For my recording setup, I have a few pieces of equipment that are setup in a studio rack.
In this video, we’re going to look at what equipment I have there, how it all works,
and how it can all connect together. Keep in mind that this is just an example of the
equipment I use for my purposes, and everyone’s setup will be different and specific to their
needs. For that reason, I’m interested in hearing what other people have in their setup,
so let us know in the comments below. Before continuing, make sure to subscribe to the
channel and press the bell icon to get notified whenever a new video is released.
All the equipment that I have mounted in my home studio is setup in this Odyssey carpeted
rack case next to my computer. This is a 12U rack, but I have empty slots underneath so
I usually keep that space to store extra cables. This rack is carpeted and slanted, with no
wheels or anything to move it around but I just keep it next to my desk. It’s also
deep enough for all my equipment and cables to be contained. This is a rack that should
only be setup in a place where you don’t plan on moving it, since it provides no protection
to the equipment inside when you’re moving it around.
The rack equipment is being powered by a Furman power conditioner at the top. This provides
clean power to all the equipment, protects it from power surges, gives us a switch on
the front to turn everything on and off, and is also a clean way to distribute power since
it’s a rackmountable unit. This unit has 8 power outlets on the back and one power
outlet on the front, so it’s enough to power everything I have setup in the rack, with
more room for expansion in the future. The main audio interface I use for recording
is a 2nd generation Focusrite Scarlett 18i20. I got this as an upgrade from my older Focusrite
Scarlett 18i6, since I wanted more connections and a rack unit. This audio interface has
8 microphone inputs. 2 of them are on the front and the other 6 of them are on the back.
All the preamp controls are on the front, and we get phantom power for the first and
second 4 preamps, and pad and instrument mode for the first two inputs to use with a guitar
input. The display on the front shows us the level for all the inputs. This unit also has
MIDI, SPDIF and ADAT connections for connecting other equipment. For outputs, we have 8 line
outputs from ¼” TRS connections on the back, and 2 separate headphone outputs on
the front that can get their own headphone mix. The front has controls for the volume
of these outputs. As we can see with the audio interface, 6
of the microphone inputs are located on the back of the unit. This is kind of difficult
to connect the microphones when setting them up, since the inputs are in the back of the
rack with a lot of equipment and cables. To solve this, we have the ART P16 XLR patchbay
underneath. This gives us XLR inputs on the front of the rack. These are just a direct
passthrough to the back of the rack, which is then connected to a cable which goes to
the Focusrite interface. All this does is bring the inputs at the back of the rack to
the front to make them accessible. The next unit is the Behringer ADA8000, and
here we can see another 8 microphone inputs with preamp level knobs on the front. This
is basically an expansion for the Focusrite interface. There are some units like this
made by Focusrite that may have better preamps, but I like this one since I was able to buy
it used at a good price. If you’re looking for one of these, the new version is the Behringer
ADA8200 and it’s fairly similar. This connects over the ADAT optical connection for the Focusrite
interface. From there, it can lock to the Focusrite interface’s clock for the sample
rate timing, or the other way around if we want that as well. The back of the unit has
line outputs to connect other equipment, but I usually don’t use these. Worth noting,
this unit also has signal and clip levels for each channel, plus a phantom power button.
We can also see more accurate level meters in the Focusrite control software on the computer.
The next two units aren’t as commonly used, and I had them for a few projects I was working
on in the past. The first is the ART Headamp 6, which can be connected to a headphone output,
or easier than that the monitor output, and then used to power 6 different headphone channels,
with even more outputs on the back. There’s also aux inputs to get a headphone mix and
level knobs. This is a very powerful headphone amplifier that keeps a clean signal, and it’s
probably enough to blow the speakers in your headphones if you’re not careful with it.
The next unit is the Behringer Ultra-DI Pro which is a direct box for guitars and other
instruments to bring them up to line level. This is an active direct box, but I don’t
use it that often since the Focusrite interface has its own instrument inputs. I found this
a little more important with my previous audio interface when there were only a few inputs,
that way I could save the instrument inputs and connect microphones to them instead.
The last thing in this rack is basically my favorite effects processor that I’ve bought,
and that’s the Avid Eleven Rack. This is a guitar amp simulator that takes your direct
guitar signal and processes it to sound like it runs through an amp. There’s lots of
customization for controlling the amp settings, type of amp and cabinet, microphones, and
stompboxes. This is great for quiet practice, even if you’re not recording, so you can
get a really huge guitar sound through your headphones without anyone else around you
hearing. For that reason, it’s great if you live with others or in an apartment for
that reason. What’s nice about this is it also connects over USB, so I don’t tend
to use it by connecting to the Focusrite interface because then I lose a lot of control. The
Eleven Rack has software that can run on the computer to control all its settings, like
the presets, amp controls and everything else, so you don’t have to touch the knobs on
the unit itself. Everything done on the computer can be done on the rack unit itself if we
prefer to do that. Over USB, we can set it up as an audio interface in our software,
then record a direct guitar signal with no processing and the processed guitar signal.
After that, we can easily re-process the signal with the Eleven Rack using completely different
settings. If we tried to do that with a regular guitar amp, we would need to record it direct,
and use a reamp box to bring the signal back down to instrument level from line level to
send it to the amp. Overall, this is a great unit for recording guitars and bass, and it
makes that process a lot simpler for me. For future expansion, I’ve considered some
additional reverb units, as well as tube preamps or compressors, but at this point most of
what I do is processed within the digital audio workstation. I don’t find there to
be a huge benefit to purchasing a lot of that extra equipment for me, especially since I
would be limited to fairly budget friendly hardware.
Thanks for checking out this video on my home recording studio rack setup. If this video
helped you out, don’t forget to give it a like, subscribe to the channel, and press
the bell icon to get notified whenever new videos are released. You can also check the
video description for products featured in this video and social media links.