Where do we start? Well I suppose the PC is as good a place as any. The PC has recently been upgraded to a dual core 2.8ghz pentium. With a 200Gb Hardrive and 1 Gb of DDR2 Ram. The monitor is a 19" Widescreen TFT. There are 2x300Gb external hardrives attached to it via USB 2.0. The soundcard is the latest Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Professional.
The Mixer is a Yamaha MG16/6FX. It has 16 inputs, four group busses and an in-built effects processor fed from a dedicated channel-send control. There's also a seven band graphic equalizer, which is particularly useful in compensating for room characteristics in live situations. Channels one to eight are mono mic/line channels , while channels nine to sixteen are arranged in stereo pairs and only operate at line level. All channels have EQ and the same aux/send facilities. Channels one to eight have balanced XLR mic inputs with globally switchable 48V phantom power. Insert points are provided on TRS jacks for all the mic/line channels and are the uppermost sockets on the rear panel, which makes them easy to access for those who don't work via a patchbay. The Main output is presented on both balanced XLRs and jacks, with four further impedance-balanced jacks handling the four buss outs. The Master section includes the global phantom power switch. plus a rotary level control for the two-track inputs. Two 12-section LED meters monitor the main output or PFL level, and a single rotary control governs both the control-room and phones output levels. Three stereo faders control the group and mix buss outputs, and are positioned to the right of the stereo fader governing the return level from the internal effects processor. Either group may also be routed to the main stereo mix via a 'To ST' button above the respective group fader. All in all this mixer provides functions for whatever situation we might be faced with in the studio.
The main rack-mount unit is located directly under the mixer for ease of use. Starting at the top we have a Sabine Feedback Eliminator, the industry standard in automatic feedback control: the single-channel FBX-1020Plus Feedback Exterminator, with 12 FBX filters, 20-bit digital resolution, and Sabine's patented ClipGuard® Adaptive Clip Level Control , which allows the FBX-1020Plus to accept input signals up to 26dBV without clipping, increasing the effective dynamic range to 105 dB. Next we have a DBX 166A Digital Compressor. Under that is an NJD Power supply unit with built-in surge control. Next comes the Sony MDS-JE520 Minidisc Player/Recorder which features ATRAC 4.5 digital recording level control and a two-line text display panel (all together "Wooooooooh!). Next is the Alesis Midiverb4 reverb unit. It features excellent effects algorithms to produce dense, natural reverb, rich chorus, flange, delay, pitch effects and up to three simultaneous multieffects. Although we very rarely use this unit, as most reverb effects are done in the PC, it's excellent for those who want a live feel to their recording. Below the reverb unit is a Soundlab Twin Cd deck, useful for pitching without using the somewhat questionable pitch shifting capabilities of the PC. And right at the bottom we have a Citronic 400 watt professional installation amp.
The keyboard is a Yamaha PSR-640. The PSR-640 has a standard 61 note touch sensitive full size keyboard and a pitch bend wheel included. The upper display is a high resolution full dot matrix screen which is highly graphical and makes the keyboard user-friendly and a pleasure to operate. Below this is a wide custom display showing amongst other things, track activity, transpose and chords, tempo and measure number. The PSR-640 features separate line output jacks for left and right, together with a stereo headphone connector, usual midi and to host connectors. It also features a full 16 track sequencer, and has a total of 223 panel voices. These include: 8 pianos, 12 electronic pianos and clavichords, 25 organ sounds ranging from smooth rotor organ to chapel and pipe organs, 7 accordian and harmonica voices, 26 guitar voices, 14 bass voices, 25 string sounds, 5 choral voices, 9 trumpet and trombone (solo brass) sounds, 15 brass ensemble voices, 17 sax and reed voices, 9 flute voices, 18 synth lead voices, 20 synth pads and 12 percussion sounds (ranging from smooth jazz vibes to tubular bells and kalimba). The vast array of panel voices include several sweet voices.
The Behringer B-1 recording microphone is the main unit used in vocal recording. It's a Single Diaphragm Studio Condenser Microphone designed especially with studio owners and musicians in mind. The B-1 features a 1" capsule that captures sounds with incredible realism, sensitivity and accuracy. Its wide frequency response from 20 Hz to 20 kHz is enhanced by a pronounced presence boost, making equalization unnecessary in many cases. Its cardioid polar pattern, switchable high-pass filter and -10 dB pad, SPL of 148 dB and unusually low inherent noise make it perfect for close miking and extremely flexible. The sound recorded from this excellent microphone is simply astounding!
The AKG C3000-B is one of the most widely known and professional microphones used in the studio environment. The earlier model C3000 has had a large fan club in the project studio and home recording worlds for years. For the new C 3000-B, AKG designed a special 1-inch large-diaphragm transducer that closely approximates the vibration performance of top-class studio microphones, but can be made at much lower cost. Due to its surface area and special capsule tuning, the C 3000 B large-diaphragm transducer produces an exceptionally pleasing, smooth sound. Unlike in the C3000, the switchable 10-dB pre-attenuation pad immediately follows the transducer in the signal path, thus increasing the C3000-B's SPL capability by a true 10-dB. Loud sound sources are therefore no problem. An acoustically optimized cardioid polar pattern makes the C3000-B an excellent choice for both recording and live sound applications where high gain before feedback is paramount. This was the main recording microphone before we acquired the Behringer, and was retired to a back-up.
For Compact Disc Duplication we use an ACARD Controller with an Asus Master DVD Drive and seven Dvd recording drives. The case is a 9 bay ATX case. We are in the process of updating and building 2 other duplicating towers to cope with the increasing demand for Cd Albums for our artistes. At the moment we can burn 100 cd's an hour with ease. We now do on-body printing which gets rid of the need for paper labels being stuck on top of the recording surface of the disc. Whilst many people will be satisfied with using paper labels we have found that the glue can seep through to the recording layer of the disc and render it useless, also if the labels are not put on straight in creates an imbalance in the cd player and the laser can't read the disc. The CD media we use is Traxdata Grade-A, once again these are very reliable discs. We have a wide range of CD cases to choose from, but we mainly use high quality slimline. The paper used in printing the covers is a high quality 100gsm ultra bright matt finish. For orders of 50+ we use 120gsm Laser printed gloss paper.
