The studio in 2023:
I still have all the things I had in 2013 (see below), plus an Arturia Keystep and 3 hardware synthesizers, Behringer Model D, Behringer 2600 and a home-made modular synthesizer I started building last year. The HP Desktop PC with Intel Core i5 processor now runs Linux Mint and I have switched to Waveform 12 Free as my digital audio workstation. The Novation standing up on the right does not connect reliably to the computer but that is an old problem. Maybe I will find a fix.
Studio History
A house fire in 2011 destroyed the old studio, see further below. I lost everything. Don't cry. Rebuild. I rebuilt the house, I rebuilt the studio.
It will never be done since I will always want to improve it. In 2013 it looked like this:
Fender acoustic guitar
Gibson Les Paul Studio electric guitar
Casio CDP-120 electronic piano
Novation Launchkey 49 midi controller
Audio-Technica ATH-M40 headphones
MXL-603S instrument microphones (2)
MXL-V67 large diaphragm vocal microphone
Zoom H1 recorder
Mackie 802-VLZ3 mixer
Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 midi/audio interface
Alesis Monitor One Mk2 studio monitors
HP Desktop PC with Intel Core i5 processor, Windows 7, Sonar X1 software
Sherwood Amp
Here is the old studio before the fire with lots of hardware I no longer need because of improvements in software:
I used the following equipment to perform and record my songs. I have been recording songs since I don't know when. In the 70's, I used a Sony TC-377 3-head reel-to-reel recorder, multi-tracking using sound-on-sound. Oof. In the early eighties, I recorded on stereo cassette machines, sometimes using two at once to multitrack. In the late 80's I got a Tascam Porta One 4-track cassette recorder. I could pretend I was George Martin and the Beatles. In the 90's I eased into computer-aided recording, first saving keyboard data to disk using a Commodore 64, then using early Cakewalk versions to record midi data on a PC. Then I went to digital audio, recording all audio on hard disk. In the 00's I use the computer as a sampler also, streaming sampled instruments like the piano and viola from big hard drives. In 2011 I got a new computer and the latest version of Sonar, X1. It comes with digital signal processing, a sampler, drum software and a very nice acoustic piano module called True Pianos. I also built a soprano ukulele using a $22 kit from Grizzly. Then there was the fire...
1. Keyboards
2. Guitars, etc.a. Fatar Studiologic SL-880 88-key midi controller.
b. Kawai 64-note acoustic upright piano.
a. Guitar, a homemade mahogany electric guitar, first from left to right on the wall.
b. Gibson acoustic guitar, second from left to right on the wall. See the refret here.
c. Ex Tex Mex Fender Stratocaster (not shown in photo).
d. Bass, a homemade mahogany electric bass, third from left to right on the wall.
e. Grizzly ukulele.
3. Computer and etc.
a. HP Desktop PC - Intel Core i5-650 3.2GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit computer.
b. Focusrite Saffire Pro 14 Midi/Audio interface
4. Korg MS2000R Analog Modeling Synthesizer
5. Mackie 1402-VLZ 14 channel mixer
6. Homemade monitor speakers using Radio Shack 8 inch woofer, 2 inch dome tweeter
7. Microphones
a. One Royer mod tube mic
b. One Royer mod instrument tube mic
c. One MXL-603s instrument mic
8. AKG K240 headphones
9. Software
a. Cakewalk Sonar digital recording software
b. Alfa Technologies CDex Audio CD extraction tool
10. Various old stuff not shown or used much anymore.