear

We have left outboard gear, such as gates, compressors, effects processors, and harmonizers until last. Some of these items may be extremely important to you. Some may be totally unnecessary. Most outboard signal processing is available in plug-in format for your DAW. These days, you can get plug-ins that rival or beat most of their hardware counterparts. We mentioned some of them earlier. The outboard gear that you need or want will largely depend on the content and style of your tracks. Again, don't buy the cheap stuff. If you can't afford high-end gear, stick with the plug-ins. We don't recommend spending money on this stuff until you have the best quality equipment in all of the categories that we recommend above. Outboard gear like we mention below is recommended only if you can afford to take steps to bring your studio up to par with the big boys. Here are some suggestions:

• 1.    Compressor / Limiter - A compressor (or leveling amplifier) is one of those pieces of gear that can really make or break a track.  So many people overuse them though.  We have been guilty too.  We love compressors on drums and vocals, but they are useful on almost any source material.  While they are traditionally used to correct and balance levels for a track, or group of tracks, as with most signal processors, you can use them as an "effect".  There are many good plug-in compressors out there that will do the job and sound quite good doing it, but there are some classic analog compressors that just sound so much better.  The UREI 1176 , Teletronix LA2A and DBX 160 are studio staples but we like the Empirical Labs Distressor, Manley comressors and vintage units made by Altec, RCA, and others.  Limiters are compressors too, but used to squash all audio louder than a given value.  This is useful when you don't want your audio to distort or you don't want to overload your equipment.  Limiters are just compressors that are designed and marketed specifically for this task.  Producers generally use limiters to give a mix, or sub-mix, that squashed sound or to prepare a mix for radio or CD by making it "louder".  You can read more about compressors and limiters here.
  
  
• 2.    Equalizer or EQ (also called a filter) - Like compressors, EQs are processors that are traditionally used to correct problems with a recording.  There are different types of equalizers. The most popular are parametric and graphic. Some plug-in EQs are very good at this.  There are some hardware EQs, however, that have a particularly wonderful sound.  These analog EQs can make something sound "better" just by running your signal through them, without boosting or cutting anything.  We love Pultec, Tube-Tech, API, Neve, and Focusrite.  Like everything else, don't buy the cheap ones, they will ruin your sound.  Here is some info on EQ-ing techniques.
  
  
• 3.    Effects processors - Almost every effects processor on the market today is a piece of digital hardware.  They are units dedicated to one task (effecting your audio signals), while your computer is thinking about recording and mixing and compressing and converting etc..  However, the outboard unit is generally doing the exact same thing as the computer:  crunching numbers.  Hardware units are not necessarily better than plugins.  In fact, in our experience, most are not.  There are some exceptions but be prepared to spend some serious money.  When it comes to effects, there is reverb, and then there is everything else.  Reverb is probably the most widely used effect, and for good reason.  A track without any ambience can sound very one-dimensional and blunt.  It takes a huge amount of processing to create a convincing reverb.  Expect to pay $2000 and up for a good quality unit.  Until Altiverb came along, we would have put a high quality hardware reverb higher on this list.  Not that Altiverb is the best thing you can use.  But it's definitely good enough.  If you can afford it, there are some incredibly expensive units our there.  Real plate reverbs and techniques such as re-recording your audio in nice rooms are other, not so practical, alternatives.  Here is a good guide to using reverb. Other multi-effects units that perform delay, modulation, and pitch-shifting, among other things, can be a bit cheaper, but expect to pay a lot for quality stuff.  If you can't afford the best, stick with plug-ins.  There are exceptions to this rule just like everything else.  Certain effects are just so special and have that certain sound that you like, especially if you are into the analog gear like us.  We have cheap guitar pedals, etc.. mostly for a lo-fi sound,  but we are talking about making your tracks sound better .  We don't want to discuss the creative process.  When it comes to creativity, anything goes.  Hardware effects processors we have used and liked include:  T.C. Electronic Fireworx, Eventide Harmonizer and Orville, Lexicon PCM series and 480L, and some analog units like the Roland RE-201 Space Echo and large, custom plate reverbs.  You can find  more about effects here and here and here.
  
  
• 4.    Other Pieces of Outboard Gear - There are things you may want or need such as gates / expanders, exciters, vocal harmonizers, and intonation correctors, etc..  These are up to you. You can generally find plug-ins for these items that are on par or better than their hardware equivalents, but you may want that certain special thing that really makes your tracks stand out.  We use some special things that just haven't been made available yet in a software format (and probably never will), such as the Talk Box.  Don't buy "mastering processors" if you think they will master your tracks for you.  Not that some of them aren't good quality or don't have useable processing features.  Some of them are really "multi-dynamics signal processors" that are great values and can be a good addition to your studio.  The really good ones are kind of expensive.  Drawmer and T.C. Electronic make nice models. Just don't buy one, thinking that you can dial up a preset and your tracks will be "mastered".  We'll get into mastering later in the article.

