$30,000 Gear Budget-Will The Pro's Take me Serious?

I'm not one of the Pros, I'm one of the con's.



Why would you get a board with pre's and then spend xtra money on more of the same type pre's?



Also, a grand for cables? 3K for a desk? You rob a bank? This is, ah, no wait, let's see, stu...no, not it, um, foo, no, fiscally retrograde?

It sounds like you're getting all of your bar mitzvah money together?



Just like the previous poster said, you've already got 16 unremarkable microphone preamps in your new Digi designed control surface. So instead of purchasing more of the same, get yourself a few esoteric microphone preamps that will actually sound like something. Something better than the watered-down neutered sound of those 16 you already have.



You understand this is not your last purchase? This is only the beginning.



It's a sickness I tell you... A sickness

Ms. Remy Ann David

Just to follow on...



$3000 for a desk...



And only $2000 for the microphone...



So holding your paper off the floor at a comfortable height to write apon is worth 30% more than what you record through?



Can I get the specs on this desk?

Pay a rap star 20k to appear on a single...pay a composer 3k for a bomb rap beat...pay a video guy 3k to capture a homemade video and pay 2k for a website to sell ringtones and single downloads and invest your windfall on an appropriate studio with api or neve desk and hd3 in a house you pay cash for...oh, and start a label as well..... You owe me for this consultation!

or ssl....my bad!

believe in a project and invest...risk-takers are the big winners...studios are closing these days....

I knew it, mahogany upgrades.

I used to sell furniture. I'm laughing.

Sammy Davis Jr. had a bar mitzvah. What you talking about?



Bar mitzvah party girl

Ms. Remy Ann David

Here's a home made desk for around $700



http://s283.photobucket.com/albums/kk316/Eric_Watkins7/?action=view&current=SEPT152008001.jpg

Anywhere you can save money is a good idea. I'd skip the fancy desk for now and make your own or buy a cheap one. Also you should probably state what kind of music you are planning on doing. 2000 dollars for mics isn't very much and Remy is right about the preamps. It's nice to have different kinds of paint and paint brushes to make masterpieces with.



Respectfully,

Christopher

You may want to consider increasing the budget for your microphones then. Unless you already have a good selection. Then again I'm just a mic whore but it's nice to have different options. Especially if you'll be doing a broad range of music and having all kinds of instruments and sources.



Respectfully,

Christopher

RemyRAD wrote: Sammy Davis Jr. had a bar mitzvah. What you talking about?



Bar mitzvah party girl

Ms. Remy Ann David

You stole my thunder...that's EXACTLY what I was thinking. Maybe Lenny Kravitz?

Who cares if "pros' take you seriously. Finding anyone with a dime to spend on what you're selling is the hard part.



I wouldn't think of what you're doing as an investment. I'd think of it more as a commitment. Money spent on good mics, pres, and OBG is fairly safe. Money spent on any new Digidesign or other DAW parts has got to return by selling time rather quickly.



Even now the stock market is probably a safer place for your 20-30K.



Only do it if you can't do anything else.

antoniosolo wrote: Pay a rap star 20k to appear on a single...pay a composer 3k for a bomb rap beat...pay a video guy 3k to capture a homemade video and pay 2k for a website to sell ringtones and single downloads and invest your windfall on an appropriate studio with api or neve desk and hd3 in a house you pay cash for...oh, and start a label as well..... You owe me for this consultation!

Im gonna use that info, sounds like a plan to me,

that sounds like a good set up, but if you put all that money in it your gonna want to make some of that back maybe all of it!....get something a lil more simple "but good" and invest a majority of that money in good quality promotin, thats what i would do, cause you ont want to see your money collecting dust in a studio thats gonna get used every now and then, and not get use of properly. your smarter than that,..getting clients to pay for that session is another ballpark, lol

And here's a desk that cost about $350:

(Dead Link Removed)

I had it made by a local wood-worker and it's more sturdy and far better looking than any piece of RTA furniture.



I'm with the others - $3K for a desk and then a handful of the same pres that come in the mediocre/overpriced desk doesn't make sense.



For $9K and then another $2K for an interface....seems a little insane.



Perhaps a pair of those new (and awesome) little Euphonix interfaces, a Mac Pro, Logic, an Apogee Symphony setup, an API 3124, Focusrite ISA 428, Neumann TLM 193, Gefell M930 or AEA R84 and then the rest of your gear list.



Although - if you really want to start building a studio, you should probably *know* what you want rather than guessing.



Just some thoughts.

