How to Build a Personal Studio on Any Budget

Jul 1, 2002 12:00 PM, Steve O

The Windows PC Studio - $15,000

By Dennis Miller

ITEMS PRICE
Crown CM-700 microphones (2) $598
Echo Layla24 audio/MIDI interface $995
(bundled with Steinberg Cubasis)
Kurzweil SP76 keyboard controller $800
Mackie HR824s active monitors (2) $1,598
MOTU Micro Express MIDI interface $295
PC with Intel Pentium 4/2.4 GHz CPU, $4,500
1 GB RDRAM, 40 GB and 80 GB drives,
19-inch LCD monitor, Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600
display adapter, Pioneer DVR-A04 DVD-R drive,
Windows 2000 and Windows 98 (dual-boot)
Peavey PC 16005 MIDI fader box $399
Sonic Foundry Acid Pro 3.0 loop sequencer $499
Sony MDR-7506 headphones $125
Spin Audio VST-DX Wrapper free
Lite DirectX shell for VST plug-ins
Steinberg Cubase VST 5.1 (upgrade from $225
Cubasis) digital audio sequencer
Steinberg GRM Tools, vols. 1 and 2, effects plug-ins $398
Steinberg WaveLab 4.0 audio editor $599
Symbolic Sound Kyma System sound-design $3,570
workstation with FireWire interface
Waves Native Power Pack 3 effects plug-ins $500
TOTAL $15,103

Ah, what a pleasure it is to spend EM editor in chief Steve O's play money! With a $15,000 budget, I can buy top-of-the-line components and outfit my studio for a wide range of tasks. I'm well equipped to create music for games or any type of film or video production, and some little-known features in my sequencer let me explore algorithmic composition in distinctive ways. More traditional tasks, such as songwriting and building dance tracks, are also possible, and I am ready to tackle the challenge of DVD authoring. Live recording is also no problem, assuming I can keep the studio environment free of sonic interruptions.

As with my $5,000 PC-based studio, I'm starting with the computer and then moving through the different types of hardware and software I'll want to have on hand.
Computer. I'm sparing no expense in my high-end system. My music machine has a 2.4 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor and 1 GB of RDRAM, a 40 GB system drive, and an 80 GB drive dedicated to audio (or video, as the case may be). I'm also springing for a 19-inch LCD monitor. For burning CDs and DVDs, I'm buying a Pioneer DVR-A04 DVD-R drive, (a recent replacement for the popular A03), which includes enough bundled software to get me going in the DVD-authoring business.

The computer has an Ethernet card and an Iomega Zip 250 drive, and it runs Windows 2000 and Windows 98 in a dual-boot configuration. (Windows 98 is required for the Kyma System, which I'll discuss shortly.) I'm asking my vendor for an Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4600 display adapter, which is one of the hottest new video cards on the market. I made a few calls and received quotes for this system ranging from $4,000 to $4,500. I'm budgeting $4,500 just to be on the safe side.

Audio and MIDI interfaces

My audio will be pumping through Echo Audio's Layla24 interface, which has drivers for just about every Windows version and audio protocol you can imagine. Its eight balanced analog ins and outs, ADAT I/O, headphone out, word clock, and MIDI I/O provide an all-in-one solution, which is just what I need. Furthermore, it includes a free copy of Steinberg's Cubasis, which will save me a bunch of money when I purchase my sequencer (more on that later). Although the Layla24 provides me with a MIDI interface, I'm also grabbing a MOTU Micro Express for patching MIDI around the room.

Speakers

On the receiving end are a pair of Mackie HR824s (can you say flat?), which provide rich detail through a thumping 8-inch woofer and 1-inch tweeter. The Mackies conveniently accept XLR and balanced TRS cables and are powered, so I don't need a separate power amp. For headphones I'll go with the ever-popular Sony MDR-7506s.