Other Studio Items 

There are many things that could be essential for your studio, but we haven't given some of them priority because they are too specific to your personal needs, or they don't necessarily affect the actual quality of your audio. That doesn't mean that they won't affect the quality of your productions. We categorize these items as utility gear, creative gear, and comfort gear.

• 1.             Utility gear - Things like MIDI interfaces and digital patch bays. They probably wont affect the quality of your audio, but they can be important.  If you use hardware synths, you will need a MIDI interface.  The number of ports and channels you need, will depend on the amount of synths and other MIDI equipped gear you have.  You can connect up to three items per port and each port has 16 MIDI channels. Always allow room for expansion.  If you buy an interface that is manufactured by the same company as your DAW, it is more likely to be compatible with your system and may have expanded features and performance that mismatched units lack.  Having said that, MIDI is slow, unreliable and inconsistent when it comes to performance and timing.  Anything rhythmic that you record into your DAW, if it was sequenced with MIDI, should be edited after the fact for proper timing.  As long as a MIDI interface works reliably, it is the right one for you.  When it comes to other utility items that are not in your actual audio signal path, keep it simple.  Less is more, faster is better.
  
  
• 2.             Comfort gear - The Aeron chair immediately comes to mind.  There is no other piece of comfort gear that comes close.  There are other kinds of comfort.  Anything that makes your work simpler and easier.  A surround panning joystick, shuttle wheel controllers, virtual fader mixing boards, knob boxes, music stands, writing desks..the list goes on.  How about an assistant?  You can get by without them, but they do make life a little easier.
  
  
• 3.             Creative gear - this may be the most important stuff of all, but we can't go into great detail about it.  The creative gear you need depends on you.  The most important creative tools are your musical instruments and everything that goes into your instruments' quality and playability.  Your instrument could be a synth, your voice, a drum machine or your entire studio and all of the creative things you can do with it.  We do have some general tips.  Using high quality instruments and maintaining and tuning them properly is a must.  High quality accessories and ancillary equipment such as guitar amps, drum skins and bass strings play a big role in the quality of your recordings.  An accurate tuner, such as a strobe-tuner, is a must if you record any instrument.  Groove boxes, pen and paper, your CD collection, other software, or any tool that helps your particular creative process should be given priority in your studio.

Tips on Buying Gear 

Salesmen in large musical store chains can sound like experts. Many of them are experts in selling gear, not using gear. I hope the ones we know and like aren't reading this. There are some great salesmen out there that can guide you in the right direction. But most can't. You need to be able to trust them. Here is a place that we buy some of our new gear from.  Just because they can get you a "good deal" on something they say you need, isn't a good enough reason.  Don't rely on the advice of someone who is trying to sell you something, and whose credentials are unknown.  We've heard some people say "if they knew what they were talking about, they wouldn't be working in a music store".  That's not really fair, some people like the job and not every pro makes enough to make music full-time.  Sometimes people need a little something in-between gigs.  That being said, we don't recommend rolling the dice.  Seek the advice of a trusted pro and know what you want to test or buy before you go into one of these places. Unless, like us, you are just going inside to play with the new synthesizers. 

            Try and get some of your gear used.  Things we would hesitate to buy used or without warranty, however, include computers, monitors (speakers) and microphones.  We have purchased all of these used at one time or another and, although we have never been burned (knock on wood), it is always a risk.  A vintage microphone to add to the Cirrus collection is one thing, but if you are buying your first microphone, try and get something with a warranty. 

            We love Ebay, and The Recycler and Loot.  There is nothing wrong with buying used gear. You might get burned, but we've been pretty lucky.  In our vintage synth madness days, we were at it almost every day, but it doesn't have to be vintage or discontinued to be worth buying used.  Audio gear is like a new car. Drive them off the lot and they loose at least 20% of their value.  And it's hard to break new equipment these days unless you smash it with a hammer (or let your best friend borrow it).   Gear that has been taken on tour is far more likely to be abused than studio gear, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it.  Just make sure that if you are buying it in person, you try it out.  If you are buying on Ebay, make sure the seller has good feedback and never send cash or even a check.  Use a credit card with fraud protection and get an online payment account such as those offered by paypal .  Keep the number of a This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it in your address book as well, just in case. 

