So here we are almost 4 years on from when this thread was started. It's been funny reading back the process of building the studio and remembering the stress of getting it all done.
There's a lot of stuff that I've learned about this space, both good and bad, and I've managed to do some pretty amazing work in here! I'll put some links to some of my work at the end if you're interested (woo, blatant plug time! HAHA!)
So the good first:
The drum room sounds amazing! It's bigger than it needs to be but it's worked out well because it can accommodate all of the drum cases, and give me options to distance mic the drums if I want to (which came in handy when I was doing some brush kit recording - it really needed a very roomy sound which I got easily). Even though it's been a screw around, it's worked out well for vocals despite not having a dedicated vocal room (yet) and me using my removable screens and overhead absorbers as I talked about earlier in the thread.
I'm constantly amazed at what I'm able to pull off in that room, too! The other day, I was recording upright double bass, trumpet, congas, djembe, acoustic guitar and acoustic violin, flutes, opera singers... pretty wild project, and every time I thought to myself "ah, time to take this up the road to my friend's commercial studio to take advantage of their room, mic selection and preamps", the room has turned around and utterly surprised me with how good it's sounded!
Control room wise, it just works for the sound. I've mixed and mastered a lot of material in here - and yes, I'm aware that mastering in the same place you mix isn't usually a good idea - and it's all came up sounding great. All world-class. I'm getting great flexibility with the computer set up I have here: 1 laptop for web/mail/general use, 1 computer for audio recording with two screens, and one computer for video/graphics work with one of the two screens being the main TV monitor that is great for previewing video or acting as a video link between the control room and live room.
Soundproofing-wise, it's fantastic. I can record well into the night and no one complains. You can barely hear anything outside at all, and even doing drums at 3am sounds like someone tapping in another room when you're directly above the studio upstairs. Very, very cool!
And the bad?
Well, the control room is simply too small. The ceilings are too low for my liking too, but the room is the big thing. If I'm working by myself or one, maybe two people, it's fine, but the moment you add more than that, or they bring in their own keyboards on stands, or a few people want to play at once, it just gets VERY cramped. The aircon works, but sometimes it's a juggling act to get fresh air in here without it directing onto any particular person and they're freezing their ass off while the other people are generally OK. There wasn't a lot I could do about that with the budget we had, and the space restrictions though, and by and large, it works great when you have a couple of people in here anyway. Most of the time I don't have a problem.
I do miss windows. It was gonna cost me a fortune, but as good as the video link has been, nothing can beat a nice big bit of glass between you and the talent for communication. Surprisingly, I also miss having a view outside! Our yard is nothing special and there's really no view to speak of, but there's something odd about wandering out of a studio at 4pm and finding yourself in a beautiful sunny day when you've been in an artificially lit, filtered air room all day. You really expect it to be 3am or something when you wander out, and it disconnects you entirely from the rest of the world. That can sometimes be good, but other times you really miss it!
My console/interface here is doing the job too but the money I tried to save on it in the first place ended up biting me in the ass with a bit of a routing flexibility loss and ironically cost me the same as a the bigger console with better routing I was looking at, after I bought some extra gear to expand the number of inputs! D'OH! Oh well!
The bottom line:
Well, $50,000 later, what did we end up with? Pretty much a studio that is pumping out world class product that's released internationally! I think we're up to the 10th internationally released album now that's come out of here, a movie soundtrack (music album and actual movie mix itself), some stuff has ended up in the National Archives in Canberra and there's even talk of the UN wanting some stuff I've had a hand in producing! Clips played nationally, mainstream radio play... it goes on, and this year is looking like it's gonna eclipse even all of that if all goes to plan!
The moral of the story here (aside from some blatant self-promotion! HAHA) is that what everyone is doing here with the help of some talented people on this forum, it's entirely possible to make your "little project studio" something very, very successful and release product that can compete with the best in the world if you know what you're doing. My studio here is nowhere near as ambitious as some (and I'm in awe of what you guys have created, seriously!) but it's done the job, and it's done it well, and I have no doubt each of you who are doing this crazy thing that I started years ago will get something amazing out of your project too!
Right then, so here's some stuff that was done here:
My band's latest album, Set In Stone is the obvious starting spot. It's been smashed across both Australia and Japan and features tracks that have been released world wide. Some songs have been played on mainstream radio too:
http://www.lord.net.au/sis
You can check out the making of Set In Stone here in our recording diaries where you can see the studio actually being used:
http://www.youtube.com/user/LORDofficia ... A9DF626BD8
We also have the first of several clips that are about to be released by us that were entirely cut together here in the studio too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bZY45hIrPM
And for a laugh while we're on our YouTube channel, here's a link to a version of the Doctor Who theme I did one day when I was bored, which shows off exactly how much I deserve a wedgie! HAHA!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvL9Qkgub9E
Another interesting project has been a thing called The Oz Dream that was nearly Australian Song Of The Year in 1987 but I was commissioned to redo it. It's since been released and as I mentioned earlier, it's now in the National Archives. Pretty cool - orchestrations, opera singers, you name it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVlGmULH5e8
Predominately, we do metal here, and mostly extreme metal. I've done tracking for well known Australian metal bands Nazxul, Lycanthia, Austere, Fury (who have all had great success internationally with the material we did here) and a killer punk band that I was a part of for a while called Platinum Brunette:
http://www.platinumbrunette.com.au/
The latest stuff has been a Croatian band called Angels that do melodic rock:
http://www.myspace.com/angelsrocktheworld
A dark, moody rock/alternative project called Grey Waters:
http://www.myspace.com/greywatersband
And a depressive black metal band called Woods Of Desolation:
http://www.myspace.com/woodsofdesolation
Lots more in the works too, so if you guys don't mind, I'll check back every now and then and add some to the list here so you can see how I'm all traveling.
Thanks for reading this, everyone, and all the very best with your own projects! Now go be amazing!