J

Jeremy- Do you have a bigger picture? Or the plans?

I just sent it to your VT address.



These are the technical plans.



Cheers!

J

Can I get a copy too please?

*feels out of the loop*

i dont wanna be the buzzkill for your dreams (and good luck with your new business!) but spend some tim kicking around forums, or better yet-studios- to get a better idea of where your money should go.



it does appear (no offense), you are going for style over substance. its understanable- just remember-studios that look sexy might have nothing on the inside (i had an ex like this)





MY advice is DONT BUY ANYTHING for at least a few weeks. give yourself some time to learn what it takes to be a successful studio owner/engineer.

"just remember-studios that look sexy might have nothing on the inside (i had an ex like this)"



Your ex was inflatable?

How to spend $30,000



If you are looking to record bands here is an idea:



-Buy a digital mixer with great preamps any of the yamaha boards are great with great compressors and internal effects and recallable presets.

$4800



-Buy a couple ADAT MY16 cards or Aes/Ebu MY16 Aes/Ebu cards about $800



-Buy a quality interface such as the motu 2408 or apogee or if you need to go pro tools buy a 192 i/o. Depends on which one 2408 is $1000



-Buy 3x sm57s, 3x Sennheiser mD421s, 2x AKG c414s, SE Geminni, Audio-Technica AT4050 and your covered $4700



- good cables are expensive leave about a $1000 for these



-Buy A Mac $3000



-Buy an internal Hard drive to get no latency issuses with DP $200



-Save money and buy Acer Screens $300



-Get A control surface to get the proper mix with your ears and not your eyes $3000



-Monitors Dynaudio or Genelecs about $1200-2000



total about $20000 and with Pro tools about $25000



this gives room for some nice external preamps such as the liquid channel and some UAD preamps along with great plugins

There it is you got it all enough to compete just around your budget $30000.

sweeterstudios you forgot to include a Neumann microphone on your list...you can't be taken seriously as a pro studio unless you have a coveted Noymann!

Newman. So much classier if you pronounce it like Seinfeld does.

Neuman mics i feel are over rated except a U87 which can be added to the list of mics I mentioned but will also set them back an additional $3000 and is nice to have but the other Mics I mention such as The 2x C414s ( matched stereo pair) and SE Electronics Gemmini are Great sounding standard mics. Also what a lot of people don't know is that The Maker of SE Electronics mics broke away from Neuman and are of a similar caliber. Not to undermine Neuman but you can get all three of the mics I mention for the price of 1 U87 and sound pretty awsome.

Pro's will respect the quality of your work, not the quality of your gear.

Pootkao wrote: Pro's will respect the quality of your work, not the quality of your gear.

I agree with this comment, however the sad part about todays musicians and some professionals are that before even listening to your work they sometimes like to see some of the "standard high end gear" and wont even go to you if you don't have certain "standards". Sometimes this means having Pro Tools or Neuman, or Apogee, Mac, Genelec/ Dynaudio. These are all just brand names. In todays world were some musicians think they know all about recording gear and stuff. I have found it harder and harder to sell them on the recording with out at least some of the standards. Not to say that the brands that I mentioned earlier are just names, because in reality they actually do sound alot better then other products, however alot of people do high end quality work with about 30k with out the need of the

1/2 million dollar SSL or Neve console. So long as you do quality work with some standard equipment for "those" people you'll be fine!

I agree that many clients are looking for at least a few names. I've been in a few bands and realize nobody knows anything about recording gear, but they hear Pro Tools and all of a sudden it's a world class studio. You can try to go the name way with an HD system then go cheaper for non-brand names. Companies like sE Electronics and Heil make great mics, but haven't gotten quite the name yet as say Shure or Neumann. See the sE Z5600 for instance, http://. Also, since you're starting out you may want to streamline your business and focus on certain areas, such as you were saying you want to do primarily r and b. So get a nice vocal mic, a great set of pres and see if you can also break into the voice-over world. This way you aren't spread so thin with all the money required for a real band studio.

Re: How to spend $30,000

sweeterstudios wrote: If you are looking to record bands here is an idea:



-Buy a digital mixer with great preamps any of the yamaha boards are great with great compressors and internal effects and recallable presets.

