Totally recommend Synology for NAS, since you asked. I got one for archive purposes and within a year, it's wormed its way into my workflows so much I couldn't continue without it. It's been utterly rock-solid, sits down in the basement so zero noise. It is The Thing.
Because you asked for suggestions: I would recommend building a cloud over your mix position, and some additional diffusion or absorption on that big ceiling! Glad that the studio is coming together!
I have had several recording studios over the last 45 years and renovations and tearing down a set-up are usual to help optimize a setup, update equipment, and streamline workflow. I am no stranger to the process and I encourage studio owners to keep an open mind that there are small and large updates to consider. Also, the types of projects you work on, the types of clients you work for, and the flexibility to manage large or small projects are things to consider. Over 5 years a studio will be renovated and updated perhaps 3 to 7 times to keep up with technology and provide clients "State of the Art" standards. Good Luck!
I’m having pretty positive vibes regarding your live room and dream studio, I know you’ve done a lot work, experienced manny problems and stuff but finally I can see it being complete
Hey man! Could you explain the process in how you went from your intel Mac to an M1 Mac? Going to do the same soon and am thinking about bringing over the plugins and everything over migration assistant, all the ilok stuff and what not. Thanks in advance!
To be fair, the design of the amp rack is pretty simple. All anybody would need to know is; - The overall height, width and depth - The thickness of the timber used - The width timber shelf. - The height of a timber side section. - The width and thickness of a metal brace. Love the videos buddy. Keep them coming!
I can't believe this is free content. Thank you for putting this together Rhett, you're a unique voice in this world of guitar. Excited for what will come out of this space for you (and us!)
Love the set up Bro 👍🏾 I'm a bit old school coming from the analogue days 😊 24 track real to real, 48 track real to real days.. In my days there were called valve pre amps/amps today we say tube.. for me personally its all about warmness of the sound... so when you mentioned your tube pre amps I just said yep this guy is on the same page as me.. I personally wouldn't mix with the subs on but play back after the mix is a must.. Gods Will, I will be building from scratch as I want my studio to be at home.. thanks for the tips as I'm still learning every day.. Stay Bless Bro ✝️
Love the studio. Just ordered the same desk setup. By the way, I would recommend turning off phantom power in the preamps whenever you plug a mic into it or unplug it. The dc voltage could damage the gear. Also if you accidentally patch a ribbon mic into a preamp with phantom power turned on it could fry the ribbon. The chance of damaging gear with tt or trs cables is even greater than with xlrs.
Rhett, congratulations on your continued success! watching you grow has been really inspiring and the consistent hard work you've been putting in deserves all the success you have gotten! I'm not a professional musician, but as a hobbyist I love watching you because unlike some other creators, you always have a strong budget in mind, so your judgement of gear value is something I have come to really appreciate! Here's to another decade of success! Good luck!
Thank you for this! I’ve been a guitar player for years but I’m just starting to get into the home studio world and I’m in so far over my head I don’t know whether scratch my watch or wind my ass sometimes…this was so informative! Much appreciated!!!
Great video! I have been around music and music gear all my life, hardly seems like 62 years, it went by pretty quickly! I'm glad to see that all the old gear is still being used today, like patch bays, mic pre's, tube powered compressors, tube amps, etc... Good luck with the new studio build, I'm looking forward to seeing it completed, up and running.
I’ve been a video editor/motion gfx artist for 20 years. I’ve been using Dropbox for the last 8-10 of those and it’s been amazing. I never worry about losing anything and it makes mobility a whole different thing. I can work literally anywhere. I don’t just use it for backup. I work from my Dropbox folder that is synched to my 4tb internal. I can choose what is available offline with a mouse click. I’ve never ever had a problem.
Thank you for making this video, Rhett. Seeing other setups really help rationalize what gear is truly important and helps me limit myself to create even better music.
It's quite the fascination to get the BTS on how the magic works. That transparency is always appreciated. Hope the studio production is, indeed, going well.
Rhett, I'm a commercial photographer. 40 years of experience, 50 as a guitar player. You are right on the money with the photo and video gear. I have the a1. Incredible for stills and video. Te gear you have is perfect for what you do. Your knowledge of white balance really enhances your videos. I was being interview last year and the podcaster did not know how to get the yellow tint out of the videos during test shots. 10 year old Canon, I scrolled through the menu and adjusted the white balance. Viola! Everything matters. Especially if you are very discerning. Never play out of tune. Always get the white balance right.
For long term storage and daily use, external magnetic drives are actually a better way to go. SSDs have a finite lifespan of reads and writes and the "fuller" you keep a drive and add/remove large files (read as large video files) the faster you will wear out an SSD. This is especially true on a computer that does not have a replaceable internal SSD. Bottom line is, anything important on an internal SSD needs to be backed up externally and the cost of backing up archives with external magnetic drives is infinitely cheaper these days.
13:10 IT guy here, having HDDs are best for long-term storage! You can get terabytes of storage for good prices. HDD can still fail and you can loose everything on it. Look into get a NAS server and set up a RAID. They have multiple drive bays and having a raid setup will have redundancy to make sure you don't loose data. Get a 6 bay if you can afford it up front
This is such a killer video. Thank you Sir! As a person who's had a rather larger home studio setup, I really appreciate your commitment to expanding. Over the last decade you've grown your setup to make room for more. Meanwhile, I've simplified my setup from 48 channels down to 8. You seem to have a killer ability to manage more gear and channels. I need to reconsider my decisions. I've tried to reduce studio gear to make creating simple. And while it is helping a lot with workflow, maybe it's stagnating growth. All the details here were super necessary. I really appreciate you addressing everything. You're a legend 🙌 Cannot wait for new tracks!!
Wow, great studio, Rhett. I love how well organized and thought through everything is laid out. When it comes to backing up or archiving your work, please consider using cloud storage. Renting storage isn't that expensive, and having your data decentralized can be worth its weight in gold. A flood, a tornado, a house fire and all your work is gone. You can insure the house and all the hardware you have, even the hard drives you back up or archive your work on, but once the locally kept back up medias are damaged, the work itself is irretrievably lost. When using cloud services to back up your work, the provider is responsible for all the emergency recovery of storage and computer hardware and in the most cases your data are stored on storage on different locations. It's a pretty good and safe solution.
@13:00 - For a NAS as backup/network storage, I'd recommend a Synology model with 4+ drive bays. It's the most user friendly of the consumer NAS options (although more than suitable for business too) - I've set up a few different brands, and they may be a slight premium, but the reliability and ease of use is excellent. I say to buy one at least 4 bays to allow some redundancy (where even if a drive fails you don't lose data), but it also makes sense to keep to a manageable setup too when setting out rather than a giant server. For example, 4x 8tb drives, set up with a single disk of redundancy (called RAID 5) which would give 24tb or so of storage. Also, I'd stress that redundancy isn't a complete backup - just maximises availability locally - so keep additional copies of really important data elsewhere, such as using cloud storage. A service like Backblaze can be good value if you need to keep a lot of data, but if its a more reasonable amount then consumer cloud storage is more than fine!
Wow, I just found your channel and with only a few minutes of listening the way you explain everything, right to the point and educational at the same time you got me subscribed to your channel. I connected with your ideas and way of thinking right away. I have not even checked the rest of your tutorials but this is more than enough to get me interested as a musician and home recording novice myself. My span of attention is very short, but You truly got my attention.
The sonnet Mac Mini rack having 2 Mac mini slots is super useful for live applications, where you need dedicated computers for different applications. (ProPresenter, lighting computer, stuff like that.) Love the video btw!
