Fencing slats over 2x4 for pannels. Pannels flat agains the wall is a no go, use 6" fence slats with 4" rockwool to leave a 2" airgap behind the pannel. They work out at about £15 for 4'x2' pannel.
You mentioned CRMs, would you mind sharing which one you're using? The one I've been using for the last decade just got rid of the plan I've been on, so I've been scrambling to try to find a new one I like!
When talking about your DIY acoustic panels, remember to call it "acoustic treatment" and not "sound insulation" . Calling it the wrong thing seems to cause much confusion on the internet, with people thinking that acoustic treatment will isolate their studio from outside noise or studio noise getting out. Isolation is a whole different kettle of fish compared to treating the acoustics of the room.
I really like the Chandler TG Type L too. It's my most used large diaphragm condensor mic. The other I use a lot is the JZ Vintage 67, thinking of buying a second, though another flavour like their 11. Or the Soyuz 1973 is one I'd really like to have for micing guitar cabs. Would like that Vanguard V44 for piano too - the price is pretty reasonable. Then could sometimes use the Chandler for vocals or acoustic guitar. Other than the Chandler TG & JZ 67, I fall back to the Shure SM7b -which the Soyuz launcher brings up nicely. But, I don't generally love or reach for bright mics. I do have a pair of Austrian Audio OC16s that are quite good, when I want that. Beyerdynamic MC930s, and the cheap but good Line Audio CM4 are my SDC pairs of choice. There's a lot of good mics in the $400-1000 range these days. A pro studio can definitely do an awful lot of quality recording tasks with less than 5-10k in mics. Though if you add a higher-end tube LDC & a few quality ribbon mics, it does get to 20k fast.
The best advice I got when I was thinking of being a recording engineer for a living was from the prorec forums in the late 90s and the resounding answer was "Don't do it!" I ignored that advice and had a great time at it for about 5 or 6 years and let other more lucrative things take over my professional life. But I have killer home studio and I still make music because I have to. But not have to make a living Also, Barry manilow LOVES reverb, he calls it magic. He thinks it sounds dull otherwise. Just ask his engineers. Joking but not lol😂 make your music sound the way you want it to sound. Looking back I wish I learned you can just make your own ribbon mics earlier by say 30 years If you are the kinda guy who would buy a hand built ribbon microphone lemme know
As you should be Someone made a vid about making a ribbon mic out of garbage, rewound a transformer pulled from a dial up modem (here is the cheat, he bought the coated wire for a previous project and it was leftover) and made the ribbon out of foil salvaged from a gun wrapper if I remember that right. I think the gun wrapper foil was the weak part of the mic. It didn't sound good to me but that guy is a badass as far as I'm concerned lol Also I want to make better corrugatins on the ribbon something stiffer, use triangles. You can't do that with reg gears and I haven't figured out a good diy solution outside of buying a 3d printer to make weird gears. If you think of anything lemme know
I live in a relatively old house (built in the 80's) and every now and then I'll have to do the plumbing fixes myself. I tell you surface mounting pipes and just making them look pretty? That'll save your ass when you're 60 and you wana save on a couple of bucks on just changing out a sink faucet.
I just want to co-sign something said in the video. Establishing clear boundaries with a written contract is incredibly important. I’m not saying you have to get a lawyer and draw up a contract, although that is a good idea, but have written guidelines and boundaries. For example, I tell every client family comes first. I have work time, I have family time, and they shouldn’t expect me to work during off hours. I tell clients what my “office hours” are and stick to it, with rare times I work in off hours because of scheduling; by that I mean if an artist is only in town for a few hours, I’ll accommodate that rather than just saying no. At first I was nervous about doing this, but it has actually gotten me more clients than it’s cost me. When you’re upfront and honest with clients, they will respect you (most of the time). When clients aren’t respectful, then point to the contract they signed. If they keep pressing after that, fire the client. In nearly two years I haven’t had to fire a single client, and I’ve had so many clients say they think it’s awesome I keep boundaries and put family high on my priority list. Work your butt off during work hours, but when you’re not at work, don’t be at work.
Quick correction: Rockwool is 16” wide, not 24”. If you want 24”W x 48”L, you have to order an entire pallet because it’s a special order item, which runs almost $900 USD. Go in with a bunch of other musicians to buy a pallet and it will serve a couple folks.
Tip on the rockwool 16" 2x4 pack you referenced.. it's kind of labeled in a confusing way. They're only 16" wide so for a 2x4 panel youll need like 1.5 of each. Just made a bunch of new panels myself, great tips. For hanging them I'd recommend french cleats - super strong and easy to mount.
