The studio is made up of four acoustically designed spaces: The Control Room; the "Live" Room; the Vocal Isolation Booth. There are other smaller areas for isolating amplifiers.
The Control Room is where all the recorded sound is brought together, listened to, and processed. It includes all the equipment necessary for preamplification, digital conversion, editing, monitoring, mixing, and mastering. Key pieces of equipment in the control room include:
* ADK PC computer, custom built for music production, and protected by a full system backup
* Cakewalk Sonar, Producer music production software
* MOTU 2408mk3 audio interface
* Two PreSonus Eureka (class A) pro recording strip preamps
* Digimax D8 eight-channel digital preamplifer
* ART DPSII two-channel digital preamplifier
* Event Tuned Reference 8 powered monitors
* Samson S-Phone headphone mixer/amp
The "Live" room is where a group can record together and be in live visual contact. In larger groups where there are both instruments and vocals, the instruments record their parts first and the vocals afterward. Instruments that are available onsite include:
* Yamaha nylon-string acoustic guitar
* Fender Strat HM electric guitar
* Roland RD-700 digital piano
* Roland JX-8P synthesizer
* Schecter Diamond Series five-string bass
* Schecter RG Series electric guitar
* Schecter Diamond Series acoustic guitar
For ensembles larger than can be recorded in the performance room, an on-site recording is recommended. Adjacent to the Performance Room is the Amplifier Isolation Booth. This booth looks suspciously like a closet (and does in fact function as storage at times!), but it is also an acoustically treated room with electrical power and an audio connection to the Control Room.
Adjacent to the Control Room is the Vocal Isolation Booth, where lead vocals are recorded. This isolated environment helps keep vocal performances unaffected and sonically consistant, so that there is maximum flexibility later to edit and produce them as effectively as possible.
The studio's flagship microphones are a pair of Mojave Audio MA-200 tube condensors, which bring a warm, yet lively, vintage tone to everything from vocals to acoustic instruments to drum overheads. Other microphones by Shure and Behringer are also available for use.
All electrical circuits related to audio and recording are kept isolated from circuits used for lighting and other things, so ground noise and "buzzing" are not a problem. Also, the entire studio is set below ground level, in a dry, waterproofed building, up on a hill. This not only keeps things quiet for the neighbors (make as much noise as you want!), but well-protected from moisture and the elements as well.