For your storage use a Synology NAS..I'll suggest use a minimum 4 bay NAS.. and use enterprise level disk....you can connect your external SSDs to the NAS for additional back up... thank me later. This is my set up. and I never worry about storage.... I use a 2020 Intel iMac, 128Gb of Ram, 4TB of storage for plugins, and sound libraries...... all storage goes to my Synology 1817+ (8bay) 72 Terabytes of Seagate Ironwolf enterprise level 12 Terabytes, in 6 bays.... 2 bays contain (2) 2T SSD drives for cache..... This is not cheap.... I spent over $3K for disk, My synology cost me $2K, and the 2T SSD was around $200 each. so a little over $5K just for storage.... My studio room is no where as nice as yours but if you have expensive gear it is important to retain the art. Hope that helps.
@@kurdtjohn Yes, that would work, but he needs to get it off site for backup. Cloud storage is cheap, efficient and highly reliable. A stand-alone raid NAS for daily backup, then send it up once a day. To stand up a proper server w/raid is $$$$! Then it also has to be managed. If Rhett doesn't want to, or can't do that he would have to hire someone. Getting into even more $$$$. --gary
Man I just gotta say I’ve been a subscriber for a while and watched your stuff but never really watched a whole lot all the time until I started watching the dipped in tone podcast recently. I have been listening to tone talk with Dave Friedman for a long time now anytime I work on anything at home or need something in the background and I put dipped in tone right up there with it. Awesome podcast for gear and tone geeks.
One of the things I've liked since the move to the new house is that your studio is lit by ambient light. I like Rick's videos, but I've always felt like he's coming in from his studio cave. Having natural ambient light in your video makes them look a lot warmer. When your studio is done you might consider continuing to do you videos in the upstairs room.
Hey, just a heads up if you’re planning to run backups using Apple Time Machine: my experience has been that time machine does NOT like network accessible storage. Backups would absolutely crawl, they sometimes took an hour, sometimes they never got out of the “preparing backup” part of the process. When I finally gave up and switched to regular external drives hooked directly to the computer all the problems went away. Backups run quickly with no problems. Yes you need a drive for each computer but it’s worth it.
NAS Storage suggestion Synology 720+ its a super reliable system and easy to set up for someone like myself that works in photography and isn't an IT pro. it is expandable too so you can get just about as lazy as you want with file retention if you need to. It has pretty quick transfer and you can upgrade if you need to to keep things fast enough to keep up with your workflow. I use the same SSD T7 drives for projects and the combo is great. It pretty much solved the same problem you're having for me with just a sunday afternoon of setup.
Yeah cloud over mix position and i would fill that entire up stairs shelf bit with rockwool batts make it a giant bass trap. You could re purpose all of that into the control room downstairs when it's time to move the control room set up
I love your studio set up. But Im glad you mentioned multiple times that people dont need all this gear to make music. Personally I have a daw, audio interface, midi board, sm57, monitor headphones, pedal board, a jazzmaster, and a tube amp. I record a lot of electronic and rock music. My gear is essential to what I do. Everyone should work towards getting gear that's essential to what they do. I have a lot of synth vsts and effects plugins, but my next goal is an analog synth and a real mic preamp. Start with what is essential to what you want to do and then expand towards things that will supplement that. Dont go crazy spending money and financing on things that are outside of your budget because your favorite youtubers have it or an an ad tells you that you need to have it. Some of my favorite records were recorded with the most minimal gear. Gear goes as far as you can take it! Thanks Rhett!
Very informative! Really appreciated the info on the patch bay and the shotgun mic. I don't have a patch bay but see now how it could be helpful. I always wondered how they get the voices to sound so natural in tv and movies, now a part of that is revealed. Thanks for sharing the technical without putting me to sleep! PEACE!!
I was intrigued by the patchbay. Why the mini-telco stuff and not TRS 1/4"? I was also struck by the "top row is outputs, bottom row is inputs" notion. After digesting that I had to crawl under the desk with a flashlight and rearrange some cables :D
13:15 WD MyClouds are always a solid choice, at least for having a lot of storage space for local backups for your data. For me, Networking on a Mac has been tricky, you have to know a few tricks but it is doable. If you are looking to have a storage solution, I would definitely go for a machine that you spec out that just acts as a storage server. For your external drives, you could use internal NVMe drive which can go up to 2TB for like $150. You can then buy a external case for the NVMe that makes it able to plug in via USB. That will cost us about $20 to 30 right there
Great video, I have a couple of suggestions. For the digital storage a NAS is definitely the way to go, I've heard Synology is a pretty user friendly and reliable brand in that regard, and for the bass issues in the room acoustic, maybe a Helmholtz resonator would be a good option to target specific frequencies, it could get rid of the bass without completely killing the room liveliness. Hope it helps.
I recently saw a video about a Synology NAS that also has a Thunderbolt connection. Seems like a great solution for a studio. Probably need to keep it in another room though because those mechanic drives (and the fan) can get loud.
Your channel has been a pretty huge inspiration for a lot of the work I do on my own channel, so thanks for that and for the in-depth look behind the scenes today!
PSY Acoustic panels are really good for treatment. Their ceiling panels should be able to help with the bass buildup. Though since the ceiling is slanted you may need to consult them about some custom wires that the panels would hang from. I imagine that since bass buildup is usually from lower ceilings (anything less than 11 feet or so from what I understand) you would only need cloud panels for maybe the first half of the slanted ceiling. Their wall panels are also very good at absorbing low end. Need to opt for their 4" options to get the most out of reducing the low-end buildup.
Great studio! love your setup and amp shelf. It looks strong and when you add up the weight of some of these amps, ya it needs to be strong, which is something I need to look into myself. We have a crqck and Barrel up here in Vancouver, so I'll check them out. As far as suggestions for sound acoustics in your studio, I have not much to add as I am still learning myself, which is why I come to your setup to learn, However, I always thought that a wedge sounding room with ceiling fans would maybe cause a doppler affect when mixing with fans spinning, but I could be wrong. Anyway great studio, and love your channel.
It amazing to see all the money spent on audio gear that only adds small percentage of quality, but not spend a $1000 for a decent 4 bay Nas (or cloud storage) to backup all their valuable work. Thanks for the studio walkthrough. Appreciate the videos!
Hey Rhett. Thanks for the video, great content ! For your network storage, I would say go with the best (fastest and biggest) Synology NAS you can afford. There are a lot of alternatives to Synology, many are cheaper, but the software that runs on the Synology is second to none. You can use it to record and view security cameras, manage, view and share your photos and videos, as well as automatically back up pretty much anything. Give them a shot, you'll never go back.
HELP! TONE KINGS AND GEAR HEADS! This seemed like the perfect video to engage this topic and I would love some feedback. I’m a backing track bedroom player and have been advised for years that 20W is plenty of power and optimal in order to push the amp (not to mention I have neighbors and that thing rarely gets above 3). BUT I see so many videos of pros with 50W-100W amps running in their bedroom or studio rig. I mean 100W even in a studio? What am I missing here? Is it just the presence if a master volume that allows the amp to be pushed without blasting everyone?
The Masco Amp is cool. There's a lot you can do with them. I had mine gone through my Skip Simmons fifteen years ago. Set it up for one bright and dark channel, and you can just mix them put turning the volumes up and down. Octal preamp tubes. Mine came with the original Masco branded RCA tubes and they all still work. Octal's are their own thing. Think a cross between Gibson EH 150 and a Tweed Bassman.
Hi Rhett! I have the same Gator desk, on "trick" you can do is position the top rack about 5 or 10 cm deeper so that the edge of the rack slightly hangs over the edge of the table below. I secured it with a couple extra brackets and works great. Jusg if you want to gain a bit of workspace
I've just acquired a couple of PSI AVAA's for bass control in my room. I'm currently working out of my home apartment, so I can't really do much to treat the room acoustically, which means that the bass response in particular SUCKS. And it's not only the response, but also the reverberation time. My solution for this is a pretty expensive one, but if it works out then it'll be worth it. I'm demoing a Neumann KH 750 DSP sub, which is paired with my Amphion One18's at the moment. Neumann's correction is working absolute wonders on the bass response and the phase, but it can't do much for reverberation time. This is where the AVAA's come in, and boy, with just turning them on in the first position I stuck them in, I got almost a 200ms reduction of my first room mode at 42Hz. It's actually pretty incredible to see the difference when measuring. I'll be experimenting with other placement to find the optimal spots for them. So yeah, pretty hefty on the wallet (2.5k€ a piece), but definitely doing good things.
