Studio Construction Techniques Part 1

 Dateline: 2/24/98

 Breaking it Down

 As you will see, building a commercial studio is an expensive proposition. However, the basic techniques of construction can be carried into a smaller, home space quite effectively. The focus of this next series of features will be to outline what happens in a commercial facility and then break it down into some simple, less expensive options for you to use in your own space.

 Four Things

 There are four basic building blocks that make up a great recording space.
 They are:

      Diffusion
      Isolation
      Density
      Trapping

 This week the first on the list is what's going to occupy our attention.

 Diffusion

 One of the best things you can do to a recording and control room space is to break up any parallel surfaces. There are 3 opportunities for parallel surfaces in the studio environment. Two parallel walls and ceiling and floor. When the studio environment is constructed, the outer shell is considered a starting point and a "building within a building" is designed. When the inside shell is designed, it is arranged at odd angles to breakup any parallel walls, ceiling or floor. The reason for this is a phenomenon called standing waves.

 A standing wave is what happens when a sound wave encounters itself at full, or near full strength. As you know from our features on phase when two waves encounter each other, there is an opportunity for them to be out-of-phase or in-phase. When waves encounter each other in-phase it will add up to more energy than the initial wave. When they encounter each other out-of-phase, they will cancel and subtract energy from the initial wave. Because of the size of low frequency waves, they will tend to "collect" at certain points in the room. These collection points will give you false impressions of the true nature of what's coming out of the speaker and lead you to false conclusions.

 Bad First Impressions

 Let's say that your room is poorly constructed and you're making your audio decisions based on a monitoring position that contains some standing waves. You might bring up a kick drum either for mixing or tracking and decide that it sounds boomy. Your reaction would be to head for the Low Pass Filter or low frequency EQ and remove the offending frequencies. All well and good if you're monitoring position is giving you what's actually happening in the real world. Next you might bring up the bass guitar and react in a similar manner, once again you head for the low frequency cut-off and remove low frequency. Over and over you respond to the standing wave and follow your ears. The problem is when you take the mix out to another listening area that is properly constructed, you'll find that you acted in error. Your mix will be lacking in low frequency because you chose to remove it.

 The Solution

 The answer is to make sure that your working space is an accurate one.
 This can be accomplished by booking the right studio for tracking or working with your own space to break up any parallel surfaces
 
 
 

 Studio Construction Techniques Part 2

 Dateline: 3/3/98
 

 Re-Designing Your Space

 Unless a studio facility is built from the ground up, the designers have to deal with the fact that buildings, both residential and commercial, are built in squares and rectangles. This, of course, makes sense as far as utilizing space but it's not the optimum design for recording. A commercial facility must use the "building within a building" approach to make all the internal surfaces non-parallel. This approach is not cheap but there are some very practical things you can do to your home site to break up sound waves.

 Common Items as Diffusers

 I put up a free standing, floor to ceiling bookshelf in the back of my studio space as a diffuser and it works great. It's fully loaded with books and magazines. There are spaces that let some parts of the wave through to the wall and other parts are deflected by the odd shaped books. This doesn't get rid of the parallel surface but diffuses the sound waves considerably. It spans most of the back wall and is a cheap diffuser that's also functional.

 On a side wall where I have an open space I've put up a few cassette/DAT organizers on the wall, this is another odd shaped surface once it's loaded with tapes. What you have to guard against with this is the rattling that tapes can do when a loud wave hits it. I've also anchored it to the wall with screws instead of just hanging it like a picture.

 Getting Serious

 Having functional and relatively cheap diffusers is a great asset in a studio.
 However too much of one size of diffuser can make your space unbalanced. As waves get bigger you need bigger diffused surfaces to help control them. I've built some free standing gobos to help with the low frequency in my space. Here's the supplies I bought:

      1/2" Pressboard
      1.5 inch Dry Wall Screws
      Corner brace
      One Roll of R-11 pink insulation
      6' of 3.25x1/2 inch finished pine
      Stretchable cloth
      Two door hinges

 The Recipe

 Out of the pressboard I cut 6' x 6" and 2' x 6" lengths. My goal was to have two frames that were six feet high and two feet wide. I was making two free standing structures 6' x 2' that I'd fill with insulation and cover with the cloth on the front and the sides. The back would be covered with a wood cover. This would make one side dead and one side live.

