One Room or Two?

Commercial studios almost always have two rooms, plus office, kitchen, recreation areas etc. One room is the studio where the musicians perform and the other is the control room which houses all the equipment apart from the microphones. Two rooms are necessary because the engineer must be able to judge the sound from the speakers in isolation from the natural acoustic sound of the instruments or vocals. Also, if the microphones could pick up sound from the speakers, then that sound would be recorded on the tape too, and in the worst case feedback could occur. Usually, the two rooms are visually connected via a double or triple glazed window, and access from one room to the other will often be via two doors enclosing a small lobby. By all means, the home or project studio should imitate this arrangement since it really is the best way of working. But since two rooms are rarely available, compromise is necessary. The best solution is to run permanent lines to another part of the building that is suitable for use as a studio. Remember that you need lines for headphones as well as many mics as you think you will need. The connectors should be mounted on a panel or metal box so that they are easily available for use.

Getting the most bang for the buck’, as the US military put it, is the top priority of the home studio buyer. Few of us have money to burn and we want equipment that will help us make the most of our talent and set us on the trail to success. But the trap that many home studio owners fall into, and I have fallen into it myself in the past, is to put more thought and effort into the studio itself, and less into music and recording. It's OK to acquire more and more equipment as funds allow - look at how much gear the big guys have when they are featured in Sound on Sound. But often people get the idea that there is such a thing as 'the perfect studio’ and endlessly change and reconfigure their equipment in a hopeless quest for something that doesn't exist. In this book I am going to tell you how I think you might go about equipping a studio. I'm sure you have some gear already so pick and choose the bits that interest you. But more than that, I intend to make sure you are on the right track, so that you really do get the best out of your studio, and whatever your musical ambitions are, you stand the best chance of achieving them.

1. Never sell.

2. Never upgrade.

Shocked? There is an incredible market in secondhand music and recording equipment and many people, for whatever reason, find the need to sell their gear. But why are they selling it? Is it worn out? Have they exhausted its possibilities? Have they taken up gardening? Did they buy the wrong thing in the first place? And how much are they going to lose on the deal? Golden Rule Number 1 is only to buy things that you can use until they wear out. Buy a good mic and it will last you twenty years - literally. Buy a mediocre mic and it will always be mediocre, even on the day you buy it. Buy a good keyboard and eventually it will become a classic, and even in the interim period when it appears to have been superseded by newer models, it will still be as good as when you bought it, providing that it is well maintained of course. Golden Rule Number 1 leads to Number 2 - never upgrade. If you bought the right thing in the first place, why should you have to trade it in to upgrade to something better? Hang on to it and buy something else when you have the money. Add to your earlier purchases rather than replace them. This way you are building up your facility and it's getting better all the time. Habitual upgraders may have a few of the latest models, but for the same amount of hard earned cash, your studio will be more comprehensively equipped. And these days the best is not necessarily the most expensive. OK, it's not always going to be cheap, but you'll save in the long run.