Love seeing you break down how your set up is put together. I’d get overwhelmed ! Simplicity lets me make something more quickly. Using just a focusrite 2 input pre and a few effects in the daw if needed. Great Video 🎉
Hi Rhett, thanks for all this. I am really curious to know how you are using the Behringer monitor interface with the UA Apollo's. If you want to use some of the processing from the Apollo's you can't use the software monitoring from your DAW right? Too much latency. So how do you go about "punching" and that sort of stuff? How do you send "playback" to your band? In those same Behringer channels as the direct monitoring since the UAD Console doesnt let you mix into multiple outputs... I'm replacing my Apollo's because of that so wanted to know if you had a workaround. Cheers!
Hey Rhett, as usual, killer content! Concerning your storage needs, a NAS is great for making files available from several computers, and storing more files than could fit in your computer, but not very good for very long-term archival. The reason is that any hard drive will fail after a bit, and ssd too, especially if you don't use them regularly. For the stuff that you have finished working with and just want to "store and forget", I would suggest setting up a Amazon Web Services S3 storage and then you can download and upload simply from their website, and the pricing can go from 2$/month/TB (if you can wait a few hours to retrieve your files -- 5$/month/TB if you want instant retrieval). Sure, costs more than an SSD over the long run, but for long-term storage it's safer. If it seems like it could be interesting for you and you have any questions, or need help setting up, let me know -- I'd be happy to repay for everything that I learned with you
For the bass issues, use Owens Corning 703, 6" thick (three 2" thick pieces) wrapped in acoustic fabric covering the corners. That's what I use and it completely brought my room into line.
Ang angas boss! Bilang newbie, lahat naintindihan ko kahit dapat basic setup lang pinapanood ko. Pero eto kahit komplikado naging madali sa pagunawa ko. Maraming salamat sa lahat ng effort, really appreciated
Hey Rhett, regarding your bass problem: You probably know that the obvious solutions is getting (or better and cheaper yet, building) bass traps. The problem is of course, it takes up space. So sometimes you have to get a little creative with it. In your case, I see at least 2 things you can do that wouldn't change your usable footprint: - Change your closet doors for custom-made or homemade rockwool panel doors. It would turn your closet into a giant bass trap (to some extent); - Turn your couch into a bass trap or stick a huge cushion full of rockwool under the couch. These are minimal investment, big return solutions. There is also an expensive way to go about it. For the super low end, PSI makes an active bass trap called AVAA C20. I don't know how it works but it seems to have the thumbs up from a bunch of mastering engineers, including Bob Katz. Hope that helps.
Rhett...if you having issues with bass build up I'd look at having thicker panels. Also with the slope of the roof thats freaking GOLD. So I'd look at hanging panels from the roof. Do at least 4 inch thick panels if you can swing bigger panels go 6 inch deep. If you hang them so they have some gap off the ceiling like 4 inches or more it will pick up more low end by making the waves pass back and forth. if you want a design for an easy panel with 4x2 foot by 4 inches I can send the dimensions of the panels I made. I can also send photos.
21 minutes in...a cloud over the mix or monitoring position would help you so much, Rhett. That would be my #1 priority in there. All the best the basement studio is looking good. Keep the faith. I'm in a 4x3 metre shed/hut room inside a room in the back garden. Get an expert in for room measurement. If the measurements are correct you'll only need to do the treatment once.
Your videos are incredible; from the display of your vast knowledge and experience, to the production value of the videos themselves. But after watching this video, I feel soooo small! Right when I was starting to feel like hot shit because I’m setup with a Katana 50 MK II for my “main rig” and a Scarlett Solo plugged into my MacBook for my “auxiliary rig”. Seriously though, congrats on the awesome “mini studio”. Can’t wait to see the subterranean super-studio in action!
Great studio overview. Just picked up a UA Volt 476 and an SM 57 to capture guitar, Piano and drums. Still trying to get the hang of the DAW. Can’t recommend the QNAP NAS enough. Simple WebUI, built in media and backup options. You can get them with or with out disks, helpful if you have existing drives you want to reuse.
Hello Rhett. i think that you have a problem with stand waves, caused by the 'volume'(m3, ft3). you need to check that volume, to understand the correct wave fits on it, them use basstraps on the back walls and also some clouds. love your show.
Dope studio! Super stoked to see the new space come together. Also awesome to see you mention the Elk Bridge. Some friends and I each picked one up. It's been unreal being able to jam with a friend who lives across town or in another state on demand.
Rhett, get yourself a nice, four rack Synology NAS (a DS420+ for example), load it up with two NAS-appropriate HDDs (Seagate IronWolf or WD Red) and make it your backup station to archive all your stuff. You can start with a pair of 8TB HDDs and add a second pair once you run out of space. Two HDDs provide redundancy (so if one craps out, the other is there to save you). You can even set it up so that it works as a Mac TimeMachine. It's not super fast, but you don't need fast for archiving.
Very interesting ! I am trying to built a small home studio and for the desk I have doubt on the height of the sceeen platform. I have a dilemma between the space needed under the screen and the maximum height of the screen to have a comfortable view. How high from the floor is the top of the platform and is it confortable for you to work ? Thx. 🙏🏻
Nice deep dive on your studio setup. As a many decades long home recording artist and gear head, I really enjoy seeing how other people use, configure and achieve their goals with the gear they have. Always something new to learn. Thanks ~
Wow, I stayed up way past my bedtime watching this, lol! You did a great job explaining the details of stuff I have never seen but now have a decent understanding of. Similar to your videos explaining the tones of certain gear and how it's unique sound is created. Those are my favorite videos on your channel.
If you want a good off the shelf NAS, you should look at the Synology stuff. If you want a DIY build, the easiest thing is probably a PC running TrueNAS or Unraid, either in a rack mount server case, or a desktop case with A LOT of hard drive bays.
Great out, Rhett! Thanks for this one. I've been waiting for this for a long time. In just less than 2 months, I'm going to be moving which means my whole bedroom studio is getting torn down and rebuilt. It's gonna be a big job but it'll be worth it when it's done.
You could do a signal chain video, more specifically. Like when you did when showing the patch bay. But, essentially, the full course of a guitar/vocal signal from instrument to being recorded, and WHY you pass through each, including order.
Another great job. Although a lot of your videos may not pertain anything I'm currently working on , I find them very entertaining, hold my attention and I'm always learning something that I may benefit from in the future. Continue to keep up the good work. Very nice studio set up and gear. That stuff is fun
SWEET....water. nice way to combine what you love, helping your assistant, give Sweetwater advert., and keep subscribers happy. I think that's a win-win win-win technically
Suggestion for the upstairs room: You may have explored this, but adding some staggered baffling in front of the railing facing back down may work to break up reflected waves. You could stagger them at something like 40 and 60 degrees. It may soak up vibrations on the front and block reverberation from behind. Also, maybe some more soundproofing in the top corner of the loft.
So sick Rhett. I have my little music YT channel up and going strong. It's crazy what you have to have setup in your room within an arms reach to produce this content. I'm in love with it and creating your musicians for the world to hear is my mission! I actually have such a tight little setup and I can make super high level content. It's working for sure. Keep up the work buddy and maybe one day we can do collab. Until then, I will grind away every single day and keep building. Congrats on all of your success brother. Keep on crushing it.
