Studio

The Studio

Studio History

In 2000 I bought a house in Crystal, MN and almost immediately after moving in I started experimenting with songwriting and recording. Up to that point I'd never tried it before. My friend Lee and I bought a cheap roll of orange boat carpeting and pinned it up along the walls of the designated basement music room in the house. "The Orange Hut" studio in Crystal was christened.

At the Crystal house I started recording using free Wav editing software, a $5 computer microphone, my drums, and the lowest of the low end Fender "Strat" electric guitar. I didn't even have a bass, so I recorded the guitar clean and processed the track down an octave to simulate the bass guitar.

Eventually I graduated to Cakewalk Home Studio 9 software, and then Cakewalk Sonar 1.0 (which I still use to this day). I also picked up a pro audio sound card, mixer(s), and a small arsenal of microphones. Life was good, I was cranking out tunes, and they even sounded half-way decent from time to time.

Nikki and I moved out of Crystal in 2003 and built a house in Chaska, MN. The Chaska house had an unfinished basement, which was where the studio was to go, and so the new recording space was dubbed "The Concrete Slab". I recorded half of the Basic album using no or very little sound-dampening material on the walls in that space and it actually sounded good for some reason. Soon after moving to Chaska I also bought my Yamaha hard-disk recording workstation. I've also doubled my microphone arsenal since moving to Chaska and bought a new Ibanez 6-string.

Now, the basement and studio are finished. Unfortunately, I learned a lot about sound-blocking construction AFTER the studio was finished. For vocals and guitars the room does a good job of keeping the sound in, but for drums it still leaks sound. In any case, I have a nice dedicated space to work in. I also built some acoustic absorbtion panels to help improve the sound inside.

Mike's Gear

Recording Software and Hardware

Yamaha AW16G hard-disk 16-track recording workstation.
Cakewalk Sonar v1.0.
MAudio sound card (I forget what the model is). Includes coaxial input/output and MIDI input/output.
FL Studio 8.0
Windows XP workstation (1.? ghz, 2 GB Ram, 20 and 40 GB hard drives). It never crashes.
Behringer 10-channel mixer (I forget what the model is).
MAudio 02 MIDI controller
Studio Projects VTB1 mic preamp
KRK RP-5 Monitors

Mics

Two Shure SM-57 dynamic mics.
Two Audio Technica 3035 condensers.
AKG D112 bass drum mic.
CAD drumset mic package (two overhead condensers, three dynamic tom mics, snare, BD/floor tom).
Audix i5 dynamic
Rode NT1 condenser

Drums and Cymbals

Old 5-Piece Ludwig drumset. 20" bass, 12", 13", and 16" toms. No idea how old it is.
14" steel Gretsch snare.
Variety of hand-assembled and hand-finished 14" maple snares.
13" hand-assembled and finished piccolo snare.
Two 20" Zildjian A rides.
18" Sabian HH dark crash.
16" Zildjian K thin crash.
14" Zildjian New Beat hi hat.
18" Zildjian Swish.
16" Wuhan (usually only used from time to time as a hi-hat bottom).
12" Wuhan mini-china.
10" Wuhan splash.
10" Zildjian A splash.
Variety of other crap (jam blocks, cowbells, tambourines, maracas, etc).

Guitar Gear

Cheap Fender "Strat". It's a Fender, it looks like a Strat.
Ibanez 6-string. No idea what model it is. Has a humbucker on the neck and a humbucker on the bridge.
Yamaha 4-string bass. No idea what model.
Line 6 POD guitar amp simulator.
BOSS ME-30 guitar effects board.
Crate GX-15R amp. They don't make these anymore.