A pub with no console

[Chinagraf]

Well this is sort of DIY. I designed the desk and had the racks and top custom made. This is my new writing setup sans console. All my outboard is hanging off converters now and I just use it same as a plugin in Cubase. I have to say, the workflow is amazing when you don't have to spend hours resetting mixes and patchcords. I will be adding a controller at some point. I also want to put some sort of wall hanging on the white panels at each end of the desk. If anyone thinks of anything that isn't a Persian rug, let me know.
I really just wanted to try attaching a picture...

[Chinagraf]

Other side..with booth window. This attaching pictures stuff works awesomely now Mark. Nice work.

[Chinagraf]

I had the painters colour match the 2-pack on the benchtop to the walls. And my car. I use Kitten car polish on the benchtop..

[Chinagraf]

Oooh...Arty shot over the Juno..

[Kurt]

Nice!

Blood red floor to ceiling velvet drapes....

[waitup]

Lovely room, Andy. Nice one :)

[Futureman]

I give props for the Jup4.

[Chinagraf]

I love that Jupiter soo much. I'm about the get the midi kit that guy in Slovenia or wherever makes.

[Futureman]

I love that Jupiter soo much. I'm about the get the midi kit that guy in Slovenia or wherever makes.

Yea, NoFi did that to his I'm pretty sure.. there is two types.. one thats full midi, with a whole heap of extra stuff, and then the standard "Key range" only one.

I went through a phase of midi-ing up plenty of my old synths, but at the end of the day, some are just great playing as is.

Sexy studiooo!

[DwaneHollands]

> I also want to put some sort of wall hanging on the white panels at each end of the desk. If anyone thinks of anything that isn't a Persian rug, let me know.

Hey Andy,

Man that looks so tidy! Beautiful reflective surface! I love that Red. Man you have a tonne of outboard! ha ha.

Hey If you're looking to put something on the wall, I have an idea. I know this is salesy, so apologies in advance. I'm currently experimenting with Canvas prints on our large format inkjet printer. Bought some special canvas with an emulsion for colour consistency. Here are some photo's of my first print.

closeUpCanvas.jpg

FarOutShot.jpg

I'm looking to build a bunch (32) 430mm x 430mm broadband panel absorbers which look like canvas prints/paintings. This is kind of a room mockup of what I'm trying to achieve. but more like one picture across 9 panels.

canvasgallery.png

Anyways, I'm suggesting a canvas print of whatever you want on it in full colour. The results are stunning. The texture is just beautiful and authentic, but you can have your logo or any type of photo, so you have total control on the content. You could even go to Harvey Normans and get them to print them up and just box frame it. Although our supplier has told us that our inks are lightfast to 75 years! (that was the salesy part - sorry)

However, Harvey's could be the same anyways!

It's a suggestion. Enjoy your weekend and your beautiful studio!

[rick]

ok dwayne you have a customer .. me !
lets talk

[no-fi]

Yea, NoFi did that to his I'm pretty sure.. there is two types.. one thats full midi, with a whole heap of extra stuff, and then the standard "Key range" only one.

I went through a phase of midi-ing up plenty of my old synths, but at the end of the day, some are just great playing as is.

yeah - I got one of the first IO kits for jp4. though to be honest I tend to use the Jp-4 more just playing the keyboard... It's possible I might get into sequencing it & automating parameters someday but I'm just not used to being able to do that on the JP4, so it's not something I ever think of.

at least it's a very quick and easy mod to do. hardest (scariest) part is taking the 13mm drill bit and making 2 big holes through the nice neat vinyl & wood on the back...

[no-fi]

oh yeah - beautiful room!!!!

:-)

[13thbeach]

Well done Andy. Great looking and functional room. Love the red top.

[DwaneHollands]

ok dwayne you have a customer .. me !
lets talk

Ha ha. No problems Rick! Will PM you!

