What would your studio have been like in the good old days?
Posted: 13/04/2012 - 11:57
Some of us did have our own rigs 20 or 30 years ago. But had you been your current age 20 years ago, with your current home studio hobby, what equivalent equipment would you have stocked it with?
I'm sure you know what I've got in my place by now: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... bf052aff1d
But the heart of my place is a budget rig of two off-shelf PCs (the best running at 3 Ghz with 2 gig RAM) and stuffed with plugins, M Audio Delta 66 and Audiophile cards plus Terratec Phase 88. I have a couple of Tascam 34B decks wanting new heads, entry level Behringer valve units, value SE 2200 and 3300 mikes... budget this, second-hand that and entry level the other. Great quality though, given the sheer value for money you get nowadays.
And, of course, plenty of musical instruments, which you could always get from junk shops in any era. But good ones, like anything else, were more expensive once and you really had to learn them - little room for comping pre-DAW.
What I actually had nearly 15 years ago was a Fostex D-90 hard disk 8-track, Philips CDR 870, Akai 4000D for my tape, ten quid-standard mikes, one fairly decent 30 quid XLR dynamic one, domestic hifi cassette deck for preamps and an old cassette tracker for the mixer section. Domestic amp and speakers, though they were AE 209 floorstanders, based on monitors. I had a local workshop make a 15ips spindle for my Akai capstan but that soon wore the motor out. It was all I could have.
The quality was OK too. Nothing unrescuable if I was to remaster today and a few mates from work were always happy to be recorded for a few quid. As my real rig grew, I built a nice archive.
90s:
But I think the heart of my equivalent studio, if money was the same, would have contained something like a Soundcraft M8, AKG 3000 mike (and the like), some kind of keyboard, DAT, Mini Disc or CD recorder, second hand Akai sampler, tape synchroniser, that Fostex I mentioned or perhaps one of the first Pentium 2s if I was splashing out for simple digital mixes. The Yamaha and Sound Blaster Live cards were out at the same time and there would be little to stop me wanting and saving.
An Atari ST or Amiga otherwise, with the C64s I already had probably. Not too much but a good little kernal for what would have been ten years' growth.
Domestic gear a lot, basically, backed up with a respectable budget amp and something like JBL Control 1 for listening.
80s:
If I was this age (33) and hobbyist by the end of the 1980s, I'd say I may have bought a C64 and packed it to the rafters with add-ons, just as I have now. That would take care of MIDI sequencing, programming and that. Ataris would have been a bit out of my price range if I wanted comprehensive software to go with it, and around 1990 Datel were doing deals of Advanced Music Studio, MIDI cartridge and syntar for £100.
On top of that I would have tried for something like my Tascam but could have ended up with a cheaper second-hand equivalent in a Teac early 70s thing. I have the non-NAB 7ips version of one of those and they were pretty great. Especially as some came with mixers and a mike or two.
With my tape, half-decent mikes and things which electronics shops were starting to sell and computer, mixing could have been done to the hifi soundtrack of a rented video recorder and that would have been that.
I don't think I would have had much else due to recession and less stuff to buy, not to mention fewer opportunities to get my soundtracks out there. Local radio and annoying CB people by playing tapes to my mates on my own transmitter would perhaps have been all.
BTW, I had an interesting time looking at the BBC show Electric Dreams, which conjured up something similar.
What about you lot? What would have been yours or what did you actually have?
___________________________
Also: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8484
I'm sure you know what I've got in my place by now: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set= ... bf052aff1d
But the heart of my place is a budget rig of two off-shelf PCs (the best running at 3 Ghz with 2 gig RAM) and stuffed with plugins, M Audio Delta 66 and Audiophile cards plus Terratec Phase 88. I have a couple of Tascam 34B decks wanting new heads, entry level Behringer valve units, value SE 2200 and 3300 mikes... budget this, second-hand that and entry level the other. Great quality though, given the sheer value for money you get nowadays.
And, of course, plenty of musical instruments, which you could always get from junk shops in any era. But good ones, like anything else, were more expensive once and you really had to learn them - little room for comping pre-DAW.
What I actually had nearly 15 years ago was a Fostex D-90 hard disk 8-track, Philips CDR 870, Akai 4000D for my tape, ten quid-standard mikes, one fairly decent 30 quid XLR dynamic one, domestic hifi cassette deck for preamps and an old cassette tracker for the mixer section. Domestic amp and speakers, though they were AE 209 floorstanders, based on monitors. I had a local workshop make a 15ips spindle for my Akai capstan but that soon wore the motor out. It was all I could have.
The quality was OK too. Nothing unrescuable if I was to remaster today and a few mates from work were always happy to be recorded for a few quid. As my real rig grew, I built a nice archive.
90s:
But I think the heart of my equivalent studio, if money was the same, would have contained something like a Soundcraft M8, AKG 3000 mike (and the like), some kind of keyboard, DAT, Mini Disc or CD recorder, second hand Akai sampler, tape synchroniser, that Fostex I mentioned or perhaps one of the first Pentium 2s if I was splashing out for simple digital mixes. The Yamaha and Sound Blaster Live cards were out at the same time and there would be little to stop me wanting and saving.
An Atari ST or Amiga otherwise, with the C64s I already had probably. Not too much but a good little kernal for what would have been ten years' growth.
Domestic gear a lot, basically, backed up with a respectable budget amp and something like JBL Control 1 for listening.
80s:
If I was this age (33) and hobbyist by the end of the 1980s, I'd say I may have bought a C64 and packed it to the rafters with add-ons, just as I have now. That would take care of MIDI sequencing, programming and that. Ataris would have been a bit out of my price range if I wanted comprehensive software to go with it, and around 1990 Datel were doing deals of Advanced Music Studio, MIDI cartridge and syntar for £100.
On top of that I would have tried for something like my Tascam but could have ended up with a cheaper second-hand equivalent in a Teac early 70s thing. I have the non-NAB 7ips version of one of those and they were pretty great. Especially as some came with mixers and a mike or two.
With my tape, half-decent mikes and things which electronics shops were starting to sell and computer, mixing could have been done to the hifi soundtrack of a rented video recorder and that would have been that.
I don't think I would have had much else due to recession and less stuff to buy, not to mention fewer opportunities to get my soundtracks out there. Local radio and annoying CB people by playing tapes to my mates on my own transmitter would perhaps have been all.
BTW, I had an interesting time looking at the BBC show Electric Dreams, which conjured up something similar.
What about you lot? What would have been yours or what did you actually have?
___________________________
Also: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=8484