Hi all,

I produce with a friend who has his own purpose built studio at home, and its his birthday so his wife has asked me to buy him something to the value of £200, and it must be strictly studio/producer related she says!

We have started producing together after he had 10 years off due to marriage/kids etc, so his studio is a bit '1999 old school', he already has the big mixing desk, Mackie monitors, Yamaha/Korg keyboards, racks and racks of outboard gear and hardware synths etc.

He recently took my advice and went down the 'modern route' and bought a 15" Mackbook Pro, Logic 9 and a rack of firewire audio interfaces so that he could use Logic and route it into his 32 channel desk and back again.

So.. as you can see, he has pretty much all the stuff he needs at the moment which is why this is proving difficult!

The only thing he has mentioned is new monitors, but those will be in the £500-600 region for the ones he wants, so can anyone suggest any other items he might like?

He does some of his sketching of idea in the livingroom on the laptop so I was thinking one of those tiny Akai LPK25 keyboards for use with his laptop... but they are only about £50!

help!

Ok so some new monitors are out of the question...

So why not buy some good headphones? Akg 701's will fit into the budget and are blooming fantastic! Maybe some Senny HD 650's...personally I prefer the AKG's but horses for courses and all that jazz.

Portable, excellent sound quality, wherever he is! BOOM!

Ben

Edited by afterworks (11/08/10 09:57 PM)

Maybe a plug in or two?
PSP Vintage warmer would be my first plugin.
Or maybe an instrument like GPO4 (£99) or JazzBand (also £99) depending on his musical style.
Superior Drums or the cheaper EZDrummer from toontrack are nice too.

Or if he's newish to Logic, there's pretty good downloadable tutorials at MacproVideo.com

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Cubase, guitars.

I second the idea of a decent set of cans..... for use in the living room....

And I third that suggestion- getting a decent set of headphones can revolutionise your mixing, especially if the room in which they are used has not been acoustically treated.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Quote Martin Walker:

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And I third that suggestion- getting a decent set of headphones can revolutionise your mixing, especially if the room in which they are used has not been acoustically treated.


Martin

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I could easily fourth that suggestion. But it also suggests... some acoustic treatment possibly? Some timber, rockwool, and some nice cloth to cover the assembly. Add a few hours of labour and he could have some nice bass trapping.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Is he 'REALLY' a producer or just an amateur recording hobbyist? I get slightly confused by how 'Pro' everyone seems to be these days...


I make beatz.. I iz a producer, like

On the monitor question, what does he have/want...? Just wondering what he might get for his current set, or what the replacement would cost secondhand.

THIS!! would be the perfect gift. Wrap it up all nice and fancy and make it seem legit and the only thing you got him, and then spring the trap after his total deflation upon opening it....well wait a lil bit for maximum effect.

Quote _ Six _:

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Is he 'REALLY' a producer or just an amateur recording hobbyist? I get slightly confused by how 'Pro' everyone seems to be these days...


I make beatz.. I iz a producer, like

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In the 1990's he was signed to the Ministry of Sound and the other big dance label of the time ZYX Music. He worked extensively with Boy George at the time he was producing and DJing for Ministry of Sound albums. He then got signed up by Boy George and produced numerous big 'club' records and worked with well known dance vocalists such as Victoria Newton aka 'Strike - U sure do'.

Then he had a 10 year break from it all and is now back at it, assisted/hindered by myself.

So yeah, producer or not? I dunno? He does work from his home 'hobby'' studio, but had done some big stuff in his time.

Quote BJG145:

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On the monitor question, what does he have/want...? Just wondering what he might get for his current set, or what the replacement would cost secondhand.

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Currently has some 10+ year old Alesis 'Monitor One's which he wants to replace with some Active monitors such as some KRK's etc.

I’ll also echo the suggestion for a decent pair of headphones. It could be a life-changing purchase – buying my K701s was like buying my own highly detailed monitors and an acoustically-treated mixing room. Best of all I can carry them both around with me!