            It's ok to go down to the shop and buy the latest gizmo when you can easily afford it, but we have stuff in closets and garages that we played with and used on one track, or sometimes not at all.  Getting into the gear-whore-rut can be a big time waster as well.  Of course it's fun, but take it easy, and remember you want to be making music, not playing with toys all of the time.

            One more thing.. using high quality gear doesn't necessarily mean owning high quality gear.  Borrowing, renting, or going to a place (such as a studio) which has high quality equipment is always an option, especially if you only have the need for that particular piece of gear once in a while.  It is better to do this than to buy a cheap, sub-standard piece of gear, just because you'll only use it once in a great while.

Mixing and Mastering

When it comes to mixing and mastering, the most important piece of gear may be the telephone. Doing it yourself is not always the way to go. If you decide to use an engineer to mix your tracks, make sure you can communicate your style to him or her. They will need to have a feel for the style of music you are producing and should take direction and criticism well. Listening to other commercially released music together is a good way to start a session. Make sure the music is of a quality and production value that you respect and that it relates in some way to your style of music. You need to be able to communicate your ideas with the engineer, so it pays to know your way around the studio, especially if it's your own. It will be easier for anyone to get a good mix if your tracks are clean and well produced to begin with. The best engineer can't make a poorly produced track sound good. We are always tweaking our mix along the way as we write and produce, even subconsciously, so that there is very little work to do at the actual mixdown. Mixing sessions should be as short as possible. Listening fatigue sets in, even at moderate volumes, and objectivity tends to disappear after a while. We'd rather have two half-day mix sessions than one eight-hour grind. We haven't mixed many of our commercial releases ourselves. We usually leave it to ears that we trust to be more objective than ours. Especially since we have been producing the tracks the whole time and could really use a break.

            If you are reading this article, you probably shouldn't be mastering your own tracks.  The "mastering processors" that you can buy do not master your tracks for you.  Mastering is not just normalizing and ordering your tracks and positioning the track IDs and spaces.  It is a highly specialized skill that requires, more than anything else, time and experience.  There are no entry-level jobs in mastering.  The field is full of ex-engineers cum audiophiles.  Furthermore, the whole point of mastering is for another person to make critical adjustments to your mixes in another room, with other equipment.  These things should theoretically be superior to, and more objective than, your critical judgment, your room, and your equipment.  If your material is going to be released commercially, get it mastered by a pro in a pro mastering studio.  Here are some tips on preparing your final mixdowns for mastering. We have never mastered any of our own commercial releases and don't intend to.

By now you have to be thinking "these guys have a lot of time on their hands" or "what a couple of geeks". You're right on both accounts. We have a lot of time because we can't sleep. We live and breathe this stuff. And, who else but a couple of geeks would sit down to write a twenty-six-page article about this subject in one night? It's just that nobody seems to be objectively answering these questions. When it comes to gear, everyone wants to sell you something. Or, they get all emotional about their favorite stuff. Or, they just don't know what they're talking about. We only want to sell you our music, our opinions are worth every penny, and if you didn't think we knew what we were talking about, you probably wouldn't have read this far.

            So, now that you have everything you need, take the time to learn how to setup and use it properly.  What a waste of time it would be if you realized you were doing something with your fantastic equipment that was ruining your sound. Such as, misplacement of monitors, incorrect wiring of equipment, or not being aware of an important function of your gear.  This has happened to us a few times.  Reading manuals, articles like this and the ones we link to, and experimenting with your studio is very important.

            Another point to keep in mind is:  Sub-standard gear doesn't mean sub-standard tracks.  Some important pieces of music as well as some huge hits have been made with what we would consider to be sub-standard gear.  We break our own rules from time to time, sometimes with fantastic results.  They aren't even rules anyways.  There are no rules.  These are our just opinions.  We believe, however, that you should always use the best stuff available to you within your means.  But we can't say it enough.  Don't buy it unless you can get the good stuff, don't sell your soul to buy it, and don't get yourself into debt that you can't get out of.  It's not the kind of suffering that is good for your art.  Not that we don't believe in taking risks.  We have risked a lot to get to where we are today.  It's just that living poor and saving up is better for your soul than the cloud of insurmountable debt. 

            The most important ingredients for a great studio cannot be bought.  They are already inside you.  You just need to keep an open mind and focus on your goals.  Like most things in life, producing music is a journey.  Just be patient and keep plugging away.  We will be too.

Steve Barry and Aaron Carter

CIRRUS

If you have more questions, if you think we left something important out, or even if you disagree with us and want to argue, please email us: