I've Achieved Nirvana.

[László]

Yes. Nirvana. Best amp recording setup I've been able to manage in my current so-called studio...("so-called" because one member here pointed out that it's the most unprofessional studio he'd ever seen, and I guess it is!). But I do my work here, so...

I have tweaked the placement of the amps and cabs in So-Called Studio Les, and I've got them all 4-5 feet from the walls, and they can play fairly loudly without rattling the room. I've tested them with mics, and no weird sounds are being picked up.

And to minimize noise and grounding issues, I've got the amps, pedalboard, and tape echo all powered by the Furman power reservoir thingy in the rack (the tape echo isn't set up in the pic that follows, that happens tomorrow).

I'll be out of action for two weeks starting Thursday, when I have my surgery and the arm will be in a cast.

After that, no lifting anything heavier than a coffee cup for two months (!) so I needed to deal with getting everything set up right beforehand - I will be able to play as soon as the cast is off, I'm told.

"Will I be able to play the violin after the surgery, doctor?"

"You should be able to...can you play the violin now?"

"No."

But anyway, my usual thing is to have the amps out of the way of the space in the room unless I'm recording, and move them into position depending on what mic I'm using or what kind of room sound I want to pick up. But not for the next two months. I had to find a setup that worked for all the amps without having to move them.

Tomorrow I will set up mics for all three amps as well, and just leave 'em in place, ready to hit "record."

 

[jfb]

Hope all goes well Les.

Digging the configuration.

 

[veinbuster]

I'm confused by the unprofessional, but that is irrelevant.
I think it looks good and that your plan is excellent.
Glad you are liking the setup.
Good luck Thursday.

 

[Tosca]

If that awesome setup isn't motivation to recover quickly, then I don't know what is.

Enjoy the setup for the next few days...you'll be back to it soon. Best of luck with the surgery this week Les.

 

[bodia]

I could make awful sounds in that room....that's the only kind I make! Love the set up. Glad you do too. I'm sure I'll say this again before Thursday, but now doesn't hurt....best of luck for a successful surgery, and best wishes for a speedy recovery

 

[László]

Thanks for the good wishes, guys!

I'm confused by the unprofessional

I think the guy was mad at me, and maybe he was expecting the kind of studio that you'd have people book for sessions. Of course, I don't book my studio for outside work.

It's a home studio, and I'm the only one that works here, unless I bring in session folks (which of often do, but they don't care what it looks like since I'm paying them to be there).

I made my own pedalboard-to-amps snake using PRS cables and velcro cable ties. Because I couldn't find a pre-made snake for guitar cables that I actually wanted. It looks pretty funky, but...oh well!

Here's the view of my so-called studio from behind the amps. It's great, I can get around to the backs with plenty of room, in case a tube goes, or I need to replace a cable, etc. Often I put the amp heads on the desk opposite the main keyboard, but getting behind them involves lifting. So I just stuck 'em on top of the cabs, and went with that. I actually think it looks better that way anyway.

 

[bodia]

Just out of curiosity, what was this room originally?

 

[xjbebop]

I like the purple cable....

 

[dkilpatrick]

Great set up! Where are the guitars?
Good luck this week and sending good vibes your way for a speedy recovery.

 

[dmatthews]

Get fixed, get better, get ROCKIN'!

 

[andy474x]

Impressive setup Les. Working in that space must be a pleasure, lots of room.

Although, I have to disagree with this being a true "home studio." Your classical, yet minimalist vibe is just WAY too sterile too call it that.

Sure, it's a studio, and it's in your home. But where's your camping gear, and your tubs full of holiday decorations, and your old, broken sports equipment? Why aren't there exposed studs on the walls?

My wife, on the other hand, she has it figured out. A "home studio" is an otherwise forsaken space where she keeps myself and all our other weird, useless crap out of sight!

I think what you have there is a pro studio, in your home. Perhaps not elaborate, but functional. And CLEAN. Sweet Moses, couldn't you just leave one thing out of place, to make the rest of us not feel like such schmucks?

Seriously though, best of luck with your surgery. I hope you have a pleasant and speedy recovery!

 

[László]

Just out of curiosity, what was this room originally?

It was originally just a finished basement room. When we were looking at places after having a pretty big house for nearly 30 years (that we no longer needed or so we thought), I was struck by how nice this room sounded - yes, I'm that lunatic who walks into a room and does handclaps, sings, etc., to see how it sounds. I'm a very sad case of audio nerdyness. It's hard to find a room that is relatively balanced sounding, symmetrical for setting up monitors, and has enough length for recording amps and bass, with sufficient length for longer waveforms, and a normal eight foot ceiling height, even with a drop ceiling. So it was really the perfect room for a home studio. There's also a gigantic storage and HVAC room.

I know, no one picks a place to live this way. But I did.

I replaced the original ceiling tiles with good acoustical tiles, and had carpet and the laminate floor insert installed. Unfortunately, I used standard office-grade carpet that I now absolutely hate and want to replace, despite the fact that it's not showing any wear. I'm sick of it. It looks like the stuff I had in my old law office for 1000 years. I wasn't sure if we'd stay here for long - we considered moving out of state, hence the choice of "whatever" for the carpeting. Hey, I make mistakes...

The laminate floor insert is fine, I had one at my old place, too. It's needed to roll the chair around without a hassle. My plan was to replace the carpet this spring, but that plan was derailed by the surgery since I won't be able move anything out of the room to have the carpet installed for several months.

I was also planning to install acoustical diffusers at the rear of the room behind the amps and above the storage cabinets, but that, too, must now wait. Had 'em all picked out on the Real Traps site, to match the bass traps that are already there, but they take a few weeks to make, and the surgery is coming up too fast. They are both bass traps and diffusers, and while the room is actually very good-sounding, I think diffusers would improve it even more, and make recording vocal sessions a little better.

"Do you record a lot of vocals, Les?"

"Whenever the clients let me. I like to have vocalise (oohs, aaahs, etc) even on tracks that have no lyrics."

"How often do clients OK this kind of thing?"

"Too rarely any more. But a few times a year, I can talk a client into it. Vocals add a wonderful, live, human dimension to music, and I get sick of only instrumentals; and female vocals are my favorite. I love working with a good singer. It's rewarding when it goes well. And it's a very good sounding vocal room."

 

[László]

I like the purple cable....

That was a freebie from PRS when they first started offering the Van Damme cable - it was a promotion, you bought a guitar, got free strings and a cable. I think a strap and a beanie were also part of the deal. The cables came in all colors, and they sent me this purple one.

All of the cables from guitar to pedalboard, and from pedalboard to amps, are the PRS/Van Damme cables. I think they sound great, are more immune to handling and "moving around while playing" noise than even my Mogami cables, and are far more flexible, so they lay flat. They're also immune to picking up RFI and EMI compared to some of my other cables.

The pedalboard uses custom-spec'd van den Hul cables from Lava. I had to go the custom route because of the way I laid out my pedalboard. I like the PRS interconnects, but they only come in one length, and I needed a variety of lengths.

The van den Hul are stiff cables, so they don't tuck easily under the pedalboard openings, but they're immune to RFI and EMI, they are very low capacitance, sound great, and I had them made with G&H soldered plugs for strength as I can't have a cable fail in a session and be screwing around with the pedalboard. It's easy to replace an instrument cable if one goes bad, but figuring out where the problem is with a pedalboard interconnect is tear-your-hair-out nonsense and I'm over it. I don't have enough hair left anyway. I had a few such occurrences with the George L's plugs and finally said, "That's enough." None of my PRS cables has had an issue, either, and I've had them for several years.

However, my Mogami guitar cables are still functioning and are on tour along with a bunch of Mogami and PRS pedal interconnects with my son and his band, so if you happen to see PartyBaby perform, you can hear my old cables in a starring role.