 When I put them together I used the corner bracket to make a perfect angle and then screw them together with a drill using the dry wall screws. Once I had the basic structure built I laid in the insulation as far back as I could and tacked it down with an electric tack gun. I then stretched the cloth tightly across the open front and sides of the frame. I tacked it down on the inside of the back of the structure making sure that it looked good at the corners and didn't get bunched up in spots. Then I put the wood cover on the back and screwed it down. After that I put the feet on it for stability. I cut one foot lengths out of the finished pine and screwed them into the bottom of the gobo. I then hinged the two structures together to make a kind of huge book that I could open or close and move around the room. I eventually made another of these so I could have a vocal booth or a free standing diffuser at any part of the room.
 
 

 Studio Construction Techniques Part 3

 Dateline: 3/10/98
 

 Isolation

 An important principle in studio design is isolation. This is because the real world is a hostile environment when it comes to recording. All kinds of environmental noises such as traffic, air conditioning, computer noise, next door neighbors and air traffic all can pollute your tracks. Who wants to re-take a recorded performance because of a passing motorcycle or airplane? In the home studio this is a problem, for two reasons. One, you don't want what's outside influencing your recording and two, your neighbors might not want to hear what your recording while they're eating their dinner. To isolate, you must insulate and there are a number of ways to do that.

 The Best Insulator

 The best insulator for cold, heat or sound is a dead air space. It's the same concept as storm windows and doors. Those of you who use them in winter know how quiet the house gets in the cold months, and also how it helps reduce your heating bills. The isolation properties that dead air provides is why a commercial facility will have a building within the existing structure. This gives the designer the opportunity to eliminate parallel surfaces and to trap dead air between the outer and inner shells.

 If you look at last week's feature, we used insulation to break up parallel surfaces in the home studio environment. Since building a shell within a shell is impractical in the home, this week we're going to look at some things you can do to isolate problem instruments.

 Making an Isolation Box

 The home studio is great for overdubs such as vocals, guitars, bass (using a DI box) and horns. One problem I recently had was I wanted to cut a guitar using an amp. I've done this from time to time and have put it in my bathroom and "bagged" it by using a LOT of blankets. This is makeshift at best so I decided to get serious and build an insulated box that I could use to isolate a speaker. I have a set guitar rig so the size was always going to be the same. I just needed a box that I could heavily insulate. I lucked out because I found a used anvil flight case that was the right size. It is sealed using butterfly latches and is lined with foam. This box was large enough that I could put my speaker inside and have enough room left to close the box and have room for a mic. To make the seal adequate, I mounted a mic inside (SM57) and installed two jacks in the top of the box, one for the mic cable and the other for the speaker cable. When this box is sealed you can have the amp screaming and it's a manageable volume outside the box.
 
 

 Studio Construction Techniques Part 4

 Dateline: 3/17/98
 

 Doors and Windows

 Insulation and isolation is important in a studio environment. Walls are stationary structures and dead air is easily trapped between the outer shell and your inner walls. However, doors and windows present two special problems, doors have to be opened and have seams where sound can enter and windows must be transparent.