@@RecordingStudioLoser Where do you buy the 24x48 ones? In my local lowe's they don't carry that size at all. Is there website that possibly carries it for lower shipping rates?
If you need to make a bass trap, take the Roxul Safe N Sound out of the package, keeping the shape exactly as it came in the bag, and wrap it in fabric. Then just lay it upright in the corner. Basically you’re just replacing the plastic bag with fabric and setting it in the corner. Works shockingly well for about $60 total.
That was happening to me because I was grinding my teeth at night causing swelling and inflammation around the Eustachian tube. It allowing it to drain until the swelling went down. I still wear the mouth guard and it keeps the swelling from starting. I still have jaw pain though.
Wow! Thank you for this vid! And you sharing your testimony on this. I’ll get my mouth guard asap. I too am an audio engineer and I would love for this to stop happening to me.
Hey Jeremy - another great one. My wife and I have started several businesses and now getting into recording studio, one thing that is a must is not to position yourself in a way that will fiscally starve you. If you are starting - ALWAYS have an income and be as diversified so that as you start, you don’t starve! We have seen hundreds of people start a business and stop quite their job saying - all or nothing…. Well it usually ends in nothing. Patience also! Cut yourself a break. Best to you.
My biggest advice (and I don't do pro-audio at all: my gig is software consulting) -- find a payroll provider that handles a mix of employees (even if it is only yourself) and contractors, and get them integrated with whatever you use for accounting. Reduce all the stressors around withholding taxes and paying them to the appropriate national / regional-aka-state / local entiteies to the absolute minimum. *And* hire the CPA / lawyer to advise you on the stuff you can expense...
Millsounds is a great channel too, pointed me towards some mics I really love, like the Soyuz and Chandler TG Type L. The RA Book has lots of designs, including how to build your own isolated rooms, doors etc... it's pretty useful too if you want to build a more permanent constructions, like isolated drum or amp rooms for example. But yes, I had panels like that too in my home studio at my house, before I moved country and moved into a rental apartment temporarily. And, another thing you can do is buy a bails of this stuff. Then even without taking it out of plastic, wrap the whole bail in burlap/jute or whatever. You can stack those big bails against the corners, to make corner traps. They can go along the floor corner too, behind the studio desk. Then build a big ass cloud, clouds are so helpful. Going back to untreated room, after getting used to treat sucks. Room correction helps a bit, for mixing at least.
I have one close to me as well. They do that sometimes. Also big roofing supply places will often set out very large pallets that can be taken for free. Litttle more work to cut them down. But free is free
I'm not concerned about doing rockwool frames, I'm concerned about doing the wrong thing. Like muffle all mids and highs with a wall covered in rockwool while at the same time doing nothing about the bass bouncing around the whole room.
I get it. If you need lower frequencies double your or give your self an air gap of 3-4’inches from the wall. Still this is cheap enough to learn and make mistakes and change and learn the room.
@@RecordingStudioLoser Can even make a double decker sandwich of these two. So, 4" air gap from wall. Then frame with 4" rockwool, then 4" gap, then another 4" rockwool panel. You can cover that as one unit too and save on fabric. And the air gaps are two for one, and free! Well kinda, you do lose some space in your room.
@@IvanGarcia-mk6fk Yip, the Present Day Productions guys did alternating panels. Every second one was plain, alternating with ones fronted with diffusers. They built their own diffusion front using plywood, cut to a design, I think from the RA book. Once sanded and treated, looked great too. They built a really nice isolated/treated studio in a warehouse space for not much money.
Learning photography and video capture, lighting, editing skills is getting more important in the music industry, even in studios. And how to work with both together. And less of the existing engineers will have the experience, or especially the time for that aspect. Similar with IT skills. Learning audio & networking wiring, backup tools and process, setting up NAS devices, being very knowledgable with the common OSs. Sometimes new people can have an edge here. Being an absolute ninja in terms of just speed of using a couple of the most common DAWs for common time consuming tasks and their processes, shortcuts (you mention pitch correction, but also audio cleanup, and yes definitely drum editing). And again, you can learn a lot of that from video, manuals, and tons of practice on your own music projects. Learning the drums, and especially how to tune them, and set them in the most common patterns for recording (Glyn Johns, Recorderman, common close micing strategies). Basic guitar/bass tech is good to know, restringing, setup/intonation, basic electronics like how to wire pickups, jack sockets, pots. Knowing how to dial in common amps and pedals. Even things like fret-levelling. Learning how to tune a piano is another really useful skill, few engineers have the skill and certainly don't have the time.