This is amazing Thank you for making this video. I have a tip for the bass problem, having some home theater knowledge: you may want to reposition your subwoofer. Usually a corner works best.
it’s really incredible how far Rhett has taken this channel. Congrats, Rhett and incredible work. I’ve been with ya since the basement broom closet. I’ve been a huge fan ever since the original Skylark video. Oh, by the way… small amps are the shit; always have been 🤘🏻 love ya
I'd love to see that resonator guitar. I can't tell what it is from that far away. Worth noting that I've drawn from your 5 guitars Everybody Should Own video and subsequently assembled a rounded out collection that covers all bases. (My most recent addition: an ES 339 P90 Pro - for a P90 guitar). I've always wanted a resonateor but I don't know what to look for. Great video, Rhett!
Thank you, Rhett and Sweetwater for doing another giveaway. It looks as if your studio is coming along nicely. Btw, I have owned several pairs of Sennheiser headphones of various quality over the years; over the ear with open as well as closed sides and earbuds as well. They have changed the way I listen to recorded music. Just thought I would mention it. Keep it up, Rhett.
Building my NAS server was a game changer for my workflow. I'm a computer nerd so I had a bunch of spare parts to piece one together with about 5tb worth of drives. I use FreeNAS as the operating system. If you have some technical ability this is the way to go. You don't need crazy performance to have a stable machine. I can't speak for any of the prepackaged options unfortunately.
What kind of power requirements did you have to meet for your room - 15 amp or 20 amp plugs and what is the overall draw so your electrician could put in the correct source (both for the bedroom studio and the new basement control room (coming soon to a youtube video near you😅). Working on a small studio for myself and as its an open spot at the moment getting power into it will be easy.
Jesco is UA-cam creator who focuses on acoustic treatment. He explains things well. I’d recommend creating soffit traps and sticking them in every area of the room you can where walls meet. You can also buy these from companies like GIK acoustics. The more mass you have in the corner areas of the room the tamer and more even your bass will be. 4” of acoustics treatment can hit that 100hz range so you could line the floor corners with those. You’ll need about 12” before you start touching those lower frequencies. 2ft or so to get the lowest of frequencies. You mentioned that you don’t want a dead space for mixing, and while that is to taste, the bass trapping in recommending shouldn’t deaden the room. For the walls diffusers or bass traps with scatter plates could help the room retain liveliness yet still sound controlled. As far as cost, GIK, it would cost you around 2-3 grand getting the various traps you’d need. Building them yourself would cost you 1/3 less very likely. GIK has a free room modeler which can be helpful. Yo find the worst spots, what I did was throw. Some pink noise out the speakers and draw the room on a piece of paper. Go to your listening position with an spl meter and target the frequency you want tame. Got to different spots in the room and draw on the paper the difference in db from your listening position. My corners are +6 db from my listening position. Then you can treat using that drawing for reference! Make sure you check closets too. Learned a lot from you Rhett, thought I would try and help out a bit😊
Hey Rhett! Thank you for sharing! I’m very curious how you setup your amp and cab switcher with the ox. Stereo out specifically, line out L/1 & R/2? The Reason why I asked is for stereo effects for a wet dry wet. Possible?
I've never bothered with a subwoofer. I actually find I mix better with very little low end information. If you get the midrange right, your mixes generally sound good anyway. This is the reason NS-10s are so popular.
Hey Rhett! A NAS would be super helpful for long term storage of your stuff. A really popular NAS would be something like the Synology DS923+. Synology is really user friendly, and simple to set up. As for the drives in them, I would recommend either WD Red Pro, Seagate Iron Wolf Pro, or Seagate Exos drives. If you need any more help with this stuff, I would be happy to assist however possible! Quick edit: I would also recommend going with RAID 10, but can be a bit of a preference thing.
I use a Synology 918+ (believe that’s the model). Btw: if you have your storage connected directly to your machine, take a look at BackBlaze cloud backup. $60 per yr for local storage. I have 20TB in the cloud as secondary storage. Used them for years. It’s not cost effective for a NAS however unless you can make it look like local storage.
Rhett…. My (almost perfect) workstation desk is the “Fredde” desk from IKEA. Lots of reasons why, most importantly the room for a 4U rack server turned sideways and room for an LG 38” curved monitor. Super efficient and neat!
Very nice setup. Have you ever heard of the singer/artist Jewel? While she lived in Texas she bought a home on 4.4 acres and had half the home converted into a recording studio and guest house. Three rooms and a closset are covered with sound proof cloth and have pannels built into the walls of each room for connecting amps, mics, monitors, and headphones. There are no 90 degree walls in these rooms. Even the ceilings are at wierd angles Im guessing to break up and absorb the sound. The wiring from each room is run under the floor and pops out in the living room for the mixer/sound board. I've played guitar for over 30 years and that was a huge selling point for me. When me moved into the house I took over one of the smaller sound proofed rooms and set up my amps and routed all the wires. I was in the room abour 5 months when my wife said she wanted to turn that room into an exercise/guest room. UGH! Im not set up to the level you are, but the 2-car garage converted into a living room is working out nicely for me. Its not sound proof, but at my age I'm not turning things up to 11 anymore.
Backup? I spent 30 years in the IT biz at the worlds largest film maker. It's great to see you thinking about backup, a lot of people don't. Some are very sorry they didn't. The old 'spinning disk' in that desktop adapter is better than you might think for temporary storage. They are reasonably reliable. The next step would be a server with a RAID storage. Better yet, and more cost effective would be on-line cloud storage. Google, Yahoo are a couple examples. You can work with your ISP to get better up speed. It will go to one of the huge server farms and be further backed up and managed there. The on-site server route could cost thousands of dollars, and you would still have to manage the server, or hire someone. Your ISP also may have a storage solution. Maybe ask them first. Off site is what I would recommend though. God forbid anything happens with the house/studio all your data/work would be safe off site. JMHO's. Hope that helps a little... 8) --gary
Hey Rhett! Thanks for sharing your setup! In regards to your network storage, it may be pricey, but I am a big fan of Synology products. We use Synology at the county I work in for all of our security camera footage storage. It's extremely user friendly and very reliable. :)
Have a look into AWS Glacier for archiving, especially if you want to be able to access the data from the internet - solves the headache with setting up the NAS system. Happy to help with getting that all sorted!
Hey Rhett, Wonderful Video!! In the "Patching A Mic" section, how do you get your XLR signal into the switchcraft bays from the snake? Did you replace your snakes XLR connectors with a DB25? Or were you able to purchase a DB25 snake??
I appreciate the behind the scenes peek and tour, as well as the explanation of each piece. Glad to hear you have the live room in progress, even if it's temporary. Looking forward to hearing more in the future
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey! Looks great! Hit us up via the website, maybe we can figure out how to work on it! Thanks so much for the shout out and for watching!!! -Bob
Can’t wait to see the Rhett Shellf
@@GuitarBeard Shullf
lets go!! 😃
weww
@@GuitarBeard that GOT ME. I would buy that in a heartbeat.
Totally recommend Synology for NAS, since you asked. I got one for archive purposes and within a year, it's wormed its way into my workflows so much I couldn't continue without it. It's been utterly rock-solid, sits down in the basement so zero noise. It is The Thing.
Because you asked for suggestions: I would recommend building a cloud over your mix position, and some additional diffusion or absorption on that big ceiling! Glad that the studio is coming together!
I have had several recording studios over the last 45 years and renovations and tearing down a set-up are usual to help optimize a setup, update equipment, and streamline workflow. I am no stranger to the process and I encourage studio owners to keep an open mind that there are small and large updates to consider. Also, the types of projects you work on, the types of clients you work for, and the flexibility to manage large or small projects are things to consider. Over 5 years a studio will be renovated and updated perhaps 3 to 7 times to keep up with technology and provide clients "State of the Art" standards. Good Luck!
How fortunate are we today, to get interesting stuff like this to watch, that is also informative and educational atst. Thank you Rhett.
Indeed and better than TV.