 The concept of a dead air space applies with doors also. To seal off the passageways between rooms of a studio and the outside world you have to create a sound lock. This involves using double doors with an airspace trapped between when both doors are closed. This of course means using two doors per doorway. Here's how we did it in the commercial studios I constructed

 Door Recipe

 Two solid core doors were used to construct each single door. The doorways were going to have to be wide enough to let pass some large pieces of equipment (such as 2" tape machines), so extra wide doors were purchased. A regulation size door was also purchased so we could make a door sandwich that could be flush to both the outside and inside walls but still have no common airway through the seam. The smaller door was then centered on the larger door and bolt holes were cut so the doors could be sandwiched together. This sandwich would leave a 2 inch wide lip between the doors where mechanical rubber was laid. The reason for this was that when the door shut it would provide some insulation where it laid against the inner wall. For extra mass, before we put the doors together we put a sheet of lead between. Once we bolted the doors together and put on the hinges (heavy duty to say the least) you had a door that closed like a bank vault. Picture also that each doorway had TWO of these doors sandwiches both outer and inner with an airspace in between. It may sound like overkill but you could literally have a screaming guitar amp on the other side of these doors and hear a faint whisper in the control room.

 Studio Construction Techniques Part 5

 Dateline: 3/24/98

  More About Doors

 Last week we talked about a recipe for a door that provided maximum density and isolation in a commercial studio that I worked on. Of course it would be great to be able to spend $400 on a door that you knew would keep out the majority of noise and sound outside of your control room and studio. But most of us are on a budget and need to adapt expensive techniques to our own home space. If you haven't noticed, the concept behind this series is to take pro concepts and apply them to the home studio. Therefore we're going to talk about making doors that will isolate, but for much less than the pro's would have to spend.

 We've already established that dead air is the best insulator around and all you have to do is trap it. Hanging two solid doors with a space between creates what's called a sound lock. Buying solid core doors can be an expensive matter but sometimes you can find doors that are discarded from construction sites or homes that are being remodeled. It will be worth your while to hunt for some bargains, especially if you have a few doorways to address. Personally, after trying to hang a door myself, I would get someone else to come in and hang the doors and construct the doorjambs to make sure it's done properly. But that's your call, if you feel confident with things like that, go for it.

 The Sound Lock

 The drawing below shows exactly how you would create a sound lock. Notice that you don't need a large amount of air trapped between the doors. A little goes a long way. Notice how when the doors are closed there is a dead air space between them. This really helps isolation between rooms outside the studio or the outside world too.

 Cooking with Phantom Power (**SPECIAL APRIL 1st
 EDITION**)

 Dateline: 4/1/98
 

 Cooking With Phantom Power

 While living and working in Los Angeles for so many years I became very health conscious. I'm an avid food label reader and work out regularly. Spending a lot of time in the studio can really put pressure on your body nutritionally. Through much experimentation and networking with other health-conscious engineers, I've developed some great techniques for providing proper nutrition while working in the studio.

 Ordering in food can sometime be cold and unappetizing, there's nothing like having your food piping hot and ready when you're ready to eat it. I've found that phantom power is a great way to slow cook your food and have it on hand while you're tracking and mixing.

 Just Plug It In

 If you have a patch bay wired to a console with phantom power, you're in business. However, there are certain foods that lend themselves better to this than others. Baked potatoes, hot dogs (turkey or tofu especially work well) and eggs for instance. I've had bad results with pudding, meat loaf and shellfish and any flaming dishes.

 After plugging your patch cables into each end of your food, just let it cook until hot. Refer to the handy timing chart below for optimum cooking times.

      Baked Potato = 1.5 hours
      Hot Dog = 35 minutes
      Egg (hard boiled) = 1 hour
      Egg (soft boiled) = 30 minutes

 There are other foods I'm developing a cook book for that are a bit more difficult. Corn on the cob for instance needs to be wrapped in foil and you have to make sure the TT cables are firmly planted in the ends of the corn so as not to make contact with the foil. In addition I'm working on the timing to cook a whole turkey (under 9 lbs) for those sessions that run into the holidays. Of course, more than two cables are needed for this and I will post the technique as soon as I have it perfected. If any of you have any personal studio cooking experience I'd love you to share it on the bulletin board with all of us, I'll then print all good recipes in my Phantom Power Studio Cookbook.
 

Studio Construction Part 6

 Dateline: 4/7/98
 
 

 Studio Windows

 As we've seen, isolation is a primary goal in the studio environment. That's to keep out the sounds that would cloud your audio decisions. Doors were discussed two weeks ago and this week we're going to talk about windows.

