List your recording gear and your thoughts on your gear..

[guitarkatana]

Guitars:
Jackson Dinky
Fender Acoustic

Amps:
Old Squier combo

Effects:
Danelectro Daddy O
Dunlop Cry Baby

Mic:
Audio Technica $16 dynamic Cardioid

Board:
Yamaha 4 track MT50

My gear kinda sucks. I use my mentors studio a lot more than my own. My studio is more for songwriting and small demos. Eventually I'll get a real professional studio system together.

[Jamie]

Control Room

Core of my studios is a Powerbook G4 which is VST system-linked to a G4 Quicksilver in the office so I can go mobile when I want
Studio Displays
Mackie 8-ch mixer running straight to an Alesis HD24
Joe Meek VS3Q Studio Channel
BBE 362
Akai S2000
Waves Platinum & Musicians, Mixing, Mastering Plugins - what a godsend, they have removed the need for 20u of racked outboard gear!
Tannoy Reveal Nearfields
Samson Servo Amps
M-Audio Firewire 410
Pod XT
Sansamp Bass DI

Live Room

Studiomaster 12-ch cheapo desk for live vocals into:
C-Audio Pulse 4x300W amp running biamped Bose 302s/802s
Rivera M100 and Marshall VS265 for guitars
Trace Elliot 4x10 plus 1x15 300w for bass

Mics

Rode NT1as
Shure 57 Betas
57s, 58s, PGs

- I don't think I could possibly need anything else unless I was going pro, then the sky's the limit....

[babahi]

The core of my home system is a dedicated 2200+ AMD computer with 1 GB DDR400 RAM

Aardvark Q10 audio interface

Emagic Unitor8 MIDI

Logic Audio (we use Mac in the big studio at "work," so v6 is on there)

Logic control boards -- had 48 channels but brought it down to 32

AKG C4000B, C3000B

Honourable mention to my SansAmp PSA-1

[SuperJemBoy]

I just bought a Digi 001 a couple of months ago and I'm gonna set it up after my exams into this PC:

Pentium 4 1.8Ghz
512mbs RAM
80Gb Hard Drive

It's really basic, I know but once I buy more gear (my collection currently totals 1 guitar and a POD) it will be really cool!

Joe

[bduersch]

I love how these old threads always return to the top 18 months after I completely forgot about 'em...

Anyway, about a year ago I went through a major home studio upgrade. Only recently have I had a lot of time to really "kick the tires" on the new gear with the full band.

Here's what my new setup looks like... changes have been highlighted in italics...

Hardware:
Custom built P4 3.0 Ghz HT, 800 Mhz FSB system w/ 1Gb PC3200 DDR RAM
2 WD 7200RPM ATA100 8Mb cache drives (60Gb & 120Gb)
Sony 52x24x52 CDRW & Sony 16x DVD-ROM
Sony DVD+/-RW (external firewire/USB)
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro 128Mb DDR DVI 8x AGP video
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2
M-Audio Delta 1010-LT
Antec tower case w/ 380w power supply
Cakewalk/Peavey StudioMix console

Software:
Windows XP Professional
Sonar XL 2.2
Sonic Foundry SoundForge XP 4.5
Sonic Foundry Acid 2.0
Magic Audio Cleaning Lab 1.04
Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3.0

Korg Triton
Casio MG-510 MIDI guitar

Studio gear:
(2) ART Tube Channel preamp/compressor/EQ
(2) ART TPS preamps
Behringer Multicom 4-channel compressor
Alesis SR16 drum machine
BBE 362NR Sonic Maximizer
Behringer Eurorack 8-channel mixer
Carvin StudioMate SM162 16-channel mixer
Carvin H40M headphones
Carvin HT150 power amp & PM5 monitors
Johnson J-Station
Korg PXR4 portable recorder
Optimus SSM-50 DJ mixer
Sony minidisc recorder

Mics:
Shure SM57 mics
Shure SM58 mics
Nady DMK7 drum mics
Nady SCM900 condenser mic
Audio Technica midnight blues mic
EV ND267AS mic

Overall, we've been getting much better tone out of this setup than the previous setup. The biggest differences:

1) Things sound more "in sync" now... we used to record some instruments through the SoundBlaster and some through the Core 2 out of necessity (not enough inputs). Now that everything is recorded through the 1010LT the mix is "tighter" and requires less adjustment after the fact.

2) The additional tube preamps (ART TPS's) are worth it. They're very simple to operate, are voiced for a variety of instuments, and really do warm the tone up just enough to take the digital edge off.

3) The 4-channel compressor is equally key... gotta keep those drums & bass under control, especially since the 1010LT doesn't have a built-in compressor/limiter like the Core2 used to have. Mixdown is much quicker when all the individual tracks are more consistent in volume.

4) Of course, the newer computer does a better job of keeping up with multiple audio tracks. Plus, the 1010LT is far more transparent than the Core2 is.

Hopefully we'll be able to get a couple songs recorded this week--whenever it happens, I'll share some MP3's.

