Jabulani Jonny

As some of you know I provide mobile audio recording services for local musicians and groups, which can be anything from local churches to drama productions to voiceovers for video.  I love the live recording aspect and I tend to focus on recording the Praise and Worship services for churches, my own included.  Typically it’s a 7 or 8 piece band with lead and backup singers which usually equates to between 15 and 24 tracks of audio.  I find that trying to capture the live feel of this type of setting and getting it to transfer to tape is a rewarding and sometimes frustrating challenge.

I’ve found that the more of this I’ve done, I tend to put my own recording on the backburner, way on the backburner.  Well after reading Carlos’ blog it prompted me to get back into my own studio to record some songs that have been knocking around my head for quite some time. 

Here are a couple pics of my humble studio.  It’s nothing special but it allows me to do everything I want and can provide some good results if I take the time to actually finish what I start.

I built some decent sound absorbers a while back and it has really improved the mix space by evening out the frequency response of the room.  You can see a couple behind me in that pic.  Basically I built a 2′x4′ frame of 1×4′s.  Then I found some insulation batts made of recycled cotton and cut sections to fit in the frames.  I then covered the frames and fabric with a porous cotton fabric that wouldn’t reflect sound waves.  They do pretty well and helps to keep the boxy room sound out of the mics.

  My desk is one from Ikea called the Jerker.  It is a great budget studio desk and I dig the workspace and the side monitor mounts that you can get for it.  Basically my setup is as follows:

Dell 9300 laptop (since I specialize in mobile recording)

Presonus Firestudio interface

2 x Presonus Digimax FS

ART Digital MPA tube preamp

Wharfedale Pro 8.2 monitors

M-Audio Axiom 49 MIDI controller & keyboard

With that rig I can record 26 simultaneous tracks and the ART tube pre gives some nice warmth for vocals and bass tones, while the Presonus Firestudio and Digimaxes have pretty clean preamps that I like to use for acoustics and drums. 

So that’s my humble setup.  Here’s to recording my songs again.  I’m currently working on a bluesy tune called Walk Like a Freedman that I wrote a couple years ago but never recorded.  I’ll post it as a work in progress when I get most of the rough ideas sketched out.