I’m having pretty positive vibes regarding your live room and dream studio, I know you’ve done a lot work, experienced manny problems and stuff but finally I can see it being complete
Great Studio tour, especially all the nerdy YT stuff! Love my Sennheiser MKH50. Best piece of gear I bought in the last few years!
Hey man!
Could you explain the process in how you went from your intel Mac to an M1 Mac?
Going to do the same soon and am thinking about bringing over the plugins and everything over migration assistant, all the ilok stuff and what not.
Thanks in advance!
To be fair, the design of the amp rack is pretty simple. All anybody would need to know is;
- The overall height, width and depth
- The thickness of the timber used
- The width timber shelf.
- The height of a timber side section.
- The width and thickness of a metal brace.
Love the videos buddy. Keep them coming!
I've been waiting for this video like you wouldn't believe. Great video Rhett.
Are you going to do a tour video when Rhett gets the basement finished? That would be an epic 🤝
I can't believe this is free content. Thank you for putting this together Rhett, you're a unique voice in this world of guitar. Excited for what will come out of this space for you (and us!)
The fact that you think this is free … shows how low your iq is… god society has failed….
Love the set up Bro 👍🏾
I'm a bit old school coming from the analogue days 😊
24 track real to real, 48 track real to real days..
In my days there were called valve pre amps/amps
today we say tube.. for me personally its all about
warmness of the sound... so when you mentioned
your tube pre amps I just said yep this guy is on
the same page as me.. I personally wouldn't mix
with the subs on but play back after the mix is
a must.. Gods Will, I will be building from scratch
as I want my studio to be at home.. thanks for
the tips as I'm still learning every day..
Stay Bless Bro ✝️
Love the studio. Just ordered the same desk setup. By the way, I would recommend turning off phantom power in the preamps whenever you plug a mic into it or unplug it. The dc voltage could damage the gear. Also if you accidentally patch a ribbon mic into a preamp with phantom power turned on it could fry the ribbon. The chance of damaging gear with tt or trs cables is even greater than with xlrs.
Rhett, congratulations on your continued success! watching you grow has been really inspiring and the consistent hard work you've been putting in deserves all the success you have gotten! I'm not a professional musician, but as a hobbyist I love watching you because unlike some other creators, you always have a strong budget in mind, so your judgement of gear value is something I have come to really appreciate! Here's to another decade of success! Good luck!
Thank you for this! I’ve been a guitar player for years but I’m just starting to get into the home studio world and I’m in so far over my head I don’t know whether scratch my watch or wind my ass sometimes…this was so informative! Much appreciated!!!
Great video! I have been around music and music gear all my life, hardly seems like 62 years, it went by pretty quickly! I'm glad to see that all the old gear is still being used today, like patch bays, mic pre's, tube powered compressors, tube amps, etc... Good luck with the new studio build, I'm looking forward to seeing it completed, up and running.
I’ve been a video editor/motion gfx artist for 20 years. I’ve been using Dropbox for the last 8-10 of those and it’s been amazing. I never worry about losing anything and it makes mobility a whole different thing. I can work literally anywhere. I don’t just use it for backup. I work from my Dropbox folder that is synched to my 4tb internal. I can choose what is available offline with a mouse click. I’ve never ever had a problem.
Thank you for making this video, Rhett. Seeing other setups really help rationalize what gear is truly important and helps me limit myself to create even better music.
It's quite the fascination to get the BTS on how the magic works. That transparency is always appreciated. Hope the studio production is, indeed, going well.
Rhett, I'm a commercial photographer. 40 years of experience, 50 as a guitar player. You are right on the money with the photo and video gear. I have the a1. Incredible for stills and video. Te gear you have is perfect for what you do. Your knowledge of white balance really enhances your videos.
I was being interview last year and the podcaster did not know how to get the yellow tint out of the videos during test shots. 10 year old Canon, I scrolled through the menu and adjusted the white balance. Viola!
Everything matters. Especially if you are very discerning. Never play out of tune. Always get the white balance right.
Thank you for showing your patch box and how you make connections. I've never seen how things like this works
For long term storage and daily use, external magnetic drives are actually a better way to go. SSDs have a finite lifespan of reads and writes and the "fuller" you keep a drive and add/remove large files (read as large video files) the faster you will wear out an SSD. This is especially true on a computer that does not have a replaceable internal SSD. Bottom line is, anything important on an internal SSD needs to be backed up externally and the cost of backing up archives with external magnetic drives is infinitely cheaper these days.
13:10 IT guy here, having HDDs are best for long-term storage! You can get terabytes of storage for good prices. HDD can still fail and you can loose everything on it. Look into get a NAS server and set up a RAID. They have multiple drive bays and having a raid setup will have redundancy to make sure you don't loose data. Get a 6 bay if you can afford it up front
Thanks Rhett, super interesting and thorough! Looking forward to the studio update with the same stuff!
This is such a killer video. Thank you Sir! As a person who's had a rather larger home studio setup, I really appreciate your commitment to expanding. Over the last decade you've grown your setup to make room for more. Meanwhile, I've simplified my setup from 48 channels down to 8. You seem to have a killer ability to manage more gear and channels. I need to reconsider my decisions. I've tried to reduce studio gear to make creating simple. And while it is helping a lot with workflow, maybe it's stagnating growth. All the details here were super necessary. I really appreciate you addressing everything. You're a legend 🙌 Cannot wait for new tracks!!
Wow, great studio, Rhett. I love how well organized and thought through everything is laid out.
When it comes to backing up or archiving your work, please consider using cloud storage. Renting storage isn't that expensive, and having your data decentralized can be worth its weight in gold. A flood, a tornado, a house fire and all your work is gone. You can insure the house and all the hardware you have, even the hard drives you back up or archive your work on, but once the locally kept back up medias are damaged, the work itself is irretrievably lost. When using cloud services to back up your work, the provider is responsible for all the emergency recovery of storage and computer hardware and in the most cases your data are stored on storage on different locations. It's a pretty good and safe solution.
@13:00 - For a NAS as backup/network storage, I'd recommend a Synology model with 4+ drive bays. It's the most user friendly of the consumer NAS options (although more than suitable for business too) - I've set up a few different brands, and they may be a slight premium, but the reliability and ease of use is excellent.
I say to buy one at least 4 bays to allow some redundancy (where even if a drive fails you don't lose data), but it also makes sense to keep to a manageable setup too when setting out rather than a giant server. For example, 4x 8tb drives, set up with a single disk of redundancy (called RAID 5) which would give 24tb or so of storage.
Also, I'd stress that redundancy isn't a complete backup - just maximises availability locally - so keep additional copies of really important data elsewhere, such as using cloud storage. A service like Backblaze can be good value if you need to keep a lot of data, but if its a more reasonable amount then consumer cloud storage is more than fine!
Wow, I just found your channel and with only a few minutes of listening the way you explain everything, right to the point and educational at the same time you got me subscribed to your channel. I connected with your ideas and way of thinking right away. I have not even checked the rest of your tutorials but this is more than enough to get me interested as a musician and home recording novice myself. My span of attention is very short, but You truly got my attention.
The sonnet Mac Mini rack having 2 Mac mini slots is super useful for live applications, where you need dedicated computers for different applications. (ProPresenter, lighting computer, stuff like that.) Love the video btw!
For your storage use a Synology NAS..I'll suggest use a minimum 4 bay NAS.. and use enterprise level disk....you can connect your external SSDs to the NAS for additional back up... thank me later. This is my set up. and I never worry about storage.... I use a 2020 Intel iMac, 128Gb of Ram, 4TB of storage for plugins, and sound libraries...... all storage goes to my Synology 1817+ (8bay) 72 Terabytes of Seagate Ironwolf enterprise level 12 Terabytes, in 6 bays.... 2 bays contain (2) 2T SSD drives for cache..... This is not cheap.... I spent over $3K for disk, My synology cost me $2K, and the 2T SSD was around $200 each. so a little over $5K just for storage.... My studio room is no where as nice as yours but if you have expensive gear it is important to retain the art. Hope that helps.