 The concept of dead-air as an insulator can be easily carried over to windows. If you've ever seen the main control room window in a pro studio you probably noticed a few things. One, that the glass is very thick, two, it's angled and three there's more than one piece of glass that separates the control room from the studio.

 Density, Reflection and Isolation

 As you'll see in an upcoming feature, density is another great way to keep sound from transferring from one place to another. This is because sound waves tend to take a surface and turn it into a resonator. The thicker a material or surface the less it resonates. This is the reason that thick glass is used in studio glass.

 If you installed the studio window at a 90 degree angle to the floor, it would be perpendicular to the listening position at the console. This would cause problems both with sound and light reflection. So the glass is purposefully angled down both for acoustic and visibility reasons.

 The reason two pains of glass (sometimes three) are used in studio windows is because you can then trap air between the glass panes and as we've said in past features dead-air is the best insulator you can get.

 Visibility

 My favorite pro studios have large windows that enhance the visual communication between the control room and studio and also tend to open up the room and make it seem less like the fishbowl that it is. It makes your work easier because you can easily cue a musician or singer visually. The bigger the better as far as I'm concerned when talking about studio
 windows.

 Overcoming Moisture

 One possible problem when sandwiching two thick panes of glass together with a hefty air-space between them is that moisture can collect. That can be remedied by putting up one of the panes of glass, then caulking it in with silicon, effectively sealing it. Then the other pane of glass is put up and checked for fit and then removed and put aside momentarily. A space on the bottom surface of the airspace must be built down, usually 1 or 2 inches deep and the width of the window. This would resemble a rectangle that would be "dug" out of the "floor" of the airspace. Then a wood frame with cloth is built so you can cover this area. How it's usually done is that the cloth covered frame is flush with the "floor" of the window airspace. This looks esthetically pleasing and no one is the wiser as to what's underneath it. Then you lay silica gel (TOXIC! so be careful) at the bottom of the space. Silica gel absorbs moisture well and you usually see it in new shoes in a small bag marked DO NOT EAT. However you need much more of it for this application. Once you open the can of gel, which resembles rock salt, you must be quick because it starts absorbing immediately. Once the gel is laid out, you put the cloth covered frame over it and quickly put up the other side of the glass and caulk it. This now seals the area and the gel will absorb all the moisture inside and you won't end up with a terrarium when the humid summer rolls around.
 

 Studio Construction Part 7

 Dateline: 4/14/98

 Floating Walls

 As we've said, offsetting your internal walls will help with standing waves and reflect sound in a beneficial way in the studio environment. When you build these internal walls they'll make contact with your existing ceiling and floor. The problem comes when sound waves make their way from the floor to wall or vice versa. This happens when one or the other vibrates and transmits it's energy to the next surface.

 Therefore floating your floor and walls is essential to proper isolation. How this is achieved is to use mechanical rubber where all surfaces make contact with each other. This is at the bottom and top of all internal walls in the studio and control room. Before they are anchored to the floor and ceiling, a strip of mechanical rubber is sandwiched between the bottom 2-by-4 and the floor and the top 2-by-4 and the ceiling. Mechanical rubber comes in long rolls that are two inches wide and is easily laid out in a straight line. In the case of the floor, the rubber is laid down under the bottom 2-by-4 and then the whole wall is anchored with a Ram-Set. That is a large bolt and washer that is shot down into the ground using a device that looks much like a gun and uses an explosive charge to do the job. Once you float all the walls at the floor and ceiling your studio becomes a much quieter place and transmitting sounds from the outside becomes harder.

 Floating your Floor

 After the walls are in place it is necessary to think about the floor. The floor is an excellent place to run cable and thus it becomes necessary to build up your floor up a bit to allow you to run conduit of sufficient size to run thick snakes of cable. The floor is built up using 2-by-6 lumber placed on edge building a frame that the actual floor surface will sit on. So the actual studio floor where the equipment rests will be six inches above the sub-floor. Before you lay the 2-by-6s down you use more mechanical rubber between the wood and the concrete floor. This floats your floor and isolates it from the sub-floor.

