On a shoestring project part 10

   I survived the Halloween weekend, hope it was ok for you guys as well. Once again it is upwards and onwards. I am getting closer and closer to the start of the actual recording of the album. Rehearsals have been going great, the songs are taking their shape, but more so I can hear an album. I think sometimes people forget this, I have made this mistake in the past... When rock music started to become more and more available in LP format, artists started making albums. Now when home recording has become so accessible for most people ( what used to be a price of a studio for one day, now you can buy a basic home recording equipment), The market has been exaggerated by millions of CD's or download albums ( Not a bad thing in my humble opinion, makes every one work harder to stand out). I did the mistake once thinking more is better. An album that had 14 tracks and a running time of over an hour. I must say, listening back to the album is hard work. Don't get me wrong, individual tracks are good, lots of great moments. But as an album it is little bit disjointed and too long. The standard running time of LP was 45 min. And I still think that best albums are around about this length. Also the collection of songs need to work as a unit, making a good album is little bit like making a film. Set of scenes that put together makes sense, keeps you interested and leaves you wanting more. This is very much what I want to achieve. And dare I say this loud? It would be nice to be able to release it as LP as well some day...

   As the idea of this project is to achieve a professional quality CD with a minimum budget, the home recording rout was always the first option. But let’s look in to this for a minute. The direction that the music has taken in the past few months is pretty solid rock album, drums, bass, electric guitar and vocals. And lot of the tracks would benefit from really classic sounds. I have considered in the past few weeks whether or not I should try to get to a professional recording studio for some, if not all of the recording. But this would blow the budget well out of portions (and possibly bankrupt me). I don't think I would benefit from spending my money on mediocre or budget studio, but the top studios still have some of the "toys" that create that exquisite in the sound. So what would they have? Well... Good studio would have great sounding acoustically treated rooms (never under estimate acoustics!), they would have a selection of microphones that I could not even dream of, and I once had the pleasure to record my own voice for one track with AKG C12. This is probably my favourite vocal microphone; at least I haven't got my hands on a better one yet. This I must say was magic... The detail was just out of this world, it was warm, clear, listening back felt like being in the room during the performance. But this microphone comes with a big price tag... in Thomann it is currently going for €3599... The other great industry standard is Neuman U87, Neuman certainly knows how to make rery nice microphones! The next thing in the signal change would be the microphone pre amp, maybe some nice Neve, Avalon or TL Audio. The smoothest compressors in the world, maybe a good old fashioned analogue tape machine. Selection of studio monitors, and of course an experienced engineer that could take all the stress of recording out of my hands... But as mentioned above, this would come at a big price... Even with the dreaded “R” word hanging over our heads, the studios of this standard would be charging anywhere from €500 up to €2000 a day... And let’s face it, if I had that kind of money to throw around, this blog would not be about recording an album on a shoestring budget.

   So I have a laptop, nothing fancy but OK, Acer aspire 5738Z, I have a Shure beta 57 a, a very good industry standard microphone, I have matched pair of Octava MK 012 small diaphragm condensers and I have access to pair of Shure SM 58. I also have friends who could possibly borrow me more microphones for a short term. I've been doing lots of research in the past few months on recording equipment, trying to figure out what would be most suitable for my needs and what would be the best value for money, without compromising on quality. And this is what I have in mind: I would need enough inputs to record drums, and hopefully something to spare. So minimum eight, and I would need XLR microphone inputs, and at least few with phantom power. And a silent operation would be a bonus. So the winner at the moment is Zoom R16 (follow the link for manufacturer’s site) It works as individual unit, as an interface for computer and also as a controller for your recording software. I think it is a genius of a device, and the feedback and reviews have been great. But obviously I will not know for sure until I get my hands on one. In Thomann they are priced at the moment at €345, Waltons in Dublin are selling it for €385, and for my friends in the states side Sweetwater are selling it for $399. But there is a great little store here in Dublin called the Goodwins, on Capel Street. I have bought lots of equipment from them over the years, and their service is brilliant! About year an half ago I bought a guitar amp from them and it had a problem in the valve sockets, and they ordered a replacement straight away and gave me another amp while I waited for the replacement. And I do like supporting a local shop especially if they try to compete with the internet giants. The list price in Goodwins is €359, and I am sure they can negotiate few Euros anyway, and if there is any trouble, the shop is with in walking distance from me, and I don't need to be posting stuff back to Germany while the project gets delayed by weeks, if not even months. Also I need some sort of studio speakers for mixing. And I have my eyes on ESI Near05 active speakers, in Thoman for €175 for a pair. I haven't found anything in Dublin to compete with them at the moment, but I am also keeping my eyes on Gumtree for second hand studio speakers around that price. Also I would like to get an large diaphragm vocal mic, and as the C12 is out of question, AKG has a budget range of microphones that are supposed to be great value for money. So the microphone in question is AKG Perception 120, and again in Thomann for €85 which I think is a bargain. If I was to invest more money on it, I would recommend looking in to Neuman TLM 102 (€555 in Thomann), Or TLM 103 (There is a second hand one on Gumtree at the moment for €500, a bargain!)

Anyway, that’s enough of window shopping for now; Let me know your thoughts and suggestions on my shopping list.