The Steel Guitar Forum

Ready to set up a home recording station, steel to MacBook Pro. Anyone have pix of their physical set up: steel, computer workstation, where to put the laptop, all that? Just looking for ideas to get me started. Thanks!

I'll probably be recording direct.

John,....This is my little setup....using Sonar X1....Charlie

Nice, Charles. Do you use near-field monitors? Don't see any here. Do you rotate the steel a bit to get better access to your computer's monitor and keyboard?

Yes, I do have monitors on a stand on the opp. wall that you don't see. The setup spacing is just about right for me....the picture does not show it very well.
The keyboad is off to the right in the picture, I move it in front of the left screen when I'm using it

Here's mine - I don't do a lot of recording - primarily built the desk so that all instructional material could be viewed online whilst playing along with iTunes. When recording is necessary, amp output goes to an Apogee Duet. The desk raises to function as a standing workstation. I've considered a stand up steel - would give me more exercise

I have since changed speakers to Neumann KH120's and placed them on Sound Anchors bolted to the desk top.

Very impressive, Earnest!

You crack me up, as usual...

Gregg, that's a very nice setup. I once had a drafting table (I'm a seasoned designer; nice way of saying old school old fart) that would raise up and down, and I really liked the physical change of pace and working standing up about half the time. Where'd you get that workstation?

You got some pretty groovy gear, my friend. Anapeg, yum!

Here is mine.

Earnest, I've recently gone to stereo lamps as well.

John McClung wrote:Gregg, that's a very nice setup. I once had a drafting table (I'm a seasoned designer; nice way of saying old school old fart) that would raise up and down, and I really liked the physical change of pace and working standing up about half the time. Where'd you get that workstation?

You got some pretty groovy gear, my friend. Anapeg, yum!

Thanks John. I'm a old fart tinkerer - created a prototype, made a few mods here and there, then had a cabinet guy make the top. I then attached it to a pair of electrically adjustable legs from Doug Mockett. If you note just to the left of the steel is a tube flush with the desk top - holds my bar so it doesn't go rolling around!

Hey, John, here's my recording setup as I was using it this week at OmniSound in Nashville while tracking for the new Saint Francis album. I use pretty much the same chain at home: Steel- VHT V DRIVE- Telonics VP (with Peterson StroboFlip in the tuner out) into Peavey TranstubeFex, and straight into ProTools.

I was going to clean it up for the photo but decided nahh, this is really what it looks like more often than not. I just finished 3 E-Sessions and am working on two additional self penned tracks...This is what my space typically looks like, I do re-organize it a few times each month.

Everything has right hand access and the small condenser on the boom stand is always ready for something.It is wired behind the table and has a quick plug in at the preamp on the left side, there is a 1/4 guitar cord run behind as well so I don't have to keep looking for or pulling out another cord.

All on/off power is up on the table for easy access as well.

The one item that has really allowed me to work better is the small shelf I built which the keyboard slides under, I can write on it, keep stuff on it..etc.. The small Tupperware step stool is for when I am tracking guitars , my right foot sits on the stool... The stuff under the table is a mish mosh of stuff I don't use and am cleaning out..there is a bag of guitar strings there as well. The PC is dedicated, not used for anything else, it has an internet connection but it is disabled.

t

Great to see all these studio snapshots, thanks, everyone.

My humble recording area:

Carvin PA system with Carvin floor monitors. Yorkville mains on stands (Thanks Dad). Two HotSpot monitors on stands, one for the drummer one for the steel player. One Fender killer bass amp and a 5-string Ibanez Ergodyne bass guitar. A very nice Casio 88-key keyboard bought this off craigslist, killer deal, it has USB/Firewire connectivity! One 7 month old set of Yamaha DTX electronic drums also from craigslist (best deal ever $325). Then I have my Fender Frontman 212R in the red finish, I recently traded in a Line6 amp for this red Fender and very glad that I did! I have a Peavey Falcon strat from the early 80's, my all time favorite guitar and a inexpensive red Tele copy by Copley w/ gold hardware.

Then I also have my PC & printer right next to my steel guitar. I need to upgrade to a much larger monitor as my vision is failing and I am having a difficult time reading on this smaller monitor. That is the next piece of the puzzle. Well, that is the tour of my music setup in the shop...

here's my space... home to many toys, including my lowly Maverick

Man cave..I spend as much time in here as I can...

Here's my little corner of Heaven. Jim I would have liked to have said hello at the LA Jam but I was only able to be there a couple of hours that Sat. Thanks

Billy, I was at the Desert Rose show last night (6/27/12) at the Crystal Palace, were you there?
Great show!

Jim,was not able to make that show but would have liked to have been there. I know that Larry Petree said that he was going. I'm sure it was a great show,,, for sure.

Hi John!
I thought I would take a few shots of my playground
here at home. I guess I must have the only "Direct Injection Multimedia Studio", in the world, which is another story in itself, but it works for me. This is an all portable system with all kinds of gizmos, but it works for me, so here it is. Oh, and I rarely use microphones at all for my recordings.
Bishop Ronnie P. Hall

Bishop Ronnie P Hall wrote:...and I rarely use microphones at all for my recordings...

...well, that would explain the lack of vocals.
It's good to see your set-up, Ronnie. From your YouTube videos all one can see behind you are filing cabinets, a desk and some shelves.

My sub-basement den is under the house. It combines my recording studio, model railway and workshop. Last year I built a new workshop under the deck, which relieves some of the space.
This is how I used to record, with a Tascam 8-channel Reel-to-Reel Portastudio. I have two. One is upstairs in the Family Room. That's where I record acoustic mediaeval music.

Over the years I went over to 8-channel MiniDisk recorders. I have six of them. (My mixing assistant, the bear, gets tired at times, and I have to move him. )

Still messy, so I built some custom-made enclosures on castors. Now I keep the equipment underneath the model railway baseboard, and roll it out when I want to use it.

I also have a Tascam 2488 24-channel hard disk recorder, but I rarely use it. I don't like to record on an internal hard disk, knowing that when I've filled it I have to download onto CD, then upload it again if I want to work on old numbers. Besides, 8 channels is plenty for my material. With open reel tapes and MiniDisks, you just pull out the disk you need and it's instantly ready to work on.

Hey Alan!!! (Brookes)
All I can say is "wow"!!! I always knew you were a consumate musician, and hobbyist, but I had no idea to what degree until now. You have some great stuff! I know that a lot of your equiptment comes from a time of quality manufacturing, that cannot be found readily at this time, and that the sound that they produced cannot be duplicated. This is a treasure trove. No wonder you`ve produced some great product that I have heard. I would love to get my hands on some that equiptment. I probably could`nt afford it, but never the less, it looks and sounds great, thanks for sharing!
Ron
BTW, I do have a variety of quality microphones, that I do use from time to time, but I dont have the need to put them into service just now. So I do a lot of instrumental stuff more than my vocal needs call for at this time. I guess I should have explained that in my entry. So again, thanks so much my dear friend, best to the family.
Ron