James Foxall_Studio Submission

[James FoxallParticipant]

Hi all,

Posting info on my studio usually makes me uncomfortable, but since this is a pay-wall protected site I thought I'd participate. 🙂

My studio has gone through a number of evolutions over the years. For example, when my son got old enough to play an instrument he wanted to play drums (apparently my awesome guitars and amps didn't excite him) so we made the room bigger for his kit. When we did that, we did double-wall construction on the moved wall and added a ton of mass to the other walls and ceiling. There are two layers of drywall of different widths on each wall hung on channel strips. There is so much caulk in this room you could probably close the doors and fill the room with water! Auralex advised me on the treatments. The cloud, the corner bass traps, and the big trap behind the couch are new. On my trip to California I spent a day in LA at the three most awesome pro audio shops auditioning monitors and ended up getting the Barefoot Footprint 01s. These were a huge step up from my Adam F7s. They really exposed the weakness of my room in the low end though, so I built all of the traps using Owens rigid fiberglass. What a great upgrade!

Some housekeeping stuff per instructions:
- I use Ableton Live 10 for creating, and Studio One for mixing (though I was a Sonar user for years)
- As for genres I work in: I no longer record bands, I only work on my own music which tends to have multiple influences
- Favorite plugins - UAD 1176, Tantra, Waves Dorrough, Sonarworks Reference, McDSP F202, Pro-Q3, Output Signal
- Gear List - oh my that's a lot to type! You can see the most of it in the pictures. I am using the dbox for monitoring and analog summing. The summed mix goes to my Elysia Xfilter > SSL Fusion > Neve 542. Tucked back in one photo is my Echoplex EP3 which I adore. The dbx160vu is a recent addition - I saw Alan Parsons using one when I was at his Mix with the Masters class and he was recording Dean Dinning of Toad the Wet Sprocket (super cool guy). Dean was RAVING about the bass tone he was getting with it so I picked one up when I got home. 🙂 I am recording bass through a DI > Stam 1073 > dbx160vu > Neve 551. I've got a number of mics but the notable ones are a Neumann KM84 and a Stam clone of a U47.
- My monitoring chain is UAD Apollo 16 > Dangerous dbox (digitaly) > Barefoots. I use a Black Lion to clock everything.
- What do I have my eyes on? I'm thinking a Serpent Audio SB4001 next to add to my mixbus. I'd also like to get a Burl AD for sending the analog stuff back into the DAW.
- Social media links - I am not on social media 🙂

...and on to the pictures!

I am addicted to mood lighting and all the lights in the studio are on timers and the colored stuff on presets. Here's what it looks like at night:

• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.
• This topic was modified 3 years ago by James Foxall.

[James FoxallParticipant]

For those interested in Sonarworks and geeky data like me, here's the measurements for my room.

[OziBattlerParticipant]

That is an awesome home studio! I'm jealous.

[James FoxallParticipant]

Thanks Ozi! Building it has been an absolute labor of love. 🙂

[Mark BeesonParticipant]

Fantastic studio.

[James FoxallParticipant]

Thanks Mark! In the spirit of the chat today on studio design I thought I'd throw up some photos.

When my son was old enough to play an instrument, he wasn't interested in guitar (of course not, I had a bunch of them. lol) He wanted drums, so it was a good time to extend the studio about three feet. Here you can see the work in progress, and in the second shot you can see the double-wall construction. I thought I had figured out the best way to run power but unfortunately I do have a hum in the mic cables in the wall so I can't use those runs that go to the other side of the studio. Lessons learned.

After upgrading my monitors it became really apparent I needed to do more for bass in the room. Here you can see two corner traps, a trap to go behind a couch, and the cloud (the one with the holes).

and here is a close up of a corner trap:

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