skip to main |
skip to sidebar
What has a blog devoted to the budget conscious studio got to do with a $1M console? Honestly not much, however, it's always interesting to look at what's out there and with all the tweaky-geeky toys available it's also informative to see what's actually being used in real world situations.
The snapshot above is my favorite live broadcast production console, the all digital Calrec Alpha. Designed & built to be fast, rugged, flexible and sonically excellent, it's a joy to mix on & surprisingly intuitive given it's complexity.
Of course much of the price ticket goes to qualities not really needed by the budget studio. Extreme ruggedness, the ability to be operational 24/7 and the required manufacturer support all add to the cost. These consoles tend to be like great sports cars, nice to have but the upkeep is steep!
Thanks to reader Mark for pointing out this useful hack from Ikeahacker. Using a pair of $9 Slinga brackets and some wood creates this laptop stand. Because the brackets are not connected until you add a top all manner of custom sizes can be created. Use a Lack shelf for a desk over-bridge perhaps? These would be great for DJ use too.
I've been a Mac user for pretty much my entire computing life, however, Cheapskate Studio is an equal opportunity blog and I know many people are happily creating music on their PCs. In fact popular packages such as Gigastudio & Sonar are still PC only.
There seems to be a lot of questions around performance tweaks for Windows machines & plenty of manufacturers offering audio-specific machines that supposedly address these with optimized equipment.
However, if you're handy around the control panel in XP you can do most of this yourself using this excellent & easy to follow guide from MusicXP. Some of the tweaks are fairly obvious but many are pretty deep. Best of all is the cost - nothing!
If you're handy with a soldering iron, have less than $10 and want to solve a common studio problem, here's a little weekend project.
If you drive your studio monitors from the headphone/audio out of your laptop or computer sound card you find yourself constantly clicking on the sound control panel to change the volume or mute your speakers. Here is a simple design using all Radio Shack parts that will give you a high-quality passive volume control at your finger tips.
Only one side of the stereo is shown for clarity. All the - sides of your inputs are tied to ground. I've shown this using mini-jack sockets, however, any type of input could be used to suit your preference. As for a box, since some shielding would be nice, I'd recommend an old standby, the Altoid tin (eat the mints first). Of course, the more handy can come up with all kinds of attractive boxes.
So, no more desperate clicking around when the phone rings.
Many of the free plug-ins available (look for a continuing series here) are frankly not worth the disc space they occupy. iZotope's Vinyl certainly is. A simple VST, RTAS, MAS or AU plug-in that recreates the sound of old vinyl (and shellac I guess) by adding noise and filtering the audio. I've used it to do all kinds of tricks, including the old "voice on the telephone" sound. I really like the ability to adjust individual parameters to get effects far beyond the intended purpose. Using automation to "morph" in & out of an effect like this would be interesting too. iZotope's other products (particularly Ozone which I use) are unfortunately not free but still well worth a look.
A great source for creative DIY products is Parts Express. Although they have a Pro-Audio division, it's the parts & speaker construction sections that offer an interesting array of solutions at great prices. Many of their products are the OEMs that you see re-badged (and re-priced) by more famous brands! Sign up for their big, free catalog on the website.
If you're into the LoFi bleepy-bloopy world of 8 bit, game system and Commodore 64 music you're probably already familiar with the likes of 8 bit bEtty (free album for download), Tobiah and the 8 bit Operators. Using Game Boy cartridges and the C64's SID sound chip many of these acts are producing sophisticated music.
Although these systems have their purists & devotees, composition can be a long and arduous task on these platforms. However, from LoFi Japanese band YMCK comes the free VST/AU plug-in Magical 8 Bit (demo'ed above). Now you easily create, from scratch LoFi music or just as interesting, incorporate some of these retro sounds into your exisiting songs.
What has a blog devoted to the budget conscious studio got to do with a $1M console? Honestly not much, however, it's always interesting to look at what's out there and with all the tweaky-geeky toys available it's also informative to see what's actually being used in real world situations.
