New house, new studio, new projects...

[Fred Sanford]

Incremental progress, the recording desk is populated and tunes can play. I initially set up an old Crown DC300A and some L100s just to exercise them & see what I thought, and I wasn't loving it. Sure was fun to crank Machine Head and open the door to hear it from outside, but can't say it would have been usable for monitoring.

Switched to my usual monitor power amp, one of my four Yamaha P2100s, and liked it better. Switched to my L110s (finally with JBL woofers) and got back to the clear, no-fatigue love I was used to. Added in the M&K V3B sub, and I was happy. I'll have to check the crossover point on the sub, I'm running the L110s full-range and I think the JBL woofs go a bit lower than the Vifas I had in there previously. Just by ear, bringing the crossover point down to ~65 Hz was smoother. The L110s are still too high up to be perfect, but that's driven by the modded desk (wanted to fit a certain mixer, and wanted a mirror back behind the mixer).

je

[Titanium Dome]

Picture?

(Of you in the mirror taking a picture of the mirror, etc.)

[Fred Sanford]

Picture?

(Of you in the mirror taking a picture of the mirror, etc.)

I knew you'd say that- I actually couldn't back up enough to take the shot, I'm in the middle of building/locating the shelves in the room to house the magazines & media. Gimme a minute, I'll get it for you.

The mirror is just to facilitate patching & unpatching behind the mixer, it's helped me thousands of times.

I grabbed "Machine Head" for the L100s just for you, you know that, right?

Followed it with "Come Taste The Band", just for giggles.

je

[Fred Sanford]

Here's a quick pic- tight 'n' tidy. Lots still to do, lots will likely be changed. M&K sub under the desk by my feet, mirror visible behind Carvin mixer (tan frame). Primary use for this setup is going to be archival of old cassette & DAT & VHS recordings to digital via the MasterLink, so access to 2-track players is more important than access to processing for now. Next will be archival of analog multi-track recordings onto multi-track digital (probably an Alesis HD24). Then I may actually start with mixing old stuff and making new recordings again...

Bottom left rack: space for power sequencer/conditioner, a couple of crossovers, the top Yamaha P2100 powers the local monitors, the bottom will probably power L100s in the main room for playback there. In between the two I'm going to try an Elan Z-series fan.

Bottom right rack: surge suppressor, (patch bay missing), Alesis Microverbs (probably going to move to a portable rack for quick PA gigs), compressors, gates, Hush units, EQs and BBE.

Top left rack: Tascam 238 8-track, Fostex patch bay.

Top middle rack: some digital reverbs & delays, a Panasonic DAT, Alesis MasterLink.

Top right rack: Tascam cassette, ProCo patch bay.

Gimme a little while, I'll have a pic of the other side of the room. For now, here's a pic of one of the guitar cabinets.

je

[timc]

Looks really nice

Keep em comming (the pics yes)

Best regards Tim

[StillUse4560s]

The Deltalab Effectron brought back some memories I forgot existed. Definitely from the days when we lived in a much more analog world.

Great series of pictures. I find it very enjoyable building these kinds of things up.

Have fun.
Mike

[boputnam]

Pretty interesting, Fred!

On the "bottom" pictured rack, were it me, I'd move those parametrics to the top positions - if there is any tweaking to be done it will be much easier to see the settings.

There are so many GEQ's in the Control Room rack it's damned hard to see that any different racking would change things. However, if you are not using this in the dark (and so don't need the rack lamps), I'd move the "power distribution" to rack bottom - done this myself when possible...

So, is this hobby?

[Fred Sanford]

Pretty interesting, Fred!

On the "bottom" pictured rack, were it me, I'd move those parametrics to the top positions - if there is any tweaking to be done it will be much easier to see the settings.

There are so many GEQ's in the Control Room rack it's damned hard to see that any different racking would change things. However, if you are not using this in the dark (and so don't need the rack lamps), I'd move the "power distribution" to rack bottom - done this myself when possible...

So, is this hobby?

This is hobby, did years of stage work in theater & concert but this gear now stays home just for fun. Thanks for the suggestions on gear locations, I fully agree on the parametrics (which may migrate to the Control Room for certain projects). All the top rack stuff there is pretty much need-to-tweak too, and the parametrics being employed for fixed-location sets of monitors may be more set-n-forget...but I'll certainly re-visit those racks with that in mind. At this point I'm still unpacking and racking the gear in a sort of 'filing' kind of way - I'll re-think it all (with advice considered) before wiring, for sure. Another reason the power strips have been at the top in the desk is tough to see in pics- the desk top overhangs, and you can't see the first RU at all from the chair.

I've got some control system pieces that will ultimately run the power on/off sequences and some remote IR & midi functions, initially I've got an Elan power controller sensing the mixer turning on & switching two more banks of outlets in sequence (ie, processing on...~8 second delay...subwoofer on) as well as triggering a bank of cooling fans between the Yamaha power amps (the fans also stay on 2 minutes after the rig is shut down). The power amps are wired hot, I switch them on manually last when needed (except for headphone use). Once the control system is functioning, the power strips can actually be rack-mounted from the rear of those bottom cabinets, the pieces are shallow enough.

