View from the basement: by Jim Weyand
Part 2 : The rack
Space is always a concern when setting up a home hobby studio, especially when real drums are involved. At first I had it in my
mind to spread everything out for easier patching, but after I realized the 4-tracker could be set up to run start to finish with little or no patching I went with a rack cabinet instead.
Luckily, I inherited a nice 48” cabinet from my buddy Mike Harris who used it in the band Redline. He put some wheels on it and a couple of handles and we used it for a road rack for about
a year. Needless to say, it was never full. The 2 CS-800’s and single rack boxes were all 2 men and a boy could handle especially up and down stairs. Now it serves as a self contained lean
mean recording machine. The Fostex XR-7 sits perfectly on a tilt stand bolted to the top, and everything else fits in front with spaces to spare. All the lines run out the back except the channel
inputs, which come in from the back then to the front of the XR-7 by means of holes drilled directly beneath each input that work like the old time telephone switchboards (why not? After all,
they are phone plugs). From there the lines and mic cords run under the carpet or along the walls until they reach their respective amp/instrument. The rear input lines to the Fostex come
up the back and are held by a “clip-bar” that keeps them from falling behind the cabinet when I take the unit out and about (see diagram #2a ). All the phone
plugs are labeled so I don’t get confused. 3M clear package sealing tape works great for making wrap-around laminated labels. It’ll stick to anything
(see diagram #2b ).
For monitors I’ve got a 6” on the drums and an assorted array of 12’s, 15’s, 18’s, mids and horns in all 4 corners. Although it sounds great this is probably a bad
idea when trying to create the “perfect” mixdown. Usually I’ll check the results on my car stereo before I get too far. If it sounds OK on that it’ll sound OK on anything.
One trick I heard of is to put a switch on the outputs of your amp and hook up a couple of generic boom-box speakers and switch back and forth to check the integrity of the mix without being
fooled by your regular kick-butt system. It's also important to check your mix on a "big" stereo to check for any unwanted low frequency rumbles that are only audible on subwoofer systems. Also, check the mix at low volume and note what elements seem to drop off first as the volume is decreased.
Another recommendation, especially for self-contained systems like this, is running a separate AC power line on it’s own 10 to 20 amp breaker, depending on how many Marshall stacks and 1200
watt BGW’s you’re also running (yeah, right). I use this breaker to turn the whole thing on and off, but I don’t think I would dead-kill the rack without at least one surge
suppressor to take the hit. I use two. One uses capacitors that take the hit and the other has some kind of MOSFET or regulator IC and a noise filter.
Until I upgrade to the next level, be it digital 8-track or whatever, I’ve done about all I can with this setup short of overkill. In the near future I would like to replace the Ibanez
DM1100 with another DSP256, pick up another DBX1066 compressor, add a rack mount CD player and a CD burner.