Microphones

I have a modest budget, so I'm going for a pair of Crown CM-700 small-diaphragm cardioid condensers for stereo miking. The CM-700s give me live-recording options and plenty of flexibility when I take them into the field for sampling. (Of course, I can't take this desktop PC-based system into the field with me, so a portable DAT or hard-disk recorder is on my wish list for future purchases.)

Sound-design workstation

Having the right tool for the job means having lots of tools. But one component I'm buying is so versatile that it saves me from purchasing dozens of different programs. That's the Kyma System from Symbolic Sound, and no high-end desktop studio should be without it. Kyma combines a box full of Motorola digital signal processors that can be reconfigured to serve nearly any audio purpose imaginable. Do you need an FM synth, a granulating sample player, or an audio-to-MIDI converter? It's in there. Do you want to pull out every odd partial in a vocal sample and morph it with the even partials of a violin? No problem - that's a preset, in fact.

For processing live audio, controlling the playback rate of a disk file with your voice, or building complex, polymetric step sequencers, the Kyma is just right. All that power doesn't come cheap, but the $3,570 for a base system and high-speed FireWire interface are well spent.

Digital audio sequencer

Of course, there will be times when I'll need more basic audio tools, and as always, I need a good digital audio sequencer to serve as the backbone of my studio. In this rig, I'm choosing Steinberg's Cubase VST 5.1, which has continued to evolve during the past few years, including ever more software synths and high-quality effects and offering a streamlined and refined user interface. The program's enormous range of MIDI-processing features (for example, the Interactive Phrase Synthesizer) is able to produce hours of variations on even the most basic MIDI phrase. I am very much looking forward to the release of Cubase SX, which should be out by the time you read this.

Loop sequencer

What will I do in all of my spare time? Play with Sonic Foundry's Acid Pro 3.0, for one thing. Acid Pro is a great way to create music with loops and now includes support for MIDI and a single video track. The 18 DirectX plug-ins that ship on the distribution CD-ROM can be used with Cubase or any other DirectX host software, and Acid's internal CD-burning feature complements the other capabilities of my system.

Audio editor

Although I have lots of ways to work with digital audio, a standalone multitrack program is always handy. I think highly of Magix's Samplitude Producer Pro, and version 6.0 is the most intuitive and powerful version of the program yet. Nevertheless, I'm buying Steinberg's WaveLab 4.0, which I consider to be the fastest and most intuitive program on the market. I only wish it had a true multitrack mixer so that I could manipulate the volume of many tracks at once.

Plug-ins

What about special effects? My audio can't leave home without them. Though the Kyma System allows me to create a vast range of audio-processing functions, it never hurts to have other options available directly from within my audio software. For that reason, I'm adding the first two volumes of Steinberg GRM Tools VST plug-ins to my list, and I'm using Spin Audio's free VST-DX Wrapper Lite to ensure that the GRM Tools show up in Acid and any other DirectX host I end up with. I'll also pick up a copy of Waves' Native Power Pack 3, which not only has a beautiful reverb and excellent EQs but also offers the one tool that I've used on nearly every piece of music I've ever created on a computer: the L1 Ultramaximizer.

MIDI fader box

I'm buying a Peavey 16005 MIDI fader box so I don't have to mix audio using my mouse. The 16005 provides 16 faders and 16 buttons - each of which can be separately programmed to send any MIDI message, including System Exclusive strings - so I can use it to edit MIDI devices as well as to control my sequencer. A pair of control-voltage (CV) inputs enables me to use CV footpedals to control anything MIDI. To top it off, I can save complete setups as Scenes.

MIDI keyboard

A Kurzweil SP76 keyboard will serve nicely as my MIDI keyboard, with its 2 ribbon controllers, 32 internal patches, and 32-note polyphony. The SP76 can transmit on two channels at once, which will be handy when I use it with some of the more complex Kyma sounds I'm exploring.

With my $15,000 studio, I can look forward to many years of productivity.