Linus from LTT used to colab all the time with lots of people to help set up NAS stuff. Could be a cool colab that people wouldnt expect
YT channel Gamers nexus is based in North Carolina and is another resource. Steve just did a video on there NAS system.
Creators like Rhett most definitely need a NAS server for storing everything. That’s gonna be a collab I’d be hyped about.
Yeah but Linus will drop a guitar
+1 for gamer’s nexus
@@kurdtjohn Yes, that would work, but he needs to get it off site for backup. Cloud storage is cheap, efficient and highly reliable. A stand-alone raid NAS for daily backup, then send it up once a day. To stand up a proper server w/raid is $$$$! Then it also has to be managed. If Rhett doesn't want to, or can't do that he would have to hire someone. Getting into even more $$$$. --gary
Man I just gotta say I’ve been a subscriber for a while and watched your stuff but never really watched a whole lot all the time until I started watching the dipped in tone podcast recently. I have been listening to tone talk with Dave Friedman for a long time now anytime I work on anything at home or need something in the background and I put dipped in tone right up there with it. Awesome podcast for gear and tone geeks.
This is a fantastic video Rhett. Thank you for showing us your studio and going in depth about what’s in your quiver. Cheers!
One of the things I've liked since the move to the new house is that your studio is lit by ambient light. I like Rick's videos, but I've always felt like he's coming in from his studio cave. Having natural ambient light in your video makes them look a lot warmer. When your studio is done you might consider continuing to do you videos in the upstairs room.
Hey, just a heads up if you’re planning to run backups using Apple Time Machine: my experience has been that time machine does NOT like network accessible storage. Backups would absolutely crawl, they sometimes took an hour, sometimes they never got out of the “preparing backup” part of the process. When I finally gave up and switched to regular external drives hooked directly to the computer all the problems went away. Backups run quickly with no problems. Yes you need a drive for each computer but it’s worth it.
NAS Storage suggestion
Synology 720+
its a super reliable system and easy to set up for someone like myself that works in photography and isn't an IT pro.
it is expandable too so you can get just about as lazy as you want with file retention if you need to. It has pretty quick transfer and you can upgrade if you need to to keep things fast enough to keep up with your workflow. I use the same SSD T7 drives for projects and the combo is great. It pretty much solved the same problem you're having for me with just a sunday afternoon of setup.
The new M2 Mac minis are great, too. I just got an M2 Pro mini and it's ridiculously powerful. And definitely yes about the T7 drives.
Yeah cloud over mix position and i would fill that entire up stairs shelf bit with rockwool batts make it a giant bass trap. You could re purpose all of that into the control room downstairs when it's time to move the control room set up
I love your studio set up. But Im glad you mentioned multiple times that people dont need all this gear to make music. Personally I have a daw, audio interface, midi board, sm57, monitor headphones, pedal board, a jazzmaster, and a tube amp. I record a lot of electronic and rock music. My gear is essential to what I do. Everyone should work towards getting gear that's essential to what they do. I have a lot of synth vsts and effects plugins, but my next goal is an analog synth and a real mic preamp. Start with what is essential to what you want to do and then expand towards things that will supplement that. Dont go crazy spending money and financing on things that are outside of your budget because your favorite youtubers have it or an an ad tells you that you need to have it. Some of my favorite records were recorded with the most minimal gear. Gear goes as far as you can take it! Thanks Rhett!
Very informative! Really appreciated the info on the patch bay and the shotgun mic. I don't have a patch bay but see now how it could be helpful. I always wondered how they get the voices to sound so natural in tv and movies, now a part of that is revealed. Thanks for sharing the technical without putting me to sleep! PEACE!!
I was intrigued by the patchbay. Why the mini-telco stuff and not TRS 1/4"? I was also struck by the "top row is outputs, bottom row is inputs" notion. After digesting that I had to crawl under the desk with a flashlight and rearrange some cables :D
13:15 WD MyClouds are always a solid choice, at least for having a lot of storage space for local backups for your data. For me, Networking on a Mac has been tricky, you have to know a few tricks but it is doable. If you are looking to have a storage solution, I would definitely go for a machine that you spec out that just acts as a storage server. For your external drives, you could use internal NVMe drive which can go up to 2TB for like $150. You can then buy a external case for the NVMe that makes it able to plug in via USB. That will cost us about $20 to 30 right there
Great video, I have a couple of suggestions. For the digital storage a NAS is definitely the way to go, I've heard Synology is a pretty user friendly and reliable brand in that regard, and for the bass issues in the room acoustic, maybe a Helmholtz resonator would be a good option to target specific frequencies, it could get rid of the bass without completely killing the room liveliness. Hope it helps.
I recently saw a video about a Synology NAS that also has a Thunderbolt connection. Seems like a great solution for a studio. Probably need to keep it in another room though because those mechanic drives (and the fan) can get loud.
Your channel has been a pretty huge inspiration for a lot of the work I do on my own channel, so thanks for that and for the in-depth look behind the scenes today!
PSY Acoustic panels are really good for treatment. Their ceiling panels should be able to help with the bass buildup. Though since the ceiling is slanted you may need to consult them about some custom wires that the panels would hang from. I imagine that since bass buildup is usually from lower ceilings (anything less than 11 feet or so from what I understand) you would only need cloud panels for maybe the first half of the slanted ceiling. Their wall panels are also very good at absorbing low end. Need to opt for their 4" options to get the most out of reducing the low-end buildup.
Great studio! love your setup and amp shelf. It looks strong and when you add up the weight of some of these amps, ya it needs to be strong, which is something I need to look into myself. We have a crqck and Barrel up here in Vancouver, so I'll check them out. As far as suggestions for sound acoustics in your studio, I have not much to add as I am still learning myself, which is why I come to your setup to learn, However, I always thought that a wedge sounding room with ceiling fans would maybe cause a doppler affect when mixing with fans spinning, but I could be wrong. Anyway great studio, and love your channel.
It amazing to see all the money spent on audio gear that only adds small percentage of quality, but not spend a $1000 for a decent 4 bay Nas (or cloud storage) to backup all their valuable work. Thanks for the studio walkthrough. Appreciate the videos!
Hey Rhett. Thanks for the video, great content ! For your network storage, I would say go with the best (fastest and biggest) Synology NAS you can afford. There are a lot of alternatives to Synology, many are cheaper, but the software that runs on the Synology is second to none. You can use it to record and view security cameras, manage, view and share your photos and videos, as well as automatically back up pretty much anything. Give them a shot, you'll never go back.
Watching Bob & Rhett work together would be the next step in expanding the YT cinematic universe.
You really know how to give me a GAS flare up. My sales engineer thanks you. I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since you’ve been in that room.
HELP! TONE KINGS AND GEAR HEADS! This seemed like the perfect video to engage this topic and I would love some feedback. I’m a backing track bedroom player and have been advised for years that 20W is plenty of power and optimal in order to push the amp (not to mention I have neighbors and that thing rarely gets above 3). BUT I see so many videos of pros with 50W-100W amps running in their bedroom or studio rig. I mean 100W even in a studio? What am I missing here? Is it just the presence if a master volume that allows the amp to be pushed without blasting everyone?
The Masco Amp is cool. There's a lot you can do with them. I had mine gone through my Skip Simmons fifteen years ago. Set it up for one bright and dark channel, and you can just mix them put turning the volumes up and down. Octal preamp tubes. Mine came with the original Masco branded RCA tubes and they all still work. Octal's are their own thing. Think a cross between Gibson EH 150 and a Tweed Bassman.
