Studio Face

My studio construction is coming along pretty nicely and is probably about a week away from completion. I've been out pricing carpet and insulation and sound dampening foam as well as continuing my quest for near field monitors. Researching monitors is pretty annoying and I don't in any way condone or recommend it. Instead, I suggest you make a costly impulse purchase based on whatever speakers seem attractive to you and cost the most you can possibly afford. Rate them based on how heavy they are, or wind resistence properties or their colour or something. That seems to be about where my week of careful research has led me and let me tell you, it's a happier place than talking to other musicians and engineers.

My research has indicated that the Event 20/20bas's are probably the best bang for my buck. But if I were to walk into a room full of musicians and engineers and explain what I was thinking of buying, a riot would break out immediately and I would be torn limb from limb while people screamed brands like KRK, Behringer, Mackie and Genetec at me.

Here's an example of the type of conversations about monitors I've been having over the past week:

Me: Hey, so I'm thinking I'm going to buy the Event 20/20bas's. Most of the reviews are pretty good and lots of people recommend them and I realize they're not top of the line, seeing as though they're "only" $1200 Canadian, but I think they're probably good enough for me right now.

Engineer: [slaps me] They suck and you're an idiot! Don't bother. You're better off mastering your album on ten dollar Radio Shack headphones, you fucking idiot. They suck. You suck. Be a man and buy a REAL pair of monitors, like [monitors that cost ten thousand dollars each]!

Me: But I'm not expecting professional studio quality here, not to mention that I can't in any way afford it. It's just a small home studio and it seems like it would be silly to put myself in tremendous stupid debt paying thousands of dollars per monitor when I pretty much just want to make reasonable sounding demos. I always have the option of selling them later and upgrading when I have more money. Or if I want to get that 100% slick and polished sound, I can invest the money I would have spent on incredible monitors into professional studio time where actual trained engineers like yourself can worry about those things.

Engineer: Fag.

So it's a pretty exciting time. Also, I broke my electric guitar. I tripped over a cable and knocked it off its stand and it fell flat on its face, which snapped the pickup switch off. Rock on!