I also use the PRS/VanDamme speaker cables with my PRS amps. But I have other cables in different lengths for various duties, and my studio gear is wired with Mogami because I already had a ton of it from my old studio.

 

[László]

Although, I have to disagree with this being a true "home studio." Your classical, yet minimalist vibe is just WAY too sterile too call it that.

Sure, it's a studio, and it's in your home. But where's your camping gear, and your tubs full of holiday decorations, and your old, broken sports equipment? Why aren't there exposed studs on the walls?

Lots of people ask me this, and to make explanations shorter, I tell them that I need a nice looking place for when clients come over to listen to tracks, or attend a session. But that's not the main reason.

The main reason is that I'm very easily distracted. If the room isn't neat, well-organized and what I think of as relatively attractive, all my brain does is think of ways to make it neat, well-organized and relatively attractive. And then I can't concentrate on the creative work people are paying me to do.

In order to be creative I have to free my brain of clutter. And I mean, any kind of clutter. Clutter in the room, clutter about everyday worries, clutter about relationships - anything. I've been absurdly unproductive with the worry over my hand, because I have to use it to do the work, and it's constantly reminding me that it doesn't function correctly. This is but one manifestation of the way my head works. Or put another way, the way my head doesn't work.

I think what you have there is a pro studio, in your home. Perhaps not elaborate, but functional. And CLEAN. Sweet Moses, couldn't you just leave one thing out of place, to make the rest of us not feel like such schmucks?

Ya know, I had a much more elaborate pro studio in my old house. I had a 64 input console, five equipment racks full of analog and digital gear, and two analog tape machines, etc, plus analog video equipment, machine synchronizers, the works.

But in the past 8-15 years, people in my business have gone from elaborate analog studios to computer-based work with plug-ins, and now clients expect a composer to work at the speed of digital. Changes happen fast, picture is now on the computer screen instead of having to be synched with machines, and I don't know anyone whose racks of gear are actually being used for more than show in the scoring business. So when I moved, I sold off my analog gear for about ten cents on the dollar, and now most everything's in the computer.

I have a very elaborate studio in the digital realm. And that's what's needed now, and what my competitors use. So my racks are pretty empty, and in fact, I gave my partner two of the empty ones that were once filled so he can rack up the few hardware things he has left.

One nice thing about working and mixing "in the box" is that the fortune I used to have to spend buying and maintaining the latest hardware can now go into nice guitars! I don't even need a studio tech any more (I had one come in a couple of times a month just to wire things up to the patch bays, bias the tape machines, etc).

I do miss the glow of my racks of hardware, though.

 

[JustRob]

Best of luck on the surgery Les!

Sorry to hear about the violin... But as Bush noted in Everything Zen, "There's no sex in your violins."

(I see you manged to get me to notice your stool again...)

 

[László]

Best of luck on the surgery Les!

Sorry to hear about the violin... But as Bush noted in Everything Zen, "There's no sex in your violins."

(I see you manged to get me to notice your stool again...)

Ha!

There's sex in violins - did you see The Red Violin?

 

[andross182]

Is your next amp gonna be an archon?

 

[László]

Is your next amp gonna be an archon?

Dunno, I don't play much high gain stuff. When I had a Mark V, I only used two channels, and set the lead channel to fairly low gain (for that style of amp).

The HXDA can get crazy with a boost pedal, fuzz, or overdrive, so...

I'm hoping PRS comes out with an AC30 style amp. I love AC30s.

 

[Tosca]

I'm hoping PRS comes out with an AC30 style amp. I love AC30s.

Me too...I miss my Bad Cat Hot Cat 30R...but my back doesn't...

 

[László]

Me too...I miss my Bad Cat Hot Cat 30R...but my back doesn't...

Oddly enough, we think alike; I had a Hot Cat 30 before the reverb model came out. I loved it, but if I had it to do over again, I'd get the one that's more like an AC30 with EL84s.

I had a head, so it wasn't that heavy.

I'd love a good AC30 style amp again though. I'm thinking AC30 style head, Grissom cab loaded with Celestion Blues or Alnico Creams.