"So many GEQs"? There's a 30 band & a 31 band! There are four 9-bands on the mixer as well, by subgroup (default) or patchable. Oh, yeah, in one of the older pics there's a dual 10 band, too, that's out for now. Some of these pieces will leave the racks once I know they won't be of use, for now it's just a matter of "put them in a rack so I can get them out of boxes/off of shelves & test them". My Utility Room is now a big mess of different cables, another tedious inventory.

Thanks again,

je

[Fred Sanford]

The Deltalab Effectron brought back some memories I forgot existed. Definitely from the days when we lived in a much more analog world.

Great series of pictures. I find it very enjoyable building these kinds of things up.

Have fun.
Mike

Funny- when they first came out, it was like, "Wow, a digital delay! Digital is so cool!"

Now, it's like, "Wow, an old Deltalab! Remember analog?"

We'll see what still works when I fire it all up...and what works as well as (we think) we remember it did...

je

[fotodan]

Nothing's physically laid out yet, unless you consider that one wall has the boxes & cabs with big magnets in them and the opposite side of the room has the boxes of computers and recording media and CRT monitors, etc. I have a crude sketch of the basement, I'll mark that up with some notes to give you an idea. This is all (hopefully) temporary, as I'm looking to build a 3-car garage with the studio over it within a few years. This temp setup will be to give me the ability to archive (and maybe overdub onto) old recordings and have some informal jams to get to know local musicians. Some of the dusty drums are set up, again more as therapy & inspiration than any final installation, see pic at bottom of post.

Roughly, there's a 13' x 22' x 8' room that will be the studio with drums & amps & monitors set up (my old one was 11' x 26' with 9' ceilings), and a 15' x 13' control room with media & instrument storage. It'll be tight, no room for an audience, but like my old houses you'll be able to see & hear the studio from any TV in the place. There's also a 15' x 15' utility room that will have the house audio racks, maybe the dubbing rack, and house communication wiring distribution (rapidly becoming part of high-end audio/video systems):

Are those Zildjian's or you using cambers???

[Krunchy]

Hi JE, you sure do have some pretty neat toys there, but what I am really curious about is all those guitar cases and most importantly, whats inside them?
Hope alls well!
Fred

[Fred Sanford]

Are those Zildjian's or you using cambers???

Ain't no Cambers here, never played one I liked. Mostly Zildjian, some Meinl/Paiste/Sabian/UFIP?Vibra. I love cymbals, used to drive Dennis buggy at the LI Drum Center when choosing them.

Zildjians, from memory-

These were old when I bought them in the mid-80s:
22" or 21" 'A' ride, old
20" 'A' crash, think opening of "Kashmir", old
14" 'A' HiHats, old

These were new when I bought them in the mid-80s:
20" Ping Ride,
18" Medium Thin Crash, two of 'em
16" Medium Thin Crash
16" Amir Impulse Crash
14" HiHats, New Beat (turned over, bottom on top)

Meinls are an 18" Raker China and a 12" Splash.

Paiste is a 10" Bell

Sabian is a 16" China

UFIP is a 10" Splash

Vibra is an old 18" Crash/Ride

Drums are Tama Imperial Star (mostly), snare is an old 5 1/2" deep Ludwig Super Sensitive, there's another 6" deep Ludwig chrome snare here somewhere, too.

je

[Fred Sanford]

Hi JE, you sure do have some pretty neat toys there, but what I am really curious about is all those guitar cases and most importantly, whats inside them?
Hope alls well!
Fred

Here's the "Keepers", there are also a few "Klingons" around. I've owned literally hundreds, these have kind of become family:

1974 Gibson Les Paul Special 55
1985 Spector NS2
1998 Guild D4 HR MAH
1975 Gibson Les Paul Special 55
1981 Vantage Avenger AV-320
1982 Vantage VS-695-12
198? Ibanez Strat
1982 Vantage Entertainer VSH-445
1968 Teisco Del Rey KET 230
1995 Ibanez Talman TC630GAA
1991 Hohner TWP600B
1981 Vantage Avenger AV-320
1975 Gibson L6-S Deluxe
199? Warmoth/Jackson Telebastard
1995 Vantage VST 33 CE TBK
1986 Aria Cat Bass
2000 Danelectro Baritone

Crappy pics & some stories are here:

http://home.earthlink.net/~flyashtray/id3.html

je

[Titanium Dome]

Impressive.

[Fred Sanford]

Think of it as like a Foster Home for musical stuff. People neglect something or break it, it comes to my house for love & medical attention. It either eventually gets adopted out to a new home, or insinuates itself into my life & takes root here.

I personally tend to like the mangy mutt looking gear, the pretty ones make me nervous, like I've got something to live up to. Function before fashion, to me. If it ends up pretty, that's just a bonus.

je