[no-fi]

oh yeah - and lava lamp love too!!!!!

good to see I'm not the only one having a lava lamp revival in their studio at the moment...
:-)


PS, I'm very interested to see how you go with the no console thing. I'm thinking of doing the same - as much as I love my old beat up A&H desk, I keep thinking that if I just maxxed out the IO on my FF800 with some good ADAT IO interfaces and added a simple monitor controller, I'd have a lot more options for patching stuff about the place.

[Ben M]

I love the new space Andy. Very functional and sensible.

I'm interested in hearing more about your outboard patching to your DAW etc. Is this done with your interface or do you have a separate box?? Inserted outboard or is it a matter of sending and returning as an aux in??

Also, What control surface do you have in mind?

[heathen]

Nice room Andy!

Ben in cubase you can make external plugins which are for your hardware, you just need to route them to spare converter channels, once set up you just use them the same as any other plugin, all with latency compensation.

[Chinagraf]

Thanks for the comments guys.
Ben like Heath said... I'm only using one stereo pair of outputs to feed the monitor switcher which then feeds 3 sets of speakers, the plasma tv input and a sub. The other 30 i/o's are feeding outboard like this :
SSL ALPHALINK

1 SSL 384
2 " "
3 MASSIVE PASSIVE
4 " " "
5 NEVE 2254 1
6 NEVE 2254 2
7 LA3A 1
8 LA3A 2
9 1176 1
10 1176 2
11 LA2A
12 PULTEC EQH
13 AMTEC EQ
14 MOOG EQ
15 FEDERAL 1
16 FEDERAL 2
17 SPACE ECHO
18 " " "
19 COPICAT
20 DOLBY
21 EMT 256II
22 " " "
23 MONITOR SWITCHER
24 " " " "

RME FF800

1 BRICASTI
2 " " "
3 PCM80
4 " "
5 SPX990
6 PCM42
7 SPACE STATION
8 " " "

All are clocked off the Alphalink. Once setup, they all appear in my vst plugin list under the subheading 'external plugins'.
When you initially set them up you need to ping each piece so Cubase can set the latency it needs to compensate for. You have to do this with the effects set to 100% dry on the returns. After that you just put them anywhere you could put a vst plugin, so you can put them on sends or inserts plus with Cubase you can drag inserts around to change the order which is handy.
I have the first 16 Alphalink i/o's and corresponding outboard on a patchbay. Mainly so I can use them for tracking without having multiple conversion stages and keep the signal path short as possible.
I also have a template I made for mixing which has a bunch of group channels with comps on them and all the reverb and delays setup on sends, pretty much how I had the console hardwired. I don't know if you can do it on other programs but on Cubase you can mess with the plugin routing so you can setup 2 mono comps over a stereo channel, so I have like the pair of la3a'a setup on the guitars group etc.
I am lovin this way of working. Maybe I should add some analog summing but I'm in no hurry. The workflow advantages far outweigh any disadvantages for me personally. I guess if I did a lot of rock I might feel differently. I was eyeing of the SHadow Hills Equinox, but I'll wait a while so I can see what it is I really need from a summer, if anything.
Control surface again, waiting to see what I really want. I have an alphatrack for fades for now. I want a Euphonix artist setup, but I've heard conflicting stories from their development people and Avids as to where they are going. So I'll wait.
Cheers.

[Chris H]

That's an awesome set up you have there Andy. And the new desk looks great. A bit of a departure from the mud brick and timber look for your myspace pics. You still in the same room?

[Ben M]

Wow Andy!
That's all good info. Thankyou.
I've been sitting in a PT haze with my blinkers on obviously. The flexibility of this sort of setup is what I'd like for home. So, writing/mixing and a small amount of tracking.
I haven't used Cubase since my Atari ST days so I'm way behind in that regard.

Thanks for the rundown of your new setup. Very flexible and recallable if you document the outboard settings, or can you do THAT in cubase 5 too? ;-0

[prequalizer]

So you do not have any of your outboard connected to a patchbay so you can chain outboard or are you chaining them as inserts, like an La2a and 1176, you would simply add two inserts to a channel?