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Quote zenguitar:

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I could easily fourth that suggestion. But it also suggests... some acoustic treatment possibly? Some timber, rockwool, and some nice cloth to cover the assembly. Add a few hours of labour and he could have some nice bass trapping.

Andy

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Ah yes, I can see it now...

WIFEY: "Happy birthday my darling"
HUBBY: Aw, thanks my darling. You shouldn't have... but it's so big! What is it, a hot air balloon? A new car? A set of monitors? It's not that amazing new sofa I wanted, is it?"
WIFEY: "Not telling... you'll have to open it"
HUBBY: "OK, here goes... it's, um, the world's largest collection of Rockwool? Um... thanks... You *REALLY* shouldn't have."



And the lesson we learn from that tale is... If he has what he needs, tell her to think of something nicer! If not, go for the headphones

Quote A Non O Miss:

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THIS!! would be the perfect gift. Wrap it up all nice and fancy and make it seem legit and the only thing you got him, and then spring the trap after his total deflation upon opening it....well wait a lil bit for maximum effect.

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Lol! Brilliant!

http://bleeplabs.com/rgb/ This.

Although headphones may be the better choice, this is at least unique, handmade, limited, partly musical and cool.

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http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale
http://www.mixcrate.com/richieroyale

+1 for cans... +2 for K701s...

Quote NinjaPower:

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Quote _ Six _:

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Is he 'REALLY' a producer or just an amateur recording hobbyist? I get slightly confused by how 'Pro' everyone seems to be these days...


I make beatz.. I iz a producer, like

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In the 1990's he was signed to the Ministry of Sound and the other big dance label of the time ZYX Music. He worked extensively with Boy George at the time he was producing and DJing for Ministry of Sound albums. He then got signed up by Boy George and produced numerous big 'club' records and worked with well known dance vocalists such as Victoria Newton aka 'Strike - U sure do'.

Then he had a 10 year break from it all and is now back at it, assisted/hindered by myself.

So yeah, producer or not? I dunno? He does work from his home 'hobby'' studio, but had done some big stuff in his time.

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OK. Then you must go to him and quietly ask what he wants. The reasons why are so obvious as to be not worth stating.

One of these looks like rather a bargain:

http://www.dv247.com/microphones/se-electronics-ribbon-large-ribbon-microp hone--30188

Quote jrbcm:

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One of these looks like rather a bargain:

http://www.dv247.com/microphones/se-electronics-ribbon-large-ribbon-microp hone--30188

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A little worrying that the warranty "includes 3 ribbon replacements". How often are these things EXPECTED to fail?

The SOS review includes "Just from looking at a spec sheet, you can see that a typical ribbon mic's frequency response falls away above 15kHz..."

The dv site says "... has a higher-than-normal frequency roll-off (at around 7KHz)..."

So is this a LOT worse than a "typical" ribbon mic? Or isn't frequency response a useful parameter? Or are numbers just made up, and don't matter much anyway? :-)

Ribbons are notoriously delicate things, and they often used to fail. I don't think it's expected to fail, but if you treat it roughly (drop it, place it close on a kick etc) it's easy for theuninitiated to break ribbons. It's useful therefore to have spare ribbons. And it makes for a nice marketing point.

The point where the response starts to roll off is different from how steep the roll off is. I *presume* that's where the confusion lies in this case, though haven't the time or inclination to check right now!

That thing is still a lovely mic, use it on guitars all the time with a 57 or 421.

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Squarehead Jam Jar Facebook Jam Jar

Quote Mixedup:

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Ribbons are notoriously delicate things, and they often used to fail. I don't think it's expected to fail, but if you treat it roughly (drop it, place it close on a kick etc) it's easy for theuninitiated to break ribbons. It's useful therefore to have spare ribbons. And it makes for a nice marketing point.

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Do uou get spare ribbons? Are they user-installable? Or does it mean you can send it back to the factory 3 times? (I wonder if it's carriage-paid or with "only a small administration fee" - to anticipate the two extremes :-)

A stripper?

+1 for the headphones...

...but for something a bit more fun in an instant gratification kind of way, how about a Korg Monotron? Or a Kaoss Pad? And spend the change on sweets.