Maybe that theory only applies to things that aren't sound equipment...cuz I know that my $1,500 Louboutins are piece of shit heels lol
you are correct, for gear you pay for quality and sometimes the quality is subjective and marginal in comparing 2 units in the same price range but from 2k a unit an up you'll notice the difference is huge.
The new space I had gutted and completely rebuilt everything from the tiles to the bathtub. Ironically it's actually an old whorehouse from the 1920s lol and right on the beach. It's a one bedroom space so the master is being converted into the studio itself, the walk in closet into a booth and the living room into a lounge/office and I'm having it professionally sound proofed cuz it's not my area of expertise.
sounds awesome, who is doing acoustics ?
Hard to say, i cant tell how many and what kind of pieces of gear youre still getting from Matthews. If money wasnt an issue hmm.
monitoring;
Barefoot MM12 minimains, ive doubted between mm27's and several other midfield in that range and i wennt with ME geithan rl901k. MM12 are out of my budget but damn, this makes a studio attract customers just to hear them, its to be said that for mastering there are probably better options but for the type of music you do its really good enough (more then). In fact, you'll see these or the mm27 in a lot of producer/mixing rooms because of the detail and power, you're definitly not going to need subs with these.
Cool thing about the MM12 is that it resolves the need for B speakers. A lot of studios will have avantones or ns-10's to see how things translate to "hi-fi", the mm12 has a switch that will make them sound hifi.
With this you dont need a monitoring controller that supports 3speakers, you wont need additional reference nearfields meaning you have less objects between you and the speakers which is always a good thing.
monitoring DAC
Fred forssell MDAC-2a, these arent the most expensive DA but they are very clean and transparent. Theyre still 5x your m-audio, but easily will sound 10x better. This converter is just to feed the a signal to your monitors.
ad/da
Well this is depending on how many pieces of outboard gear you'll be getting. Along with this you'd need a patchbay or 2, or 3...(mosses & mitchell are nice). And also the gamble console ofc, will decide how many i/o you'll need. If you have dedicated i/o fixed you'll have flexibility and fast workflow but i wonder how much of the console you're actually going to use. If youre not going to record a band and just stick with producing the way you're doing now i wouldnt even use the console. Its just in the way between the source and recording input (single wire approach).
However, you still want to be using outboard gear and probably some instruments straight into logic.
Weve switched to SSL alphalink ax and swopped that one for sx. These units are relativly cheap for what they offer, you get 24 in and out + 16 adat (ax) or 12 aes/ebu (sx). These connect through the madi protocol and you can add several units ofc to increase the channel count. They sound very good, neutral imo and so far give the smallest latency in osx (0.9ms at most). Blacklion does upgrades for alphalink, they replace the components in the analog path with better ones though we havent fellt the need for it.
Madi gear doesnt connect through usb, you'd need a madi controller, either by rme or ssl. There are usb-to-madi solutions but so far only the new RME madiface xt offers wordclock and a usefull 3x madi i/o (64 channels each).
The other solutions require you to have pci/e slots in your mac which the imac doesnt have, you'd need a mac pro but i wouldnt buy into a mac pro yet untill they (finaly) release a new one that belongs in 2013 and not 2010...
Speaking of which, you probably dont want an imac between you and nearfields (the least amount of objects between you and the speakers). Perhaps you can make do with a cheap mac pro right now and big screen behind/between the nearfields.
loop ad/da;
this is if you have analog outboard mastering chain, if you get any of that but probably not. Fred Forssell MADA-2a, 2 channel converter with spdif, aes/ebu and analog i/o ofc, same applies as mdac-2a. Bang for a "buck".
clock;
If it just a computer and one ad/da interface you wouldnt need a clock, but what ive put down here are all digital pieces of gear that need to connect to one clock distribution system. The ssl alpha link, forssell mdac-2a and possibly some of the outboard gear you'll get need to slave (whats a whorehouse without slaves..) to this clock. I'd go with Grimm Audio CC1, one of the best sounding house clocks right now and gives 16 outputs which is more than plenty.
Alternatives/solutions;
SSL Matrix, digital inline console with 16 analog inputs (additional input per channel for inline function). This unit can also connect 16 pieces of outboard gear that connect to a router (32x16x16). This way you can digitaly chain your outboard gear and save it which removes the need for a patchbays. Its also a daw controller with flying faders so you wont need avid artist controllers though such replacements arent the money compared to the pricetag on the SSL matrix but it does offer a lot of convenience which makes your workflow a lot more fun but it can be achieved otherwise for a lot less money (this just looks better if 16 channels is enough). Obviously, you wouldnt need the gamble console.
What I meant was the the sound board (mixing console) was custom built for the grateful dead (it runs analog) and was there's for a long time. The company that builds them (Gamble) r close family friends and actually donated it. Dave Matthews just bought a similar one from them for 6 figures....so I'm lucky to say the least. A lot of my new equipment will be donated from them as their studio is overflowing w gear. Leaving more $ for me to buy other things yay!
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Like i said earlier, you have decide what it is you want to be doing, if you're not going to record bands i doubt you really be needing this. If you want to rent out the place for recording than it would be a good thing but you'd also need more than one boot to facilitate such a recording session. Second, gamble makes FOH consoles for the most afaik which are used for concerts/venues, for recording/mixing you'd really want an in-line console where you can switch inputs between recording sources and daw channels.
anyway, sounds exciting
most things i mention here are based on transparent gear with minor tone in them. If you want a more beefy sound from converters you could switch ssl alpha link with burl converters which are a bit more expensive but generaly speaking you dont want that all the time unless you predominantly work with rockbands. Even then i believe that the beefy sound should come from the recording and not the ad/da.
