Cool place)
Mine looks like this

Waikiki Makaki surf-rock band from Ukraine

https://linktr.ee/waikikimakaki

Lost Diver

https://lostdiver.bandcamp.com
https://soundcloud.com/vitaly-yakushin

My studio used to be my living room. I've upgraded it somewhat since these pics were taken...

Jack Booth
(aka WoodyJ)

The Mariners (1964-68, 1996-2005)
The Hula Hounds (1996-current)
The X-Rays (1997-2004)
The Surge! (2004, 2011-2012)
Various non-surf bands that actually made money (1978-1990)

Those are some real nice recording spaces.
I don't dare call ours a studio.
It's just a good sounding (luck) room with a small handful of cheap recording gear. There's my workshop in the next room where we can run cabinets. This way we can still record while playing in the same room together.
The room is a mess after a combat Christmas medley recording session.

http://www.facebook.com/CrazyAcesMusic
http://www.youtube.com/user/crazyacesrock
http://www.reverbnation.com/crazyacesmusic

stratdancer,

Nope, just old school mono, one amp at a time. Here's the signal chain I use for guitar:

Guitar > Fender Reverb tank > Pedalboard > Amp > SM57 > Mackie 8 Bus analog board > Alesis ADAT digital tape machine

I recently ditched the old (and very temperamental) ADAT machines, replacing them with an Alesis HD24 24 channel hard disk recorder. The only outboard effects I use are a pair of dbx stereo compressors on the kick drum and bass guitar and for mixdown, an Alesis Wedge desktop effects processor that I've had for nearly 15 years. The Wedge is a lot more user-friendly than the Quadraverb I bought later to (supposedly) replace the Wedge.

I'm certainly no recording expert, I learn as I go on every project. The "less is more" approach has worked the best for me. I painfully learned an important lesson the hard way on my most recent project, The Mariners' "Demon Surf!"

That one turned out less than stellar and, in retrospect, really should never have been released. I tried some new things instead of doing what worked well in the past and due to some boneheaded mistakes on my end - including mixing only with headphones instead of primarily using the studio monitors - the end product was just not nearly as good as it should have been.

So, lesson learned. In my humble home studio, KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid!) is my mantra now!

Jack Booth
(aka WoodyJ)

The Mariners (1964-68, 1996-2005)
The Hula Hounds (1996-current)
The X-Rays (1997-2004)
The Surge! (2004, 2011-2012)
Various non-surf bands that actually made money (1978-1990)

Last edited: Dec 14, 2014 13:11:40

Damn Woody,

That SURE IS a nice looking guitar!

As opposed to all the proceeding very neat and well organized recording facilities, may I present some current pix of the Surge! as we are dug in down in the Boatwerx...

Occasionally we toss a grenade in there to straighten things up a bit.

Sitting there on a folding table "console" is the old Mackie 32-8 workhorse board, a pile of miscellaneous compressors, my fave old Effectron 1024 delay, a stereo 31 band EQ, and some other toys piled on for good measure.
Neatly wired band rooms are not my forte.

Like Woody I am replacing the two ADAT XT-20's with an HD24. The recording end of this mess is on a table to the right of the Mackie. That table contains power supplies, ADAT's (now HD24) CD Burner, CD copier, Sony DAT recorder and a cassette recorder.

Guitar tracking is in one area isolated from everything else by a collection of rolling baffles that I built, and some I recycled from when our office was remodeled.

The bass place is there with the old snake that I use for a patch bay. It is close enough to the drum cave to be able to both feel and see through the heavy solid core door baffle that helps keep the drums out of the other instruments mics, and visa versa. Isolation down there is surprisingly good.

The drum cave is where we sequester Link. It takes a lot to keep that wild man out of trouble.

And why do we call it the "Boatwerx?" Well, I built and raced raced outboard hydroplanes from 1963 until 2005. A number of those (56) boats were built in the basement work area two walls over. Yeah it is a dust bowl down there.

All that is crammed into a space about 12' by 28' including Link and Sticks favorite band room sofa.

Reverbs,

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Ed,
Rolling baffles - That's in my future. Something I can store away.

http://www.facebook.com/CrazyAcesMusic
http://www.youtube.com/user/crazyacesrock
http://www.reverbnation.com/crazyacesmusic

My very very simple home studio of sorts. Rundown:

My three main recording instruments are my eight, my classical, and an MIM jazz bass. For drums I now have superior drummer, and for all intents and purposes they sound as good or better than real drums. Sometimes running my guitar through an old DM-2 for some really beautiful spaciousness. Classical guitar and vocals are being recorded with an old Audio Technica Condenser mic, and sometimes an SM58 or a couple old electro voice vocal dynamic microphones. All of this runs into a focusrite interface and then into Acoustica's Mixcraft 7 DAW, where I run a multitude of plugins and such. Listening through a pair of AKG K240 headphones.

Ideally, I'll have a nice amplifier and a set of studio monitors in the near future, guess I'll see how that all goes.

IMO.

Talk to me about a "rat's nest."

Wiry bunch those Surge! boys.

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

That's an impre$$ive gear list that Rarefield Recording has! Great sound too!! I think the only thing our home studio has in common, is a BLA Auteur preamp and an SM-57 mic.

I kind of look at studios like that as a luxury spa for musicians; but it's kind of a trade-off. It would be spa-like relaxing to be able to just concentrate on the music (and let someone else do the engineering and recording tasks)...while at the same time, being more stressful because tape is rolling and money is flying out of my wallet at an hourly rate. I find it's actually faster to record at home with a live band, than in a "pro" studio.

This is a fun thread! Keep the pics coming!! It'd also be interesting to hear what techniques (and gear) people are using to record; that might be a good topic for a new thread though.

www.apollo4.com

Last edited: Dec 15, 2014 04:11:33

Hey Surfmole.......be careful leaving your guitars lying on leather furniture.

I left one of my AVRI Jazzmasters on a leather recliner for about a week once and something in the leather softened up the finish on the back of the neck. It looked and felt like prune skin. I was lucky, with Jeff Senn's advice, I was able to wet sand it smooth after I left it sitting in the sun for two days to allow the finish to re-harden. Ugly mess to begin with. It scared the pooh out of me.

No more leather furniture guitar stands for the kid here.

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?