How to Build a Personal Studio on Any Budget

Jul 1, 2002 12:00 PM, Steve O

The Portable Digital Studio - $2500

By Marty Cutler

ITEMS PRICE
AKG C 1000 S condenser microphone $312
Korg CDRW 158 CD-RW drive $400
Korg D12 portable digital studio $1,150
M-Audio SP-5B powered monitors (2) $399
Samson CH700 headphones $55
Shure SM57 dynamic microphone $146
TOTAL $2,462

Portable digital studios integrate the essential studio components in a small, self-contained unit, and they can produce high-quality, professional results. I want to take the "studio-in-a-box" concept as far as I can; consequently, my portable digital studio of choice offers built-in CD-mastering capabilities. I also want to ensure a healthy degree of portability for the entire system; that means evaluating ancillary devices for compactness and buying products that offer as many integrated features as possible. Adaptability and versatility are key issues.

Although my budget doesn't immediately allow for it, I might eventually want to expand my system by adding the powerful MIDI-sequencing and audio-editing features offered by a computer, so a solid MIDI implementation is essential. I eliminated the so-called pocket recording studios from consideration because I wanted at least uncompressed, 16-bit, linear recording. All current pocket recording studios use data-compression schemes, sampling rates lower than 44.1 kHz, or both, and they're too small to hold a built-in CD burner.

Portable digital studio.

I'm devoting the bulk of my spending money to the portable digital studio, which will be my mixer, effects rack, tracking machine, and mixdown and mastering deck. For the centerpiece of my budget studio, I winnowed my selection down to the Boss BR-1180, the Fostex VF80, and the Korg D12. All three units offer an option to install an onboard CD-RW drive for mixing down and data backup.

All three units let me import and export tracks as WAV files. That's convenient if I want to edit tracks on someone else's personal computer (there's no room in my budget for my own computer), or if I want to pull WAV loops into tracks. The Fostex and the Boss units come with 20 GB hard drives; the D12's drive is a modest 6 GB, but hard drives are cheap, and when the occasion arises, I can install a larger one (though Korg does not officially sanction that practice).

The number of simultaneous recording tracks proved to be an important deciding factor. The Fostex and Boss recorders can record just two tracks at a time. That would be acceptable if I only intended to record stereo room mixes of live bands or lay down MIDI tracks in my personal studio, but I want to record several musicians to separate tracks simultaneously. That makes the D12, with its simultaneous 4-track recording, the leader of the pack.

The Korg unit gives you a dozen 16-bit, 44.1 kHz tracks or six tracks at 24 bits and 44.1 kHz. The two XLR inputs provide phantom power, and four balanced 1/4-inch analog inputs let you connect keyboards or other line-level devices. Trim pots for the 1/4-inch inputs allow you to adjust for line- or mic-level input. An unbalanced 1/4-inch high-impedance input lets you record guitars and basses directly through a roster of great-sounding amp models and effects. You also get a 1/4-inch expression-pedal jack for modulating effects such as wah-wah and chorus.

All 12 tracks have high, midrange, and low EQ, and the mids are sweepable. The built-in effects processors provide additional 4-band parametric EQ for precision frequency tailoring. I like the arrangement of the effects-processor algorithms. You can apply some basic dynamics processing, such as compression or limiting, to all tracks simultaneously, or you can choose more powerful multiple-effect algorithms (for example, amp and cabinet simulators with compression, overdrive, chorus, and delay) specifically tailored for guitar, bass, vocals, and keyboards.

The D12 also has a healthy complement of less mainstream effects, including vocoding, ring modulation, and bit reduction. You can apply two Final effects, such as reverb, with individual send levels for each track. Last, to provide overall punch and gloss to the final stereo mix, the D12 lets you choose a single Master effect such as parametric EQ, compression, or multiband limiting. All effects are programmable, and you can store your tweaks in user memory.

A stereo rhythm track provides drum grooves that you can link together as you would drum-machine patterns. You can print the patterns to tracks or just use them to keep recordings in the pocket. That sure beats a metronome.

The D12 provides all of the basic track-editing features - including copy, delete, and insert - and it has track-management features such as optimizing and swapping. The unit offers 99 levels of undo (although anyone reaching that level of distress should probably start over from scratch). Accordingly, the D12 lets you select 1, 9, or 99 undo levels, keeping you from getting mired in confusion.

The D12 is a machine I can grow with when my budget allows. The unit's MIDI implementation is quite respectable. It's the only unit in its price range that can act as master or slave to MIDI Time Code (MTC) or MIDI Clock. The D12 also sends and receives MIDI Machine Control (MMC), letting you automate the recording process for any additional units. You get dynamic, automated control of mixing parameters and effects with MIDI Control Change (CC) messages, and Scenes respond to Program Change messages. Because the D12 offers S/PDIF inputs and outputs, I can eventually add an external tube preamp with digital outputs. (One possibility is the A.R.T. DPS, which accommodates microphones as well as guitar, bass, or synth signals, adding the analog warmth of a 12AX7A tube.)

Finally, I like the D12's mixdown capabilities. You can, for instance, bounce tracks to overwrite the first two tracks even if all tracks are full. The unit also lets you bounce to virtual tracks. To produce masters and back up song data, I am going with Korg's CDRW158 rather than a SCSI-based CD-RW. Like the other units, the recorder offers a SCSI port for data backup, recording, or CD burning, but I can always add external drives when my budget allows.

Speakers.

Following the philosophy of maximum portability, I'm using active monitors. They eliminate the need for a separate power amp, thereby minimizing bulk and taking up less space. M-Audio SP-5B biamped monitors deliver great bang for the buck. They offer a stable, balanced frequency response in the low to midrange and well-defined mids and highs. A subsonic port channels frequencies below 30 Hz, offering an impressive amount of bass for a speaker with such a small footprint.

The swivelmounted, 3/4-inch silk-dome tweeters let you adjust the sweet spot to accommodate different listening environments - a handy feature for a portable system. The speakers each have a 5.25-inch woofer with a crossover frequency of 2.7 kHz. The low-frequency amp delivers 42W of power, and the high-frequency amp puts out 33W.

A small but important item on my shopping list is headphones. I want a closed-ear model so I can minimize audio leakage from the headset, and Samson's CH700s fill the bill. The headphones feature 40 mm diaphragm drivers and a frequency response of 20 Hz to 20 kHz.

Microphones.

I've made room for two microphones in my budget. The Shure SM57 is versatile enough for recording vocals, amplified guitar and bass, or rhythm sections. Furthermore, the D12 offers built-in mic modeling, and although I don't expect letter-perfect replications of vintage microphones, that feature is adequate for creating the variety of coloration that might normally be provided by a broader range of mic types.

My second mic is the AKG C 1000 S, a good multipurpose condenser mic. I love its sound for acoustic guitars, banjos, and mandolins - instruments that show up frequently in my music. The C 1000 S runs on either 48V phantom power or a 9V battery. Furthermore, the C 1000 S comes with a cap that fits over the capsule; you can use that to change the pattern from cardioid to a tighter hypercardioid pattern.

With my ceiling of $2,500, I was left with enough money to buy a couple of blank CDs and maybe a beer or two.