Lab
The lab is the vehicle for the producer. It is the means in which we transport our ideas from concepts to songs. Even though amazing tracks can be made with minimal gear these days, professional equipment is a necessary step in taking the sound quality to the professional level.
When developing the Beat Studies studio I decided to take my time, start with the essentials and build off of them. In my case it began with a keyboard and a drum sequencer: the KORG Triton Extreme and the AKAI MPC 2000XL.
The KORG is a powerful and expandable keyboard with loads of great sounds, but what I love about it is user friendly interface. The touch screen and the assignable knobs and faders are easy and fun to use, and the weighted action keys themselves are a pleasure to play. It has an onboard sampler and sequencer so you could also make some great beats with just this and a pair of headphones.
The MPC is my favorite sequencer, especially when it comes to drums. It has a built in sampler and great edit features that make it the quintessential beat machine. There is something gratifying about the instant playback of huge drum sounds by rhythmically tapping the sensitive pads. If you haven’t tried one, I highly recommend the experience… so choice!
For the longest time, I would just plug my headphones into the KORG and trigger its drum sounds via midi on the MPC. That was all fun and games until I wanted to begin sampling directly to the MPC. Now that I had two audio sources, I thought I needed a mixer. That’s when I did a little research and found the MOTU FIREWIRE 828. With this recording interface, I didn’t need a mixer! It uses a firewire connection to bring audio, as well as midi data into my computer and I could mix it there. It had the primary function of recording at first, but I now also use it as a modern patch bay where I can route the signal to and through external hardware like the MPC or a pre-amp. I chose Digital Performer as my software mostly because it was also made by MOTU. I thought it would interact well with their firewire interface and my Mac. And it did.
While the onboard pre-amps of the 828 were useable and good for broadcast quality vocals, I thought I could use a bit more analog warmth when tracking musical vocals. That’s when I looked to the FOCUSRITE TWIN TRACK PRO. It has onboard compressors and EQ that together with its pleasant sounding pre-s, made it perfect for my needs. I had also heard that it sounds great to run your MPC’s stereo outs through a pre, so I thought it would be worth the extra money to get the FOCUSRITE with two channels.
When it came to Speakers, I wasn’t to fussy. I was offered a good deal on some EPKs and they knock… SOLD!
I wanted to start tracking vocals and we needed a mic that would be versatile and not break the bank. I went with the AKG C3000. It was a nice match with my mic-pre and captured exactly what I needed – the talented rappers that were coming through the lab to bless the beats. Of course I also soon realized that this condenser mic was also capturing every hum, squeak and buzz in the studio Yes that’s right… even the mic caught a buzz that night. So I had to build some isolation. I applied acoustical treatment around the room and inside a road case used previously for rack mount gear. We then set the case up on two monitor stands and used a desktop mic-stand to hold the AKG. The pop filter fit nicely on the edge of the case. I also noticed how the room treatment helped my ears during mixing too. Everything was falling into place.
These elements have become the core of my studio. After this, anything else is just embellishments and upgrades. Of course every now and then, it’s exciting and inspiring to splurge on some new sounds or gear to enhance your vibrant ride through the music production landscape, but you can still get there with the essentials.
