As you can notice by comparing to the old setup back in Ice Cube [PHOTO], we made a great deal this time in degrading the amount of gear and sticking to what we really use. For example, the old digital desks 01V and 03D were removed to storage (bids, anyone?) and were followed by some other equipment that we did not have that much use. The older mixing domain got replaced with Cubase SX3 - E-mu X Studio (with RME) - Mackie 32 combination, which resulted in improvements in both working methods as well as production quality.

While we settled to the place in summer 2004. The former possessor had paid a lot of attention on acousting when building his studio, and we were quite happy with the way the control room was built. However, one wall was torn down to make our lounge side bigger at the location of office and the vocal recording room needed some more designing on the acoustics. We also needed to adjust some ceilings, build alternative lightings and so forth, and I think this studio will also be one of those neverending and forever-growing projects, just like Ice Cube was.

It wasn't only the studio rooms that were tuned, but also the kitchen, the office and the lounge areas were updated with new victual machines and an air container. Now after two years of building the rooms have found their current places; Aside the control room there's two storage rooms, the office and the biggest side main entrance as a lounge / recording room. In summer 2006 we changed the production stage totally by switching to Mac G5 dual 1.8GHz (1.25GB and some HDD) and Logic Audio Pro 7. There's also the new Studio 2 still under construction, which is currently equipped with a 3.14GHZ PC (2GB and 600GB HDD) and another Mac G5 dual 1.8GHz with full video edit system running Final Cut.

After we finished the "DCX - Flying High" album, the studio was unpacked to pieces and we are on the look for a new place for a studio. Until then I'm going back to the roots and working at home writing new songs with the most important pieces of equipment.

LOADED.
This was occassionally our playground from somewhere in the 90'ies until the move to Red Room in July 2004. Back then we used to have the heavy weight keyboard Emu Emulator but also stuff like Yamaha CS6r and Korg Minimoog to play around with. The less gear you have, the simplier and easier, and hence also faster the setup is to use. If the setup is constantly changing, you loose the routine and the work flow slows down gradually. Adding new equipment means learning to use it until you have a routine for it and you know the capabilities of the new piece of gear. All this is time consuming and we came to the point where we started dealing out the most 'useless' equipment to fasten up the work flow. If you don't spend enough time with each specific machine, there can be over-richness when it comes to the library of sounds and instruments, when you can't anymore remember what's good and where to find what you're looking for