Welcome to thesongguy.com homestudio page

Home recording has been a hobby of mine for some time, although I don't have much time to put into it and even less money than I have time.

I replaced my 4-track cassette unit first with a Fostex VF-08; and now have upgraded to the VF-16 a fully digital mixer and 5 GB recorder combination. With 8 track at-a-time recording, built-in (fair) digital effects and 24 virtual tracks, this unit has huge potential for the one man studio.

I've replaced the $7.00 Yamaha keyboard (one broken key) with a Midistudio by Miditech 49 key touch-sensitive MIDI keyboard, coupled to the following equipment, all purchased on EBay:

A Viscound D9e Hammond Organ module with real (Hammond?) drawbars.
A DanElectro Rocky Road Leslie speaker simulator.
A Korg P3 piano module.
A Korg 05R/W programmable MIDI module with 236 programs, 100 of which are user-defined.

Percussive honors go to a Yamaha DD-50 7-pad all-in-one drum center. The DD-50, with it's general MIDI output, also can be used with the Korg 05R/W for highest quality percussion (recommended).

My guitar work has received a boost from a new (new to me, anyway) electric guitar from the '70s, an Electra whose neck feels better to me than many Les Pauls, at a fraction of the cost. Guitar effects are provided by the Behringer V-Amp2, one of the most versatile guitar effects units that I've seen.

On the acoustic guitar side, in addition to the Aria classical guitar that I've had for years, I purchased a Blueridge BR-6S steel string acoustic for a sweet sound and a feel to match.

For the "bottom feeders" amongst you (myself included), my 5-string bass, a Yamaha BB-N5 is an amazing instrument, for the price. Purchased from Mars Music during their 6-month "going out of business" sale, I virtually stole this sweet axe.

Almost all the vocal work that I'm doing now is captured by a Superlux CM-H8A. This inexpensive ($99-requires phantom power), large diaphragm condenser mike captures the vocals with the best of them. For additional miking purposes, there's a RadioShack by Shure microphone.

Although, I still posess the Sharp cassette tape deck previously used for mixdown, all recent mixes have been transferred directly to my IBM Thinkpad laptop using an Onkyo SE-U55 digital audio processor. The direct-to-hard-disk, then direct-to-CD transfer is flawless. The remainder of my studio equipment includes an old Pioneer receiver coupled to 2 RCA floor speakers for monitoring, a RadioShack special effects generator and a huge array of cables and adapters.