Over the last several weeks I've been working on reassembling my old recording rack. The last cables finally arrived, the patchbay is wired, and I just finished confirming all of the connections.
I started recording in the early 2000s; initially with a pocket recorder and then with an M-Audio Delta 44 and crappy mic preamp. My first serious rig was an Alesis M20 ADAT fronted with an Alesis Studio 24 mixer. I got the M20 for $125 from a studio that was closing out old gear, and the Studio 24 was something workable and cheap.
I added a 3630 compressor (because I didn't know better) and a Lexicon MX200 that I used mostly for monitor mixes. Despite the less than stellar pedigrees, I made some of my best recordings with that rig. Of course it didn't last, and when I was laid off in Nov. 2008 I sold the M20 for a pretty hefty profit. When I had enough money to resume, I bought a MOTU 828mkII and started working with just a computer and interface. The 828 sounds really good, but I've never been 100% happy with the workflow; I liked the Studio 24 / M20 rig better in that respect. So this spring I decided to rescue my Studio 24 from rehearsal monitor duty and rebuild the rack. (with Izzy's help)
As much as I enjoy immaculate production, I've always been inspired by recordings that are a bit more raw and less polished. Smashing Pumpkins' Pisces Iscariot and Metallica's Garage Days Re-Revisited particularly stand out. Once I started recording myself, I was blown away by the results a friend of mine achieved in the 90s on a Mackie 8-bus with some mediocre outboard gear. Hopefully I'll have some recordings to share before too long, but until then:
I started recording in the early 2000s; initially with a pocket recorder and then with an M-Audio Delta 44 and crappy mic preamp. My first serious rig was an Alesis M20 ADAT fronted with an Alesis Studio 24 mixer. I got the M20 for $125 from a studio that was closing out old gear, and the Studio 24 was something workable and cheap.
I added a 3630 compressor (because I didn't know better) and a Lexicon MX200 that I used mostly for monitor mixes. Despite the less than stellar pedigrees, I made some of my best recordings with that rig. Of course it didn't last, and when I was laid off in Nov. 2008 I sold the M20 for a pretty hefty profit. When I had enough money to resume, I bought a MOTU 828mkII and started working with just a computer and interface. The 828 sounds really good, but I've never been 100% happy with the workflow; I liked the Studio 24 / M20 rig better in that respect. So this spring I decided to rescue my Studio 24 from rehearsal monitor duty and rebuild the rack. (with Izzy's help)
As much as I enjoy immaculate production, I've always been inspired by recordings that are a bit more raw and less polished. Smashing Pumpkins' Pisces Iscariot and Metallica's Garage Days Re-Revisited particularly stand out. Once I started recording myself, I was blown away by the results a friend of mine achieved in the 90s on a Mackie 8-bus with some mediocre outboard gear. Hopefully I'll have some recordings to share before too long, but until then:
- Furman PL+: I've had this for longer than I remember, and I'm pretty sure everyone has at least one. It's a glorified power strip that (maybe) filters out a bit of line noise.
- Samson S-Patch Plus: This is new-ish and I wish they'd been around ages ago. No more having to pull the patchbay, flip cards, and re-patch everything when changing the normalling of a pair. Instead it has 3-way switches on the front for normal, half-normal, and thru.
- MOTU 828mkII: I've had this since late 2008 and it gets the job done. Once I got it working in Linux it's been solid, and my latency is around 3ms.
- Funk Logic NCC-1701 w/ FMR RNC & RNLA: The Funk Logic rack is an elegant solution to mounting a pair of 1/3U devices without a visible gap. As for the devices themselves, I first heard about the RNC in 2010 or so, but I hear they were available before then. It's lightyears ahead of the 3630, and I have the RNLA for when I want a bit of color.
- Lexicon MPX-1: I always wanted a MPX-1 BITD but could never afford one. Now that I have one, I'm amazed by how vastly superior it is to the MX200. The only area where the MX200 may have been ahead was in programming; the thing was so simple because it really couldn't do much. So far I've only really tried out presets, as I still need to set it up properly.
- Roland XV-5050: Another piece I would've loved but couldn't afford, and it replaces a drum machine and several synths. I don't have the 'Dynamic Drums' or 'Ultimate Keys' expansion boards yet, but I'll probably pick them up as that's mostly what I use this for.
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