As always we have a bunch of marvellous questions in today’s episode!
So let’s jump right into today’s featured question! “What are some tips for organizing the home studios for improving workflow? Are there any lessons from professional studios that we can apply in our more modest workspaces?”
Our Studio has a lot of equipment that’s jam-packed into it, we have tons of guitars, basses, a couple of consoles, and blah blah blah. But this is still my “home studio” it’s just equipped like a “commercial / professional studio” but not run like one.
“Why is that?” Well, I think in a home studio you can take some lessons from a commercial studio but also move past that. The way to move past that is to leave things patched so you can use them.
If you’re on a commercial studio you want that studio to be beautiful, empty and clean and ready to go. That way when the client walks in and says I need XY and Z plugged in over here and that, off goops the assistant and they get it all set up for you and it could be a completely different setup from the person before.
On the other hand, if you have a home studio as I do would benefit from leaving things patched. I have the drum kit always mic’d up and the benefit of that is if we want to go and change or replay r play a new song on the drums, off we go we’re able to run in and done.
It’s not a case of “oh Eric lets set up the drums and choose some microphones. We have been doing this for a long time we know how to get a good drum sound so we have a Cadac console sitting down there permanently mixing the drum kit. – within a couple of minutes, we are recording drums.
It’s the same for bass, same for guitars, this doesn’t mean we don’t change out mics, we actually change out amps all the time we have an amp rack there we have different cabs, we 3 4×12’s, we have the Roady and we have a single 12 tone tubby cab which is phenomenal and we use all the time.
The point is we’re moving mics, cabs and all this stuff but the chain is ready to go, you just plug it in, move it, start playing. That is the reality and is not what you do in commercial studios because you don’t wanna something set up for a producer to come and say they don’t like the setup and you’ll have to strike it and start all over again.
So that’s the interesting and good thing about having a home studio, you can leave things packed. My outputs/template when I’m mixing hybrid goes through the console the same way each time. When I want to go to the vocal it’s on channel 24 right in the middle so I can mix the vocal, and it’s there every time. – we set them up so the vocal comes up in the same place.
You’ll never do that in a commercial studio unless you have locked out for like three month to make an album. There is no 1 way to do it, every different engineer, producer, and mixer that is going to come into that studio has a different way. If you are talking about the parallels and the positives from a commercial studio it’s probably just some basic organization, like wrapping your cables properly and hanging them when you’re not using them.
That’s the number one thing and in a great studio the cables are always wrapped properly, not around your arm but looping and letting them follow their natural loop and then hung up and ready to go. Always have a pencil, sharpy, board tape, and always have notepads handy so you can make notes. Those are things that you would expect in every commercial studio. – those are just the basic things that I would have onboard every day.
Those are the basic things but I’m sure there are plenty of others, If you have any ideas about home studio organization, please share them in the YouTube comments.
We cover the following questions during this episode of FAQ Friday!
• What are your thoughts on live instruments vs programmed instruments? Is it cheating or does it depend? (0:56)
• What are some tips for organizing the home studios for improving workflow? Are there any lessons from professional studios that we can apply in our more modest workspaces? (6:44)
• You’ve used the phrase “print the Di” A Few times in other videos, could you clarify and expand upon that? (13:36)
• Do you have a method for reacquainting yourself with a mix in progress after you’ve been away from it for a while? (15:51)