--B

[guitarshredder7]

custom built computer
asus mobo 64 bit amd 3200
512 ram
300 gig hdd
450w psu
ati 9200 all in wonder video card (128mb)
running linux os, with sedega so i can run windows programs

studio

inkel 16 channel mixer
800w crown power amp
cubase software
various cables and mics

very basic

guitar

esp ex-50
epiphone demon flying v
fender fat strat with floyd rose
wasburn dimebag signature
bcrich beast platinum series

amp

5150 sig
avatar 4x12 cab vin30s

very basic im poor

www.myspace.com/brutalbrandon

[David Ho]

I don't think anyone can get any more basic than mine. But hey, it still works!

Dell Latitude C640 laptop (P4-2.4), 512MB Ram, 80G HDD
M-Audio Ozone (Audio, Midi Interface, Midi controller All-in-one)
Sonar 4 Studio Edition
Reason 2.5 Adapted version (comes with the Ozone)
AKG Headphones
GTR - UV777BK
Processor - Korg Toneworks Ampworks G

Running Sonar 4 with Reason 2.5 on XP Pro, with hardly any software installed on this computer, I would say the result is very good - no latency problem. I can use a bit more of RAM and a much bigger hard drive, but you can only do so much with a laptop.

Great thing about this is the portability. I travel between US and Asia frequently and with this I can take my gear anywhere and keep playing / recording.

[bduersch]

Originally Posted by bduersch

I love how these old threads always return to the top 18 months after I completely forgot about 'em...

Well, just like clockwork, another 18 months have passed and I've just completed another studio upgrade. The longer I practice recording, the more I come to realize that "more is often less", so it feels like I've sold off a lot more recording gear than I've bought with the exception of microphones, which I've suddenly started to take more interest in.

So here's what's in the new studio... changes have been highlighted in italics...

Hardware:
Custom built P4 3.0 Ghz HT, 800 Mhz FSB system w/ 1Gb PC3200 DDR RAM
Cakewalk/Peavey StudioMix console
Frontier Design Dakota/Montana PCI interface

Software:
Sonar 4 Producer
Drums on Demand vol 1, 2, 4, 5, acoustic
Akai PitchRight plug-in

Keys/MIDI:
Korg Triton with MOSS upgrade
Casio MG-510 MIDI guitar

Studio gear:
Focusrite Octopre LE preamp/converter
Presonus Digimax LT preamp/converter
Behringer ADA8000 preamp/converter
Studio Projects VTB1 tube preamp
Presonus Bluetube DP tube preamp
Presonus Bluemax compressor
FMR RNC compressor
Behringer ADI21, BDI21, GI100 direct boxes
Carvin H40M headphones
M-Audio BX8 active monitors

Mics:
Audix i5
Sennheiser e609
Sennheiser MD421II
ShinyBox 46 ribbon mic
KEL Audio HM-1
Studio Projects C1
Studio Projects C4 pair
Studio Projects T3
Shure PG drum mic kit
Behringer ECM8000 reference mics
Shure SM57 mics
Shure SM58 mics
Audio Technica midnight blues mic
EV ND267AS mic

I've pretty much picked up everything on my wish list, so the next few weeks will consist of getting everything wired up & optimized.

--B

[AirGuitar]

Computer:
XPC SN25P, 1GB DDR400 RAM, GeForce 7800GT, Athlon X2 4200+

Monitor:
Dell 2405 24" Widescreen

Software:
Cubase SX

Recording Hardware:
M-Audio Firewire 410
Shure SM-57 Mic

Amps and Stuff:
POD XT,
BOSS GT6
Marshall AVT 100

Guitars:
EBMM Petrucci 6 String with Piezo
Ibanez RG570EX
Ibanez RG1527

Other Stuff:
Old Casio MIDI keyboard

This is mostly a gaming PC, but the widescreen monitor comes in very usefull when using cubase! And of couse the X2 processor comes in very usefull for multitasking, and is particularly good for recording.

I dont do huge amounts of recording (i wish i had the time to do more), and this setup copes nicely.

Most of my recording is done directly from the POD to the M-Audio card via standard jack cables (i dont really like the direct USB recording on the POD). Every now and then, when i cant get the sound i want out of the pod, i run my GT6 through my AVT100, and mic that. I mostly use this for lead sounds (as my amp is in quite a large echoy room!).

The 410 is a massive improvment over the Audigy 2 that i used to use, although its a bit awkward running 2 soundcards at times (i would use the 410 all the time, but it causes games to crash, not really designed for it i surpose!), so i tend to set it as the default card, and so when i turn it on, it takes control of all the audio on the pc.

Im pretty poor at programming drums, so i just tend to hammer them in on the Casio keyboard (though VST Battery). It means i can get the drum sounds i want, without having to worry about being able to program them.

[anakid]

G5 Mac with OSX Tiger 10.4.8
4GB RAM
Dualcore 2GHz

Programs: Logic 7 as host, a slew of soft-synths and plugs. Amplitube 2 (has to be heard to be believed!)

PreSonus Firebox for the audio interface. 24b recording for all audio. Here's the stuff I do, this is a rough copy: http://www.planetnutty.com/Hope.mp3

Guitar is an Epiphone ES175 with stock pickups.