$4800



-Buy a couple ADAT MY16 cards or Aes/Ebu MY16 Aes/Ebu cards about $800



-Buy a quality interface such as the motu 2408 or apogee or if you need to go pro tools buy a 192 i/o. Depends on which one 2408 is $1000



-Buy 3x sm57s, 3x Sennheiser mD421s, 2x AKG c414s, SE Geminni, Audio-Technica AT4050 and your covered $4700



- good cables are expensive leave about a $1000 for these



-Buy A Mac $3000



-Buy an internal Hard drive to get no latency issuses with DP $200



-Save money and buy Acer Screens $300



-Get A control surface to get the proper mix with your ears and not your eyes $3000



-Monitors Dynaudio or Genelecs about $1200-2000



total about $20000 and with Pro tools about $25000



this gives room for some nice external preamps such as the liquid channel and some UAD preamps along with great plugins

There it is you got it all enough to compete just around your budget $30000.

This post made me feel REAL good about the route I took. This is me almost to a tee. And I would completely 2nd the advice.



Bought Yamaha DM1000v2 mixer w/an ADAT MY 16 card

A RME Hammersfall 9652 interface.

A few 57's, an SM7 (phenomenal dynamic vox mic for RnB among other things), 2x Rode NT5s, some standard Kick/Tom mics.

Good Cables

Custom built dual-core PC from ADK Pro Audio (the best in the business) and unlimited customer support about anything, anytime, forever!

HP screen - $300

The DM1000 controls Cubase 4 rather flawlessly.

Monitoring off of Adam A-7 monitors w/Velodyne dd12 sub.

And that left me room for a couple nice preamps (API 512c)

and some nice internal plugs (UAD2 Quadcore - fantastic!)



And I'm suprised I haven't heard anyone mention this, but DON'T FORGET TO SAVE $$ FOR SOUNDPROOFING. And not that foam crap either. Get some Realtraps or something similar from someone like Ethan Winer (http://www.realtraps.com), or build your own like I did. You'll need a lot on bass traps if you want a balanced room = balanced listening environment = balanced recordings.

Is he even on here anymore? I just noticed its been a few weeks since he posted...

Call me debbie downer..



But 30k is a lot of money especially if you're just starting out. I could see spending $7,500 or so. Computer, firewire interface. 8 channel pre with adat out, monitors(speakers), headphone amp, head phones, cables, microphones, stands.



MY question is how long will it take for him to get a return in his business venture and would the money be better off safely invested.



I could spend big pile of money on recording gear but I know better. Get what you NEED to work comfortably. After that if you start generating business and have paid off you initial expenses and you still actually enjoy recording, then its OK to splurge on the extras.

Call me double dog downer...



$1.5 Million in liquid assets are a minimum RESERVE you must carry to even begin begging for a McDonald's franchise license. $750,000 is the franchise fee for a Subway.



$30k ain't nuttin'... Hell, $100k ain't that much either.



Ever priced buildings, commercial property, retail rental space?



Just depends on the point of reference.....

To compare investing in a recording studio to investing in a worldwide franchise like Mcdonalds is a bit of a stretch.



With a nice location along with following the corporations guidelines for running that franchise , you'll likely to succeed.



For the most part, a recording studios success doesn't rely on its location for business and there's no franchise instruction manual for operating a successful recording studio



If he has the cash to invest in a commercial property, outfit the building with a studio and gear, then he doesnt have to struggle so much to pay a lot of bills every month. And if things don't work out, that's fine since the property will retain or increase in value, he can just sell it.



If he takes out a mortgage to buy a place, put in a studio and the recording gear, then its an expensive risk. You need the clients before hand. The mantra "Build it and they will come" isn't good enough, IMO. I'd almost rather place 100k on a game of black jack. But hey if you're willing to take that risk and don't care about the possibility of going bankrupt have at it.

My take...



You are spending the most money on the things that don't affect the sound....like the control surface and the desk.



You could roll with a PT system sans control surface and get the exact same sound quality for quite a bit cheaper. You can always add a control surface. If your business takes off then you can get a D command or whatever.



I would get the HD system, a good VO mic, a boutique vocal mic, and a bunch of other workhorse mics, a workhorse rack of pres, and a couple boutique pres. Also a pair or nice monitors...or even a set of surround monitors.



That will give you the most latitude with clients. You could do the normal work that you do, radio work, be a dedicated vocal studio, and do surround mixing. No matter what you aren't going to compete with the wow factor of million+ dollar studios. Instead concentrate on amazing sound while offering amazing value over the big guys.



Thats my take...thats what I've built/been building and I have as much business as I want. I'm still working on building it up, but if you do good work, you'll have clients. There are several studios in town with big ICON surfaces and HD3 rigs, and there are two project studios that use Nuendo and Logic that get all of the work because they sound better.