How is the sound quality when doing that? I was considering doing that as well, but my converters are average and I do not want to do to many ADA processing. How is the accumulative effect on your tracks if you are doing it, are you noticing much difference in quality if you minimize ADA processing?

[no-fi]

wow - very cool rundown on the concept!

makes me want to do the same, though I'm very anchored to having a bunch of external gear with their own sequencers that run together, and only when I have something working "live" do i actually try and hit record, and then take in 8 channels of audio at once.

do you mind talking through your basic approach to writing with external gear? by the looks of things you don't seem to concentrate so much on recording multiple external instruments at once? (or do you have another whole soundcard with multi ins for that??)

[Ben M]

So you do not have any of your outboard connected to a patchbay so you can chain outboard or are you chaining them as inserts, like an La2a and 1176, you would simply add two inserts to a channel?

I'd say you'd be able to have any config of outboard in any sequence depending on which insert is first and which is 2nd etc. This would determine your chain... (top to bottom in the inserts graphic). Me thinks?@$*(

[Chinagraf]

Hey Chris, yeah same room. It was brown panelling on the walls before.
Ben.. Cubase has a notepad on each track so I put settings in there. If someone could crack the outboard recall thing it would be like the holy grail. I don't use too many varies settings on some stuff. The reverb/delay effects if it's something specific I can print it. On Cubase you can pick any fx track return as an input for a track, so recording fx is easy. I do it a lot with the space echo and space sation and pcm80. You can get all sorts of wacky things and just record them as you go. Then do another take and you end up with layers of all these wacky performances you did with a delay or messing with the settings realtime.
John .. the two main comp and eq racks are on the patchbays in the right side of the desk racks, along with the first 16 in and outs of the Alphalink, so if I want to chain stuff I do it there. I don't really hear a problem usign the SSL's for all the insert stuff. I do avoid multiple round trips by using the patchbay.
Julian..if I want to record multiple in's I have a bunch of outboard pres. I go mics straight into them, out of them into the outboard rack or converter inputs via the patchbay. There's a bigger room with a Fairlight Constellation in it just outside my door if I need to record anything bigger. I mainly use my booth that's off to the side for vocals and guitars. It's only about 16 m2..I record drums in the bigger room or in the foyer we have here, which is really big with high vaulted timber lined ceilings. I'm going to get a 16 way multicore and stagebox so I can track straight into here from most other rooms in the place.
Angus..yeah I'm still a fan of analog summing for stuff that needs it but I think what I like is more than just the sound of a summing box. I'll keep watching the summing thing with interest. If I did it it would have to be by adding another Alphalink.

[prequalizer]

This is what concerns me about mixing using outboard gear.
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much- ... -gear.html

[Chinagraf]

Hey John, I find Greg's comments a little confusing.. he seems to be talking about the logic i/o specifically. I will say that I have spent time worrying about the intellectual correctness of setups but have now gone full circle to
the camp of if it sounds good it is good. I also know that when I send a drum sub out to an outboard 1176 and bring it back in as a parallel comp it sounds awesome. I also know this setup allows me to use outbaord to track and mix without thinking about it. Nothing worse than getting inspired and having to stop, put your guitar down and patch up a bunch of stuff before you can record it, then you forget the idea while you try to remember how to patch stuff up. I can't say if there's a subsample latency occuring. I don't know and to be honest I don't really care as long I like what I'm hearing. I suppose I could do some sort of null test, but with analog outboard it's probably never going to null anyway, and I'd rather spend my time making music. Which to me really is what it boils down to. I would just give it a try on your setup and see what your ears tell you.
I've spent a lot of time with one foot in the technical camp and one in the artistic and I think they work to the detriment of each other.
It's tricky because the way it works nowdays most people have to do some amount of both, but over thinking things is the enemy of creativity in my book. So I say subsample schmubsample. Just plug ya stuff up and have a go. You can always change it back if you don't like it. I would be a bigger shame not to try something because someone on the internet who while a great guy isn't considered a leading authority on the matter (and even if he is who cares) says it is wrong.
Which BTW I'm not even sure he is. Greg works on a hybrid system so maybe his comment is just in relation to logic i/o....and at worst it's only relelvant to parallel compression anyway even if there is an issue with some systems.
Less thinking, more music.
Cheers.

