My Studio Tour - Part 1
My studio has gone through quite a lot of revisions, and is honestly a constant work in progress. As I continue to adapt and grow, so does my studio. The picture above actually got me a little bit of internet cred on reddit. But, in the month that has passed since this pic, the studio has already moved around a bit, so don’t depend on how it looks. The goal is give you a detailed walk-through of the gear and the workflows, and you can use the picture as a reference.
There’s way too much to cover in one article, so this is going to be a multi-parter. As a beginning into the foray that is my creative space, I’ll get into my PC, my DAW, my interface, and my monitors.
PC
I build my own PCs. I’ve been doing so since the 90’s, building 486s to play Police Quest & Doom. But, in Dec 2014, I had the means to order a custom PC and not have to worry about doing it myself. Not only that, I actually got a warranty. So I did. I found a highly recommended shop, Velocity Micro. I put together a complete monster (for the time) and I can say, I haven’t stopped recommending them since. I have yet to replace or need to upgrade a single part. Here are the specs:
Intel Core i7-4790
16GB DDR3-1866MHz
2x 4GB GeForce GTX980 GDDR5
256GB SSD
2x 3TB 7200 SATA
The box is liquid cooled, the SATA drives are in RAID-0 for 6TB of storage, and the video cards are in SLI so I’m still getting over 100fps in lots of games, though I almost never get the chance to play any more.
Software
I run Bitwig Studio. Don’t feel too weird if you haven’t heard of it. Even after five years, most people haven’t. I actually learned about it from Mason Levy, aka “MdL”. We were discussing production at a bar one night and I was mentioning I was running Linux on a laptop so I couldn’t have a DAW at the time. He mentioned there is a newcomer on the market called Bitwig that actually supports Linux. My mind just about exploded. As soon as I got back to my apartment that night, I looked it up immediately.
Lo and behold, he was right. Bitwig Studio supported Linux. Not only that, it was built by a team of really good developers, that built in a lot of awesome tech, including running VSTs as their own process on the system. How many times have you had a VST crash and lost your entire session? Yeah, no more of that. So in Nov. 2014 I bought Bitwig Studio, which lead me to buying the monster PC I mentioned above.
I can’t recommend you check out Bitwig enough. If you’re comfortable in Logic or Live, you’ll love Bitwig. The workflows are incredible, the level of automation is amazing, and it is absolutely rock solid. The first time I dragged a loop from the clip launcher to the arrangement window and saw it just appear, perfectly set into the timeline, I was sold. And that’s just a tiny piece, you can spend hours going down the rabbit hole of LFOs and attaching them to things. It’s a great DAW and has been my main DAW for coming on six years now.
Interface
To be honest, I’m looking at making a move to UAD here, but it hasn’t happened yet, so that’ll be a future article. For now, I’ll cover what I’m running.
I’ve got a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 combined with a Focusrite Scarlett Octopre Dynamic. Why in the hell do I have so many channels? Convenience, honestly. It has enabled me to separate out my gear in my racks through my patchbays (check out my article on patchbays) really conveniently, and given me a lot of fun with overloading channels in crazy ways.
The 18i20 has been a super dependable and great sounding interface for me. I know it’s Focusrite’s budget line and it’s not their iconic pre-amps, but honestly, they sound pretty damned good. I’m also not running a bunch of analog gear with multi-thousand dollar mics through it, so there ya go.
The Octopre Dynamic is a lot of fun. I still don’t know exactly how the compressor is setup on the inside, but turning that knob on a channel is just…really fun. Do I use them in lieu of an actual compressor? No. Do I crank them up and hit that “More” button to get some crazy ass sounds out of it? Yes. Absolutely, yes. And it works. It’s a thing. I can get some awesomely unique stuff out of it, from just gently fattening up synths to drawing out crazy harmonics that I don’t hear through anything else.
In order to utilize all the channels of both devices, I have them connected, running at 48khz. Yeah, yeah. I can already hear you saying “Dude! You don’t run 96khz or 192khz? LAME." Be real. for 99% of applications, especially a lone, at-home producer, nothing above 41khz matters. Just accept it. It’s the reality. Will that be the case forever? No, of course not. But for now, you can chill. Anyway, they’re synced up, running at 48khz and sound totally crystal clear.
Studio Monitors
I did a lot of research here. I didn’t have unlimited funds, so I was trying to maximize every dollar I could, but being an audiophile meant I had to shoot for the absolute best sound I could get for the money. I opted for Yamaha HS-8’s. When I found out that Yamaha had finally come out with something new from the line of the original NS10’s of the 70’s, I was intrigued. I went over to Guitar Center and decided to check them out. I was living in an apartment at the time, so a subwoofer was out of the question, and I wasn’t going to get any 4” or 6” speakers anyway. I immediately asked to listen to the HS-8’s and I was floored. I listed to probably half a dozen other pairs of monitors and the balanced brightness of the HS8’s really stood out to me. Every person I’ve had listen to them since them has said the same.
I don’t know what kind of magic Yamaha is doing, but these monitors really are unique, at least to my ear, in how they can draw out vocals really well. Vocals punch through crystal clear, over anything else. It doesn’t sound like it’s equalized that way at all, like a HI-FI speaker, it just naturally brings vocals out. To the point it can make mixing a little challenging at times as sometimes I have to give vocals a little bump for them to sound balanced on any other pair of speakers. Not to say it’s a problem, at least hasn’t been of yet.
I love my HS-8’s and though I know there are better monitors out there, and I may upgrade at some point, these guys have done me more for the money than I think any other pair of monitors could have.
Alright, that’s it for part 1. There is plenty more around my studio, so expect more to come. If you have any questions about any of this, don’t hesitate to reach out!