Please Critique My Home Studio Gear

Trey Thomas

Hello all you voice over vets. A relative newb here. I sorta got into VO in between radio and tv news gigs in 2001. I studied under Elaine Clarke of www.voiceoneonline.com, and Rick Zieff. I also worked with Bob Anchetta at www.internetjock.com and got a few freelance gigs as well.

Back then my jimmy-rigged VO studio consisted of a bargain pro condenser mic patched through the venerable Mackie 1202-VLZ Pro and recorded onto a Sony MiniDisc deck. I then played back the audio into the Optical Digital input of a Creative Soundblaster Live! Platinum 5.1 audio card on a PC running Windows 98 (then upgraded to Win XP Pro) with a 1GHz Intel Pentium III and a half gig of RAM. Finally, I recorded, edited and mixed my finished projects inside of Cool Edit Pro 2.0. At the time, it was more than enough to do the jobs I was hired for (Small to medium market radio spots and industrial narrations).

Now I'm looking to really step up and build an actual professional home studio. I have already purchased most everything I need except the following: Tranzport Wireless DAW control; JK Audio AutoHybrid Phone Patch; materials to build the isolation booth and Source Connect 3.0 software. I'm holding off on buying into ISDN until I build up my resume and clientele list.

I am willing to return the Mackie 802-VLZ3 and upgrade to the new 1202-VLZ3 if you think I need the extra inputs (Unfortunately, I traded in my original 1202-VLZ PRO to buy the MBox 2 Mini only to realize afterwards I needed a mixer with a decent pre-amp to give my voice tracks that warm analog sound and to operate a true phone patch). Please feel free to ponder, critique, contrast and compare to what you know to work well in a professional voice over home studio. I thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Regards,

Trey

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Pro Audio Gear:

ADK A-51s 1-inch Diaphragm Studio Condenser Mic
Mackie 802-VLZ3 Compact Analog Mixer with XDR2 Mic Preamps
Mbox 2 Mini USB Audio Interface
Tranzport Wireless DAW Control
JK Audio AutoHybrid Analog Phone Patch
M-Audio Studiophile AV 40 Active Desktop Reference Monitors
Sony MDR-7506 Professional Studio Headphones

Isolation Booth:

Dawbox.com’s New D.I.Y. Vocal Booth 3.0

DAW Hardware:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4GHz CPU; Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3R Motherboard; Corsair XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 1066 RAM; Western Digital Caviar SE16 500 GB SATA Hard Drive; all enclosed in an Antec Performance One P180B ATX Mid Tower Case.

DAW Software:

Dual boot of Microsoft Windows XP Professional & Windows Vista Home Premium; Digidesign Pro Tools LE 7.4 (including Ignition Pack 2, Xpand! Instrument, Bomb Factory, and Digi-Rack Plug-ins); Adobe Audition 3.0; Mackie Tracktion 3; and Source Connect 3.0.

Lance Blair · Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008, 01:40 (GMT) Post subject:

Trey, that all looks really good. Good luck with it!

Louis Tristan · Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008, 20:28 (GMT) Post subject: Nice Setup

Reminds of when I go out for chinese food and my waiter comes to the table and on the right side of his shirt is his name tag with his name written in chinese and below is the english translation.

Then when we all look at the name tag we ask ourselves: "is that really what it says?"

I think I need the english translation for your studio setup..

It's all chinese to me...

Sounds good!
Looks good!

Will google the rest of the parts later....

How does the Tranzport Wireless DAW Control work?

Trey Thomas

Louis,

I'm not exactly sure how the Tranzport Wireless DAW Controller works other than what its name implies. I suppose it controls Pro Tools, Cakewalk, Audition, etc wirelessly. I haven't purchased that item yet. I just finished building my DAW with the above mentioned PC components (that quad core chip rocks). Now I'm gonna build my isolation booth next. I figured for the money the Wirelss DAW costs about the same as an LCD monitor. Using it also means having to drill fewer holes in my booth and using less cables. The only trade off being that a monitor would allow me to read quiet, paperless scripts via a word processor, while the Wireless controller would requre me to print out noisy, paper scripts. I did Google the device and every review I've seen has been glowing.

Trey

Louis Tristan · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008, 14:43 (GMT) Post subject: Remote Control

Was thinking in a sense of compatibility...So there is no trouble with it?..If I have my bluetooth headset plugged in and have the headphones plugged into the headphone jack, will get the spinning beach ball and things start crashing.

Wireless setup sounds cool... thats the same thing I am trying to do: Be able to read, control and do everything wirelessly so setup is not confined to one area...

Trey Thomas

Louis,

Looks like the Tranzport Wireless DAW Control uses a high-frequency RF wireless technologoy. So it shouldn't interfere with your nearby bluetooth or Wi-Fi devices. Here's a link to the manufacturers website if you want more info. http://www.frontierdesign.com/Products/TranzPort

Good Luck,

Trey

Louis Tristan · Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2008, 15:30 (GMT) Post subject: Missing Sync

Thanks...Looks like will wait...It does not support soundtrack pro...

Oh well...