This is part 1 of 2 with Grammy-winning producer Ross Hogarth and top pro drummer Kenny Aronoff. They chat about their approaches to miking drums, using room microphones, and how they get the best-possible drum sounds in the studio.
If you’re a Project Studio Network podcast listener, you’re no doubt familiar with the upside down trash can vocal booth.
While that may be the ultimate solution in portable vocal booths, there are other approaches. 
Here’s one of those approaches as posted over at Instructables.com
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In this tutorial we will make a DIY portable mini vocal booth that can be used to record your voice on the road (on a flash disc recorder). But there’s more that can be done with this easy to make project.
You can cancel background noise when doing Foley recordings in your project or home studio, or have a portable mini dead room, ideal for specialized field recording.
The DIY Portable Mini Vocal Booth is ideal for podcasters, DIY filmakers and sound designers alike. My personal motivation to build this, was a desire to have a mobile mini deadroom to make foley recordings and recordings for my music.
For full instructions, see the original posting here.
Ya’ gotta’ love it when it’s FREEeeee!
bx_cleansweep V2 is a 2-band EQ offering their new “AntiCrush” 6dB HP & LP filters (hi-pass and lo-pass). These filters are taken from their critically acclaimed mastering EQ bx_digital and have been modeled after analog 1st order filters.
bx_cleansweep V2 is now available for FREE in TDM, RTAS, AS, AU & VST (2.4 & 3.0) formats!
bx_cleansweep V2 is a latency free EQ for recording and mixing purposes, offering the 2 filters that can be found on all the BIG analog consoles only, to clean out all your signals. Joystick control, 4 settings, copy-paste-reset, gain control and phase reverse make this little helper a great add-on for your EQ collection.
Did I mention that it’s FREEeeee?!
I just received an interesting suggestion from Steve Currington, also known as @kiwicomposer on Twitter.
He has an interesting suggestion for another configuration using a different Mac Mini model than in my example in this previous post.
In the not too distant past Apple introduced a Mac Mini Server.
It eliminates the DVD drive in favor of housing two hard drives, comes with Snow Leopard Server installed and 4 Gigs of RAM right out of the gate. It also has the larger 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo processor.
Steve’s idea is to remove the system drive (one of two 500 Gig internal drives) and install the OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise Class SSD 100GB SATA 3.0GB/s Solid-State Drive in it’s place. Then you’d have a speed demon of a system drive and a second internal drive with which to record and mix your tracks, all in one little enclosure.
Nice idea Steve! Hmmmm…
Let’s look at how the price compares to our last example.
In Steve’s configuration we don’t have to buy the extra RAM and we don’t need a second, external drive, so there are some savings there. Here’s the break down.
| The Mac Mini 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo: | $999.00 |
| 100 Gig Internal SSD: | $399.99 |
| TOTAL: | $1,398.99 |
And here’s the breakdown of my original idea…
| The Mac Mini 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo: | $599.00 |
| Additional 2 Gigs of RAM: | $57.99 |
| 100 Gig Internal SSD: | $399.99 |
| 50 Gig External SSD: | $299.99 |
| 23″ HP Widescreen Monitor: | $229.98 |
| TOTAL: | $1,586.95 |
Steve’s machine would certainly be a tough little workhorse. I will point out that with my configuration you’re also getting a second SSD with which to record and mix your tracks as well as a nice 23″ widescreen monitor – all for only $200 more.
Good on ya’ Steve for this killer idea for an alternative configuration!
After seeing and hearing tech news from a few different sources, I had an idea for a pretty cool, powerful and affordable Mac computer for your DAW that would be quite a performer, or so I postulate.
First the base computer.
The Mac Mini 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo: $599.00
This is the entry level dual-processor Mac Mini, but I think it’s more than enough (with a few choice upgrades) to do what we want with any modern DAW. I don’t think there’s enough return on investment to spend another $200.00 to move up the Mac Mini 2.53GHz. However, if money is not that much of a consideration, apply the Big Al Rule Of Gear Acquisition, “You’ll rarely be disappointed when you buy the best.”
Next, the upgrades.
Additional 2 Gigs of RAM from MacSales.com (OWC): $57.99
Now, here’s the kicker that I think makes this REALLY go over the top…
OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise Class SSD 100GB SATA 3.0GB/s Solid-State Drive – 100 Gigs: $399.99
This is a solid state drive that is offered in the 2.5″ form factor that slides right into the Mini, and it’s a DOOZY of a performer.
As you may know, solid state drives are pure silicon, no moving parts (no noise either). And, because of that, they’re FAST (over 260MB/s)!
Just for giggles, let’s add an external Firewire 800 solid state drive for recording and mixing our tracks.
OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro mini 50GB Enterprise Class SSD – 50 Gigs: $299.00
This drive doesn’t need to be so large as we’ll only being working on current projects on it. We’ll save currently inactive projects to a less expensive USB external drive.
How about a really cool monitor that gives you a nice loooong timeline to work with in your edit window?
HP W2338H 23-Inch Widescreen Monitor: $229.98
Imagine how little space this entire setup would take, and how little noise it would produce.
So, what’s our total?
| The Mac Mini 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo: | $599.00 |
| Additional 2 Gigs of RAM: | $57.99 |
| 100 Gig Internal SSD: | $399.99 |
| 50 Gig External SSD: | $299.99 |
| 23″ HP Widescreen Monitor: | $229.98 |
| TOTAL: | $1,586.95 |
Not bad for a SCREAMIN’ MEEMEE of a little machine with a nice big monitor!
Of course, the 100 Gig internal SSD isn’t necessary. If you’re recording to an external drive (like you always should), the stock 160 Gig, 5,400 RPM drive should work just fine.
You can also substitute a standard Firewire 400/800 external in place of the 50 Gig external SSD and still be fine (while saving about $180.00).
That would bring the cost of the whole standard setup down to just about $1,000.00.
But what fun would that be? 
Big Toe Studio - http://BigToeStudio.com
Vancouver, Washington / Portland, Oregon