Just what I needed to hear because this week I’m gonna finish running the cabling from the rack to the desk in the control room and hang acoustic treatment in both the control room and the vocal booth and a pass through for mic cables and headphones so I can start my journey but there’s a bar that’s a quarter mile from my house and it’s for sale and I all most put a bid in for it but I realize I don’t have any clients yet and right now my only expenses are my electric bill, but if I were to purchase the bar now I have insurance a mortgage and an additional utility bill so I decided to build my recording studio in my basement for now because what if my studio never gets off the ground what a waste of time and money that would be but thanks for sharing
You can take a tourch to it and it won’t burn because of what it is made from. It’s fireproof. Since it’s melted and spun rock like cotton candy. It’s dense and breathable and very good for absorbing more frequencies than fiber glass per lb sq.
Butt yeah one mistake I've seen that's really stupid dangerous is using all kinds of garbage for sound treatment that's a total fire hazard This vid lacks making a fire pit warning It's common
Your point on sustainability is so important. If you can't feed yourself and save some for tomorrow (whatever tomorrow might bring) with the money from your gig, it will eat your business from the inside out. And fast.
I'm sorry, this has little to do with your content, but I definitely spotted the Soyuz ambisonics mic in the background! I'm dying to hear what you're cranking out of this bad boy! :-)
It’s pretty wild. And I’ve been talking to Soyuz. I don’t think I’m going to do a feature video on it necessarily but rather allow it to come up organically in videos
That was really useful on a practical level. Actually had been thinking about in-wall cabling. You've probably saved me money, time and ongoing hassle there. A good accountant is pretty essential, especially here living in Spain - where tax rules can be strange and onerous. Now that things have changed in the computing realm, the other point I would make is. Initially, invest in good software for what you can (compression, limiting, gating, EQing). Then, when you've well and truly settled on processing tools ITB, then you can invest in the outboard versions of the tools you love and know inside out. Knowing that it's not wasted me, since they're your most used tools. I think studio owners have a needless bias towards buying/using hardware over software. And that's not efficient, many professionals favour the total recall of plugins, especially for basic track EQ and mix utility compression, gating etc... And maybe hardware is only really needed for light processing, at tracking, for creative processing, and later when printing a final mix/master.
IMHO, Run shielded Cat 5/6/7... EVERYWHERE! That gets you 4 balanced taps you can put all over the place. You can send 4 Analog mic/line per run, or Dante/AVB, HDMI over Cat... etc. to locations all over the place and it is REALLY cheap and easy to make/terminate lines. Drop a CAT outlet with a couple of runs to it every 8 to 12 feet on your walls. Breakouts are cheap and easy to build. Also for big analog snakes, just build little 6-8" boxes along the length of the wall on the floor, Radiating out from a main Patch Panel for ALL Control Room Connections. Cut a vertical slot about 2" wide every 8 feet or so to run cables out and a hinged cover (just a board) on top for access. Then you can just run out sub snakes through this trough and it keeps all the lines hidden.
This is all awesome advice, I am in the networking/collaborating phase but I have had some clients and potentially more so I can see the goals and stuff in the future (I am in a bedroom I made a amateurish studio) I am looking into upgrading my mic to a more pro grade mic but hearing you say maybe something mid range could be good too. The treated room thing I worked on that too but could be better but yeah I am like starting out slowly, thanks for this vid!
Thank you Jeremy - a really excellent video. Here are a couple of questions. What do you use to charge people for services on the website? Do you will with Quickbooks or do you use something else? We are at the stage in our studio where we have it ready to start with clients but we are still trying to decide how to bill people. We just got a cube - but not sure if this is something that we will like. Any thoughts are much appreciated. Again we love your discussions! (I guess it is not a couple of questions - lol).
I invoice and track everything through PayPal. I may be losing a percent or two compared to other options but ease of use is great. And they don’t have to pay via PayPal. But it helps me keep everything in one location.
I taught at GC for 6 months. It was a depressing job. My boss was condescending and exercised favoritism to the extreme. I never had more than 5 students a week in 6 months. She gave her "friend" the majority of the available drum students. So I went and got a teaching job at School of Rock and I started out with 30 to 50 students a week. Then she told me that my 2nd job was a conflict of interest and tried to fire me. So I reaigned. And 3 of the 5 students followed me.
Number 1 : Don't buy proprietary interface. Number 2 : Don't start a recording studio without Dante (at least as an option) Number 3 : Acoustic is the most important Number 4 : Get a good chair that doesn't make noise and is heathly for your back Number 5 : Work out Number 6 : Most important : Communication, Marketing, Social and Money skills
