So in this part of the blog I wanted to show you guys a few of the pieces that Godsmack has used in their personal studio here in New England. A couple of these items were used on the road and in the studio, but the first one in particular was used exclusively in the bands studio. Remember if you want to view all of the gear or bid on any of the stuff we’ve been covering in the blog, CLICK HERE!
Say hello to the Allen & Heath ML3000. This is a very high quality 32 Channel 8 Sub mixer with a ton of routing options. This mixer has excellent quality pre-amps that make it a perfect mixer to use when recording. It still has some of the tape on it labeling the channels that the band used in the studio. Included with the auction is the giant Godsmack labeled road case underneath it. Every home studio needs a good mixer and this one certainly qualifies. One other unique feature of this mixer is that each individual channel strip, or every bank of 8 channels can be removed and repaired and replaced independently of the other modules. Very cool. Now when you have a elaborate studio set up where an entire band is recording it’s important to have a proper way to monitor what everyone is playing without being really loud. It’s hard on you to record for hours at full volume. It’s a good way to kill your ears and an even better way to get completely burnt out and tired after a long session. That’s where the next piece comes in.
This is the Furman HDS6 Headphone Distribution System. Long title, I know. Here’s what it does. That big rack mount piece in the picture is the brain of the unit. This is the piece that you plug your audio signals into. Each one of those little boxes is a personal headphone mixer that you put on a mic stand or tabletop near where you are playing. By having the controls on that mini mixer you can change the volume of the musicians relative to your volume. So let’s say for example the guitar is too loud. You can turn just the guitar down to get it to sit in the mix properly. Cool right? What’s even cooler is that you connect all these pieces together using standard CAT5 cable so you don’t have to spend a ton of money on long runs of audio cable to go to and from all the boxes. Lastly for this post the signal chain wouldn’t be complete without a pair of studio monitors.
These are the Yamaha MSP5’s. They are a small but powerful pair of active monitors. An active monitor has all the proper amplification and crossovers built into the box. They even feature a convenient front panel volume control. These are magnetically shielded so you can place them next to a conventional CRT (cathode ray tube) monitor without messing with the picture. Flat panel monitors like LCD’s and Plasmas are not effected by magnets so if you have a flat panel monitor it doesn’t matter anyway. Do they even make CRT monitors anymore? Regardless, this is the last but certainly not the least important piece in the signal path. I’ll be back on Monday with some more information on some of these products. Remember, I’m always available for all your gear related questions by calling 800-373-8393 X100 or emailing bfoley@daddys.com.