Hi Rhett! I have the same Gator desk, on "trick" you can do is position the top rack about 5 or 10 cm deeper so that the edge of the rack slightly hangs over the edge of the table below. I secured it with a couple extra brackets and works great. Jusg if you want to gain a bit of workspace
I've just acquired a couple of PSI AVAA's for bass control in my room. I'm currently working out of my home apartment, so I can't really do much to treat the room acoustically, which means that the bass response in particular SUCKS. And it's not only the response, but also the reverberation time.
My solution for this is a pretty expensive one, but if it works out then it'll be worth it. I'm demoing a Neumann KH 750 DSP sub, which is paired with my Amphion One18's at the moment. Neumann's correction is working absolute wonders on the bass response and the phase, but it can't do much for reverberation time. This is where the AVAA's come in, and boy, with just turning them on in the first position I stuck them in, I got almost a 200ms reduction of my first room mode at 42Hz. It's actually pretty incredible to see the difference when measuring. I'll be experimenting with other placement to find the optimal spots for them.
So yeah, pretty hefty on the wallet (2.5k€ a piece), but definitely doing good things.
Love seeing you break down how your set up is put together. I’d get overwhelmed ! Simplicity lets me make something more quickly. Using just a focusrite 2 input pre and a few effects in the daw if needed.
Great Video 🎉
Hi Rhett, thanks for all this. I am really curious to know how you are using the Behringer monitor interface with the UA Apollo's. If you want to use some of the processing from the Apollo's you can't use the software monitoring from your DAW right? Too much latency. So how do you go about "punching" and that sort of stuff? How do you send "playback" to your band? In those same Behringer channels as the direct monitoring since the UAD Console doesnt let you mix into multiple outputs... I'm replacing my Apollo's because of that so wanted to know if you had a workaround. Cheers!
Hey Rhett, as usual, killer content!
Concerning your storage needs, a NAS is great for making files available from several computers, and storing more files than could fit in your computer, but not very good for very long-term archival. The reason is that any hard drive will fail after a bit, and ssd too, especially if you don't use them regularly. For the stuff that you have finished working with and just want to "store and forget", I would suggest setting up a Amazon Web Services S3 storage and then you can download and upload simply from their website, and the pricing can go from 2$/month/TB (if you can wait a few hours to retrieve your files -- 5$/month/TB if you want instant retrieval). Sure, costs more than an SSD over the long run, but for long-term storage it's safer.
If it seems like it could be interesting for you and you have any questions, or need help setting up, let me know -- I'd be happy to repay for everything that I learned with you
Thanks for the breakdown of your studio. I'm always learning something new from your videos.
For the bass issues, use Owens Corning 703, 6" thick (three 2" thick pieces) wrapped in acoustic fabric covering the corners. That's what I use and it completely brought my room into line.
Ang angas boss! Bilang newbie, lahat naintindihan ko kahit dapat basic setup lang pinapanood ko. Pero eto kahit komplikado naging madali sa pagunawa ko. Maraming salamat sa lahat ng effort, really appreciated
Good on ya Rhett. I find re-wiring so cathartic.
Hey Rhett, regarding your bass problem:
You probably know that the obvious solutions is getting (or better and cheaper yet, building) bass traps. The problem is of course, it takes up space. So sometimes you have to get a little creative with it. In your case, I see at least 2 things you can do that wouldn't change your usable footprint:
- Change your closet doors for custom-made or homemade rockwool panel doors. It would turn your closet into a giant bass trap (to some extent);
- Turn your couch into a bass trap or stick a huge cushion full of rockwool under the couch.
These are minimal investment, big return solutions.
There is also an expensive way to go about it. For the super low end, PSI makes an active bass trap called AVAA C20. I don't know how it works but it seems to have the thumbs up from a bunch of mastering engineers, including Bob Katz.
Hope that helps.
Very informative video Rhett. Excellent work. More studio equipment, set-up and operation videos please.
Rhett...if you having issues with bass build up I'd look at having thicker panels. Also with the slope of the roof thats freaking GOLD. So I'd look at hanging panels from the roof. Do at least 4 inch thick panels if you can swing bigger panels go 6 inch deep. If you hang them so they have some gap off the ceiling like 4 inches or more it will pick up more low end by making the waves pass back and forth. if you want a design for an easy panel with 4x2 foot by 4 inches I can send the dimensions of the panels I made. I can also send photos.
21 minutes in...a cloud over the mix or monitoring position would help you so much, Rhett. That would be my #1 priority in there. All the best the basement studio is looking good. Keep the faith. I'm in a 4x3 metre shed/hut room inside a room in the back garden. Get an expert in for room measurement. If the measurements are correct you'll only need to do the treatment once.
Your videos are incredible; from the display of your vast knowledge and experience, to the production value of the videos themselves. But after watching this video, I feel soooo small! Right when I was starting to feel like hot shit because I’m setup with a Katana 50 MK II for my “main rig” and a Scarlett Solo plugged into my MacBook for my “auxiliary rig”. Seriously though, congrats on the awesome “mini studio”. Can’t wait to see the subterranean super-studio in action!
Great studio overview. Just picked up a UA Volt 476 and an SM 57 to capture guitar,
Piano and drums. Still trying to get the hang of the DAW. Can’t recommend the QNAP NAS enough. Simple WebUI, built in media and backup options. You can get them with or with out disks, helpful if you have existing drives you want to reuse.
Hello Rhett. i think that you have a problem with stand waves, caused by the 'volume'(m3, ft3). you need to check that volume, to understand the correct wave fits on it, them use basstraps on the back walls and also some clouds.
love your show.
Dope studio! Super stoked to see the new space come together. Also awesome to see you mention the Elk Bridge. Some friends and I each picked one up. It's been unreal being able to jam with a friend who lives across town or in another state on demand.
Spam is best on bread not here
Rhett, get yourself a nice, four rack Synology NAS (a DS420+ for example), load it up with two NAS-appropriate HDDs (Seagate IronWolf or WD Red) and make it your backup station to archive all your stuff. You can start with a pair of 8TB HDDs and add a second pair once you run out of space. Two HDDs provide redundancy (so if one craps out, the other is there to save you). You can even set it up so that it works as a Mac TimeMachine. It's not super fast, but you don't need fast for archiving.
32:29:00 it's about impedance that changes the freq response curve, not level.
Very interesting ! I am trying to built a small home studio and for the desk I have doubt on the height of the sceeen platform. I have a dilemma between the space needed under the screen and the maximum height of the screen to have a comfortable view. How high from the floor is the top of the platform and is it confortable for you to work ? Thx. 🙏🏻
Nice deep dive on your studio setup. As a many decades long home recording artist and gear head, I really enjoy seeing how other people use, configure and achieve their goals with the gear they have. Always something new to learn. Thanks ~
Wow, I stayed up way past my bedtime watching this, lol! You did a great job explaining the details of stuff I have never seen but now have a decent understanding of. Similar to your videos explaining the tones of certain gear and how it's unique sound is created. Those are my favorite videos on your channel.
If you want a good off the shelf NAS, you should look at the Synology stuff. If you want a DIY build, the easiest thing is probably a PC running TrueNAS or Unraid, either in a rack mount server case, or a desktop case with A LOT of hard drive bays.
Great out, Rhett! Thanks for this one. I've been waiting for this for a long time. In just less than 2 months, I'm going to be moving which means my whole bedroom studio is getting torn down and rebuilt. It's gonna be a big job but it'll be worth it when it's done.
Synology stuff is great for NAS storage IMO. Great video. I love all the gear you've collected over the years.
You could do a signal chain video, more specifically.
Like when you did when showing the patch bay.
But, essentially, the full course of a guitar/vocal signal from instrument to being recorded, and WHY you pass through each, including order.