[rick]

what worries me about your setup andy is that i bought a ssl xl logic desk for christmas because i was sick of not having a console anymore ( i had a rack of converters doing what your doing )but i liked the ssl so much i went out and got a real euphonix (56 chn ) analog console
-lo and behold i looked up the other day and i was wheeling in a really low hours Studer a800 mk3 24 trk AND another much bigger (96chn) euphonix console ! just so i had a 24track machine and a shed of spare parts should my console ever needs it

and here you are getting RID of your console because it makes things easier and more musical for some part of your brain

it never occurred to me the solution to the console story was to buy more converters ! those tings are uber expensive :)

bugger ... ! oh well back to the drawing board i guess



how many coats of 2 pac you got on that shiny desk then ...?

i can see the future ...and i bet you have a bunch of heavy stuff up on it scratching the shine right off in no time :)
looks great though- well done

[Chinagraf]

Yeah but Rick, the Euphonix, the Studer etc...is it all about your core business or is it about your personal enjoyment?
Parting with the console was hard work, but 80% of my income is from writing so moving my focus more onto the music and letting someone else worry when it comes to mix time was a great move for me personally. As I mentioned I think we're in an age where sometimes you have to wear to many hats and end up doing a few jobs well instead of one job extremely well. That was the idea of moving all the gear off to the side and having an empty benchtop, just to focus on the music. Last few things I've had someone else mix in another room and I just sit around and listen. I'm loving it.
I do love mixing, but the reality is there are any number of local people and members of here that do it better than I do. If I was purely an engineer I'd be doing it differently. I'm ok at it, but the ease with which I write and play music compared to the difficulty I go through mixing it is night and day.
I do see a day when I have a home setup again and would most likely put a small console in there purely for the fun factor. I have a friend with a 5104 in storage that's ready to dig it out soon as I want it.
I don't know how many coats are on the desk. A few? It was a kitchen maker that did it, so whatever they do. And I hear ya about scratches. I have a bunch of mats things without rubber feet go on. I also have as part of the desk plans a couple of
desktop racks for eack corner of the desk if I need them, but I'm trying to keep the desktop clean. One of the things I hated about the console in here is that I never have enough space to lay charts out when I'm working with strings. Now I have...
Converters are expensive if you are buying them from the Mayans :)
I do think the solution for everybody is different. A good friend that was one of my mentors was in here a while back and he has a nice place with tools in it. He saw the console and started getting homesick for one. He just bought a Neve for his place. So I like to think as one person gets rid of a console another person gets one. Everything in balance.

[rick]

err i think my core business is keeping my family tight :)
the rest of my life is just for the fun of it !

i have gone with and without consoles and tape machines so many times i reckon the answer is NOT to have one
but i havent convinced myself it works as well so i keep just finding some better ones to hang out with

i have also had a few shiny desktops in my time as well , hell i am putting granite slabs in the new studios kitchen and bathroom as i speak
( ever tried dry cutting granite ... eeeeeek)

my problem is i want everything , then i get the shits because everything is messy
then i go about streamlining it so i have relitively nothing , then i want everything again just in case and on it goes

with me i think the answer is to accept that things change and enjoy each part of the ride as much as i can
( my waves L2 hardware box blew up today and its not fun right now ) .

oh and also go and get some super car clear silicone magic wax/ clay stuff like you would use on a ferrari and hit the red 2 pak paint hard once a week for the next month
until you have a uber shiney (slippery ) surface on top of the 2 pak

it will cut your 2 pak over mdf scratch factor down by 600 % i promise