So I give you $1100 for your studio

I recently had an engineer and his friend come to my one bed room apartment. I have a tiny room for preproduction, and the cost for the right acoustic treatment for my space is crazy. I was told my room is going to need so much work. So right now I have put away about $1000 for music related stuff. Here's what I have for now:
20" LCD Monitor
PC Desktop-18 GB RAM, i7, Windows 7, 3.4ghz
DAW's-Live 8, FL 10, Presonus Studio One (main daw)
Controllers-Maschine, Novation MK 1 61 Keyboard
Software- Komplete 8 Ultimate, Nexxus, Rapture/Zeta II/Dimension Pro, Hypersonic I, Omnishere/Trillian, 125 GB (Reason Refills) and others.
Presonus Interface 44 vsl
Yamaha HS50M
DJ-Tech 1200's, traktor, mixer
Mobile-Laptop, AKAI LPK 25 etc


My set-up is less professional compared to you guys, but oh well. I'm debating on whether to buy the Moc Renaissance or not. I have maschine, so... FL Studio has the live performance mode. Then maybe get the launchpad? The main question I was asking myself is which one do I feel is going to be around years from between the Renaissance or Maschine. I come from an mpc background. At this point, I've been sending my best track for someone to mix over the net. I think it allows me to focus on just my strength in production. Mixing is my biggest weakness and I am trying to improve. Any suggestions or opinions is appreciated on what you would personally do with that $1100.

i suggest you sit on that cash at the moment..

you got what sounds like killer equipment. FL10's live mode can me controlled easily with the novation 61 key you got.. plus the latest update to fl 10 adds more customization for controlling live mode I believe.. and you can easily record your live mode playing.

acoustic treatment, well yeah.. we can all say that is great... especially if you are mixing tracks and doing lots of editing work... except you are renting an apartment, right? You dont own the apartment.. do you? or is it a long term location. I mean, sure... you could install all that stuff.... but will that actually pay off when you aren't doing your own mixing at the moment?

Maybe get a set of monitor headphones.. maybe some beyer dynamics or something decent..

The ren isn't out yet, nobody knows how good it will be... nobody knows how that will stack up against machine. The only thing you can do is look at the list of features and watch the youtube vids interviewing akai to find out what things it has.. and then you can decide if that is enough for you to do your work.. or if the product does something new for you that you cant already do.

mr_debauch wrote:i suggest you sit on that cash at the moment.

I agree. You seem to have a decent setup so why just spend the money just because? $1100 also isn't a lot of money, so I would also suggest you hold on to it until something you need in that range catches your attention or save it to invest in some better or more pertinent gear later on, when applicable. That may even be the Ren but who knows? No offense, this is just something I believe, but if you need advice on how to spend your own money its usually a sure sign that your setup will suffice and that you usually would be better served just using what you have until you can think of something you actually need. I think you're on the right track when you suggested you may put it aside, for now.

yeh man got a pretty stable setup by the looks, if your wanting to go further in that room your next worthy investment is treatment.

No point buying top class ish if you cant hear it properly

you can build some baffles and at least try and treat your room a bit with that, its better than nothing, and wont ruin your apartment walls too bad either.

look at oc 703 or roxoul, its rigid fiberglass, thats what everyone uses for baffles.

make some and hang em on your wall, or if your not that handy, you can order frames and fiberglass here.

the frames are about 13 bucks, which i personally think would be better than making myself, cause i dont have many of my own tools.

you can just slide the fiberglass inside and wrap them with a breathable fabric.

they also sell full kits that are done, but those are pretty expensive, 500+

http://www.acoustimac.com/

personally I'd keep stackin chips n buy as you need as opposed to lookn into ways of blown it at once...n my money is on maschine as far as longevity's concerned

you mention mixing being your weakness... maybe you should focus on that for now... a friend of mine swears by this book here which can be purchased for just under $25...

http://www.amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Sm ... 0240815807

then maybe come up with some economic ways to treat your room... maybe also look into a subwoofer, as i also have the yamaha HS50Ms... they sound great on their own, but once i finally found the subwoofer for cheap at a pawn shop it definitely took them to the next level.

For $1100 you can use my studio anytime but for only two hours a visit. I don't want you in there all **** day ya know, but if you bring some weed and a hot chick, I might reconsider.

Ill-Green wrote:For $1100 you can use my studio anytime but for only two hours a visit. I don't want you in there all **** day ya know, but if you bring some weed and a hot chick, I might reconsider.

I'd definitely say tuck it away and buy as you need. The thing is is that (at least from what it sounds like), you're kinda new at this and don't have an established workflow just yet. Work with what you have and see what holes are needing to be filled. I speak from experience when I say this...but unless you're interested in trying and deciding you don't like stuff and going through the endless cycle of gear, (which I do constantly and it's really losing it's appea) get your system down and then ask very specific questions (of yourself first, then here) of how to best fill the gaps in your process. JUST your mixing observation of it being your weakness brings up a lot of questions that would really change gear reccomendations. Are you weak at EQing or summing or is it just a matter of not enough i/o or ...etc etc. The other thing I notice is a lack of hardware, which would be my solid answer...but only because that's how I myself like to work. I know plenty of much more and less accomplished people who see anything more than a controller as a waste and are software only, etc etc. So yeah...sit on it, see what needs to be done specifically, go from there.