Another great job. Although a lot of your videos may not pertain anything I'm currently working on , I find them very entertaining, hold my attention and I'm always learning something that I may benefit from in the future. Continue to keep up the good work. Very nice studio set up and gear. That stuff is fun
SWEET....water. nice way to combine what you love, helping your assistant, give Sweetwater advert., and keep subscribers happy. I think that's a win-win win-win technically
Suggestion for the upstairs room: You may have explored this, but adding some staggered baffling in front of the railing facing back down may work to break up reflected waves. You could stagger them at something like 40 and 60 degrees. It may soak up vibrations on the front and block reverberation from behind.
Also, maybe some more soundproofing in the top corner of the loft.
So sick Rhett. I have my little music YT channel up and going strong. It's crazy what you have to have setup in your room within an arms reach to produce this content. I'm in love with it and creating your musicians for the world to hear is my mission! I actually have such a tight little setup and I can make super high level content. It's working for sure.
Keep up the work buddy and maybe one day we can do collab. Until then, I will grind away every single day and keep building. Congrats on all of your success brother. Keep on crushing it.
This is amazing Thank you for making this video. I have a tip for the bass problem, having some home theater knowledge: you may want to reposition your subwoofer. Usually a corner works best.
it’s really incredible how far Rhett has taken this channel. Congrats, Rhett and incredible work. I’ve been with ya since the basement broom closet. I’ve been a huge fan ever since the original Skylark video. Oh, by the way… small amps are the shit; always have been 🤘🏻
love ya
Hey Rhett, I have Luna and an M1 Mac Studio. I had lots of issues as well, then I configured Luna to launch with Rosetta, and the issues resolved.
I'd love to see that resonator guitar. I can't tell what it is from that far away. Worth noting that I've drawn from your 5 guitars Everybody Should Own video and subsequently assembled a rounded out collection that covers all bases. (My most recent addition: an ES 339 P90 Pro - for a P90 guitar). I've always wanted a resonateor but I don't know what to look for. Great video, Rhett!
Thank you, Rhett and Sweetwater for doing another giveaway. It looks as if your studio is coming along nicely.
Btw, I have owned several pairs of Sennheiser headphones of various quality over the years; over the ear with open as well as closed sides and earbuds as well. They have changed the way I listen to recorded music. Just thought I would mention it.
Keep it up, Rhett.
Building my NAS server was a game changer for my workflow. I'm a computer nerd so I had a bunch of spare parts to piece one together with about 5tb worth of drives. I use FreeNAS as the operating system. If you have some technical ability this is the way to go. You don't need crazy performance to have a stable machine. I can't speak for any of the prepackaged options unfortunately.
What kind of power requirements did you have to meet for your room - 15 amp or 20 amp plugs and what is the overall draw so your electrician could put in the correct source (both for the bedroom studio and the new basement control room (coming soon to a youtube video near you😅). Working on a small studio for myself and as its an open spot at the moment getting power into it will be easy.
Jesco is UA-cam creator who focuses on acoustic treatment. He explains things well.
I’d recommend creating soffit traps and sticking them in every area of the room you can where walls meet. You can also buy these from companies like GIK acoustics. The more mass you have in the corner areas of the room the tamer and more even your bass will be.
4” of acoustics treatment can hit that 100hz range so you could line the floor corners with those. You’ll need about 12” before you start touching those lower frequencies. 2ft or so to get the lowest of frequencies.
You mentioned that you don’t want a dead space for mixing, and while that is to taste, the bass trapping in recommending shouldn’t deaden the room.
For the walls diffusers or bass traps with scatter plates could help the room retain liveliness yet still sound controlled.
As far as cost, GIK, it would cost you around 2-3 grand getting the various traps you’d need. Building them yourself would cost you 1/3 less very likely. GIK has a free room modeler which can be helpful.
Yo find the worst spots, what I did was throw. Some pink noise out the speakers and draw the room on a piece of paper. Go to your listening position with an spl meter and target the frequency you want tame. Got to different spots in the room and draw on the paper the difference in db from your listening position.
My corners are +6 db from my listening position. Then you can treat using that drawing for reference!
Make sure you check closets too.
Learned a lot from you Rhett, thought I would try and help out a bit😊
Oh also take a look at sonarworks’ software for room eq.
Hey Rhett! Thank you for sharing! I’m very curious how you setup your amp and cab switcher with the ox. Stereo out specifically, line out L/1 & R/2? The Reason why I asked is for stereo effects for a wet dry wet. Possible?
I've never bothered with a subwoofer. I actually find I mix better with very little low end information. If you get the midrange right, your mixes generally sound good anyway. This is the reason NS-10s are so popular.
Hey Rhett! A NAS would be super helpful for long term storage of your stuff. A really popular NAS would be something like the Synology DS923+. Synology is really user friendly, and simple to set up. As for the drives in them, I would recommend either WD Red Pro, Seagate Iron Wolf Pro, or Seagate Exos drives. If you need any more help with this stuff, I would be happy to assist however possible!
Quick edit: I would also recommend going with RAID 10, but can be a bit of a preference thing.
I use a Synology 918+ (believe that’s the model).
Btw: if you have your storage connected directly to your machine, take a look at BackBlaze cloud backup. $60 per yr for local storage. I have 20TB in the cloud as secondary storage. Used them for years. It’s not cost effective for a NAS however unless you can make it look like local storage.
Rhett…. My (almost perfect) workstation desk is the “Fredde” desk from IKEA. Lots of reasons why, most importantly the room for a 4U rack server turned sideways and room for an LG 38” curved monitor. Super efficient and neat!
Very nice setup. Have you ever heard of the singer/artist Jewel? While she lived in Texas she bought a home on 4.4 acres and had half the home converted into a recording studio and guest house. Three rooms and a closset are covered with sound proof cloth and have pannels built into the walls of each room for connecting amps, mics, monitors, and headphones. There are no 90 degree walls in these rooms. Even the ceilings are at wierd angles Im guessing to break up and absorb the sound. The wiring from each room is run under the floor and pops out in the living room for the mixer/sound board. I've played guitar for over 30 years and that was a huge selling point for me. When me moved into the house I took over one of the smaller sound proofed rooms and set up my amps and routed all the wires. I was in the room abour 5 months when my wife said she wanted to turn that room into an exercise/guest room. UGH! Im not set up to the level you are, but the 2-car garage converted into a living room is working out nicely for me. Its not sound proof, but at my age I'm not turning things up to 11 anymore.
Backup? I spent 30 years in the IT biz at the worlds largest film maker. It's great to see you thinking about backup, a lot of people don't. Some are very sorry they didn't. The old 'spinning disk' in that desktop adapter is better than you might think for temporary storage. They are reasonably reliable. The next step would be a server with a RAID storage. Better yet, and more cost effective would be on-line cloud storage. Google, Yahoo are a couple examples. You can work with your ISP to get better up speed. It will go to one of the huge server farms and be further backed up and managed there. The on-site server route could cost thousands of dollars, and you would still have to manage the server, or hire someone. Your ISP also may have a storage solution. Maybe ask them first. Off site is what I would recommend though. God forbid anything happens with the house/studio all your data/work would be safe off site. JMHO's. Hope that helps a little... 8) --gary
Hey Rhett! Thanks for sharing your setup! In regards to your network storage, it may be pricey, but I am a big fan of Synology products. We use Synology at the county I work in for all of our security camera footage storage. It's extremely user friendly and very reliable. :)
Have a look into AWS Glacier for archiving, especially if you want to be able to access the data from the internet - solves the headache with setting up the NAS system. Happy to help with getting that all sorted!
Hey Rhett, Wonderful Video!! In the "Patching A Mic" section, how do you get your XLR signal into the switchcraft bays from the snake? Did you replace your snakes XLR connectors with a DB25? Or were you able to purchase a DB25 snake??
Serious question - why not use Logic Pro? (Besides “industry standard” line)
I appreciate the behind the scenes peek and tour, as well as the explanation of each piece.
Glad to hear you have the live room in progress, even if it's temporary.
Looking forward to hearing more in the future