StinkFight.com

(Including “How to soundproof your home studio for under ten bucks.”)

I’m often asked how I get such a great sound on my home recordings, be they Podiobooks, podcasts, or especially music. (Listen to my great new band, Right Arm of Wyoming.) (get MP3s of these songs on Amazon)

Well, I’m gonna lay all of my secrets on ya, here and now.

There is a lot of stuff out there that they try to sell to musicians. I’ve tried a lot of it, and ended up selling most of it. Here’s what I’ve kept that has stood the test of time (thirty years of playing music and recording, and 12 years of computer recording):

First thing you need is a good microphone and a good sound booth. Both are easier than you might think.

The best mic for the money is the Rode NT1-A. Buy it for $229 here. It is a very low-noise high-quality condenser microphone. Since it’s a condenser, it will need a pre-amp, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

You’ll need a shock mount, a pop filter and a mic stand. I use these. The RODE SM1 Shock Mount for NT1 Studio Microphone, 25 bucks.

Nady MPF-6 Nady 6-Inch Clamp On Pop Filter is 17 bucks.

Mic cables, you’ll need at least three. These are cheap and good. XLR male to XLR female Microphone Cable.

Here’s a good microphone stand for 25 bucks: On Stage Spotlight Tripod Microphone Boom Stand.

SOUND BOOTH:

(How to soundproof your home studio for under ten bucks)

This is easier than you’d think, and easier than I used to think it was. At our home in California, I’d spent a lot of money and time converting a whole room to be a studio. At our new home in Wyoming, I simply stuck some rugs up in a closet. It didn’t cost any money, works great, took about ten minutes and only about ten nails. Some of the rugs and foam are just wedged in there, not even nailed up.

This is a closet in the basement. If you don’t have a closet, you could even hang up some ropes and make a little tent-type room with blankets.

SOFTWARE:

I do my drum looping and multitrack recording in Sony Acid Pro 7. It’s an incredibly versatile program.

For mastering, and MP3 creation, I use Sony Sound Forge 9.

My book $30 Music School has good basic tutorials on using Acid and SoundForge.

Mastering is probably the trickiest thing I do of all of this, and it’s a bit of an art. If you want, I will master music for 50 bucks per song. Most people charge 100 bucks per song, and totally sap the life out of the music, trying to keep up with the Loudness War. As you can tell by my samples above, I master plenty loud, without squishing the music and ruining the dynamics and tone. You’ll like the result. e-mail me if you want that done. e-mail address is

kittyfeet70

at

yahoo.com

HARDWARE:

For headphones, I use Sony Pro MDR-7506 headphones, the best phones in the world under 100 dollars.

For a microphone tube preamp and compressor, I use the SM Pro Audio TB202.

Here it is at night, working in the spooky studio darkness:

They’re 250 bucks new, I bought mine used on CraigsList for $150. It smooths out vocal dynamics and adds a “warm” sound. It also has an instrument input which makes bass guitar sound great, and it has a powered output for your condenser microphone. I plug it with XLR mic cables into my $133 Alesis MultiMix USB 8 Mixer (which also has a powered output, if you’re on a budget and need to skip the preamp). This is a great unit, and has USB output to plug into your computer.

One secret about this unit, it is great except for an engineering flaw whereby it overheats and dies. This can be fixed by putting it up on a couple of blocks of wood so you get an airflow underneath it, and turn it off when you’re not using it. I’ve had mine for three years with no problem, whereas people I know who haven’t put theirs on blocks fried it in a few months.

A power conditioner is a good idea (to plug everything into, including your computer) to protect from surges and keep noise out of your signal. I use this Furman unit.

My guitar player, the mysterious Office Huttskew (who must disguise his identity due to the the highly sensitive nature of his day job) records his Fender Stratocaster direct into the board, without an amp, using the amazing Line 6 POD 2.0 for tone.

I record the drums, bass guitar and singing, and e-mail an MP3 to Office Huttskew. He pulls it into Garage Band (comes free with Mac computers, but here’s a good book on using Garage Band), and adds guitar. He sends me the separate guitar tracks as 192k MP3 files. I drop them into Acid and mix.

I do a bit of cutting and pasting in Acid. I’ll usually take the best four measures of my bass playing and loop it for the verse, do the same for the chorus, and the same for the middle eight. That serves two purposes: 1) it gives a more consistent and precise performance than playing all the way through the song. 2) it interfaces well with electronic drum patterns to give a more “industrial” feel, while still maintaining the “rock” sound and feel of actual playing. (Think “Nine Inch Nails.”)

I’ll often do the same thing with the singing on the choruses - I’ll sing several tracks, either doing harmonies, or on the more “punk” numbers I’ll overdub several tracks of yelling in unison (for that 80s hardcore “the whole band yelling backup in brotherly unity” feel), then mix down to a single stereo track, then cut and paste everywhere there’s a chorus in the song. I do the same trick with the more “industrial” sounding rhythm guitar parts, especially on the verses.

I’ve been recording the guitar with me playing on some of the later songs. Here’s a thread on what I use.

I think that’s about it, people. This is all you need to make kick-ass music without spending a fortune or bugging your neighbors with the noise. This is the basis for a totally functional, professional home studio, just add talent!

–Michael W. Dean

This entry was posted by Michael W. Dean on Thursday, August 27th, 2009 at 7:05 pm and is filed under Gear porn, MWD's Cool Stuff, The world is a strange and beautiful place. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.