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This is a variation of the desert island question. Suppose you were given the hypothetical exercise of assembling a project studio with one piece of each type of gear - one mixer, one compressor, one mic preamp, one synth, one sampler, one guitar, one pedal, one microphone, one reverb, one (dare I suggest it?) plug in. You get the idea. What gear would you install?
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In our case, this is not a hypothetical question, but a practical one. Our desert island is bound on the one side by the Straits of Finance, on another by the Sea of Limited Space, on another by the Ocean of Limited Needs, and on another by the Gulf of Liking the Sound of Certain Gear.

 

At this point it looks like the landscape is going to be:

 

Gefell M 930 mic

HDB TMA 2 micpre

Philip Rees midi control for virtual mixer

Danelectro T-Bone Distortion pedal

Homemade rosewood guitar with SD pickup

Cakewalk SONAR with Tassman synth

Waves RenReverb Plugin

 

compressor??? subject for another thread

 

eq??? just as long as it's not the eq in our current Cubase 3.7, because if I wanted that sound, I would just close-mic a banana slug being dragged across a sheet of cellophane.

 

Our desert island is small and square in shape, but there's some tropical vegetation and no laws against nude sunbathing.

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one mixer, sony oxford

one compressor, LA2A

one mic preamp, crane song flamingo

one synth, kurzweil k2600

one sampler, see above

one guitar, prs custom24 dragon w/VHT bulldog amp, kt88 tubeset and lots of spares

one pedal, moogerfooger 12stage phase

one microphone, telephunkin 251 [with the sampler credit add royer r121]

one reverb, sony 777

one (dare I suggest it?) plug in. bomb factory urei 1176

 

one EQ, gml mastering parametric

set of monitors, meyer X-10's

alphajerk

FATcompilation

"if god is truly just, i tremble for the fate of my country" -thomas jefferson

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Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com:

This is a variation of the desert island question. Suppose you were given the hypothetical exercise of assembling a project studio with one piece of each type of gear - one mixer, one compressor, one mic preamp, one synth, one sampler, one guitar, one pedal, one microphone, one reverb, one (dare I suggest it?) plug in. You get the idea. What gear would you install?

 

Good question Dan, glad I don't have to answer it in *real* life!

 

Do I have unlimited funds here, or do I have to assume that I should pick from stuff I already have or could reasonably afford?

 

I'm going to go with stuff I have just for the sake of argument. So, here goes:

 

One mixer: I'll cheat. I'll take my AW4416. That's cheating because it has a recorder effects, preamps and dynamics built in (and more than one).

 

Compressor: That's easy. Summit TLA 100. The new TLA 50's are coming out in March, and at $695 list, I highly recommend them for the project studio owners out there.

 

Mic preamp: Much harder question. If I could only have one outtboard, it would have to be the Presonus Digimax because it works well with the AW, but I'd hate to limit myself here.

 

One synth? Eeew, that's hard. I'd say the plug in stuff, but I'm limited to only one plug in, so I'll keep this hardware and say a Kurzweil.

 

One sampler? I'll keep my old ESI-32.

 

One guitar? Bou, you really know how to hurt a guy, don't you? I look at different guitars as ESSENTIAL for getting different tones, so this is your hardest question. I'd have to flip a coin to choose between my Taylor 510 acoustic or my 1962 Fiesta red Strat, and apologise to my Les Paul, Rickenbacker, Telecaster, etc. etc.

 

Do I at least get to take a Bass? If so, my Ibanez SR400 goes along with me. Love the neck and tone on that thing. I tend to like instruments with fairly small and comfy necks, since my hands are a bit on the small size (I'm 5'8").

 

One pedal? Well, it's not really a "pedal" per se, but I'd take my POD. Useful for much more than guitar.

 

One mic? My pair of Telefunken 251's are gonna be mad http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif but I'd have to opt for my Stephen Paul modded C-414 EB (pre P48). More useful in more applications than the Telefunkens, and more likely to be something you could afford anyway http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif , although the mods are NOT cheap!

 

One reverb? I'd opt for the Ensoniq DP/4+. Great sounds and very flexible to boot. I still love that box!

 

One plug in? Another tough question, but I'd have to say Antares Autotune.

 

Ouch, you really know how to hurt a guy! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif I was just looking around my control room, and thinking about all the stuff I had to leave off this list. Thank God I don't have to in *real life*.

 

 

Phil O'Keefe

Sound Sanctuary Recording

Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html

email: pokeefe777@msn.com

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Monitors? Eeesh, another hard question. Meyers are great, but I don't own them, so they're off the list (because I stuck with stuff I already have as a premise) but I'd say it's a toss up -either my Event 20/20's or JBL 4412's, and I'd probably opt for the JBL's because of the better bottom end and I know them so well because I've been using them for so long.

 

BTW Alphajerk, do you own a Telefunken 251? I thought I was one of the few who had a pair of mics that cost WAY more than the board and recorders I use with them - combined!

 

 

Phil O'Keefe

Sound Sanctuary Recording

Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html

email: pokeefe777@msn.com

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>>Our desert island is bound on the one side by the Straits of Finance, on another by the Sea of Limited Space, on another by the Ocean of Limited Needs, and on another by the Gulf of Liking the Sound of Certain Gear.<<

 

Seems to me this would be a pretty heavily-populated island, based on your description!

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Originally posted by Anderton:

>>Seems to me this would be a pretty heavily-populated island, based on your description!<<

 

Big population boom since the "DAW revolution"! Isn't "DAW" usually a euphemism for a PC with a soundcard? Hehe.

 

As far as monitors, the current system is terrible mid-range-only multimedia speakers and excellent headphones (Sennheiser HD600- when in Rome...) and burning test CDs, cruising as often as possible to the national radio+television in the wee hours, buying the engineers beer and listening on as many different systems in the different studios as possible, not to mention listening to their advice. Even though they contradict each other often.

 

Where there's a will, there's a way.

 

Desert island monitors? Honestly? No contest- the homemade system of a guy I met who builds and repairs tube gear. It's not exactly "flat response", the midrange sounds like a Yeti, but with those two coffin- sized cabinets and open metal boxes full of glowing tubes, you feel like Dr. Frankenstein. And you KNOW the good Dr. got lucky early and often, which is what it's all about on a desert island.

 

pokeefe777 wrote

Compressor: That's easy. Summit TLA 100. The new TLA 50's are coming out in March, and at $695 list, I highly recommend them for the project studio owners out there.

 

 

Right time frame, right budget- thanks for the tip.

 

 

 

 

This message has been edited by dadabobro@yahoo.com on 01-30-2001 at 08:38 AM

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