 Finishing the Floor and Planning for Wiring

 Before you put the top on the floor you must do some planning for your wiring. To save money on wire you must map out where exactly your equipment will go. The position in the room of your outboard gear, multi-track machines and console must be decided now. This is because you will now lay large PVC pipe conduits through your floor frame so that running cables will be easy now and later if you change your equipment. Once the PVC pipe is laid it's then time to fill up the resonant cavity that will underlie your floor. If you left the six inches below your floor open it would become like a drum and would be detrimental to having a quiet room. You want the floor beneath you to be solid. So, what you do is to fill all the cavities with clean sand. This of course involves LOTS of sand, but once you're done it's solid as a rock. The floor being filled is now ready for the top. The top should be a layer of 3/4 inch plywood and then some kind of wood or whatever you like esthetically on top. I like hard surfaces rather than carpet but that depends on the room size and how live you like it. At the ends of the conduits you must cut a port so that the cable can be pulled. This is usually near walls and corners where the equipment will be set up. It is often hidden from site. One final trick is to never let the floor or frame ever touch the walls. You leave a 1/4" space all around the room so your wall never makes contact with the floor surface or frame.
 More isolation for your environment.
 

Studio Construction Part 8

 Dateline: 4/21/98
 

 The Finish

 Now that we've explored how the studio is built from the outside in, it's time to put the finish on our walls, ceilings and floors. Your budget and concerns and preferences about your room will determine a lot of what you do. There are some important things to think about before you cover your walls with the most readily available or affordable finish.

 On the strictly budget side of things I've heard of people using egg cartons on a large part of the studio surface to help break up sound waves. This would work to a certain extent (although it's ugly) but if you use too much of one size of a diffused surface in a room it becomes unbalanced. The best rooms I've been in have a good variety of surfaces and types of diffusion. A general rule is that the bigger the curve of a surface, the lower the frequency it can handle. For instance, a low frequency wave at a good volume would easily bounce off an egg carton surface and return towards the source almost unaffected. You need a large curved surface to break up large waves.

 As you get up into the formed foams like Auralex and tube traps you can actually see that acoustic surfaces are designed to work with a certain bandwidth. The manufacturer will tell you exactly what size and frequency of wave that their product handles. Common items such as carpet for instance would kill higher frequencies where as stone or brick would break up mid to low frequencies. Remember that carpeting can be used on walls as well as floors effectively.

 Let's Reflect

 The control room atmosphere cannot be completely dead or you'll find yourself turning up the volume of your speakers to make up for it and you'll fatigue easily. There must be some reflection in the room. Wood surfaces do this well, this in conjunction with carpeting or some kind of diffused surface makes for a good combination of dead and live surfaces.

 In the studio you can afford to be a bit more live. I find that concrete, wood and some kind of brick or stone and even glass makes for a nice live room. If you've followed the rules of non-parallel surfaces and you finish these walls with the above mentioned items you'll find you have a great room where you can cut drums and or other high SPL instruments and end up with a great sounding product.

 If you want to cover both bases in the studio portion of your facility there are some other things you can do. I saw this at Conway studios in LA and I thought it was a great idea. There were huge panels hanging on the wall that were hinged at one side so you could swing them open to either side. One side of the panel was reflective and the other dead. If you wanted a more dead room you just swung a few of the panels open to the other side and you could customize your room. If the panel was left closed it was live it was swung open and put against the wall the other way it was dead. It worked great and you didn't have to commit to any one style of room. Curtains that can be opened or closed also have a great effect and can be part of a custom room.
 
 

 Buying Gear Part 1

 Dateline: 4/28/98
 

 Don't Buy Twice

 I was recently approached to consult on a studio upgrade which involved buying a new console and multi-track. The owner does song demos and recording of his arrangements at his studio. His current setup is an older small console and a 1/2 inch 8-track recorder all operating at -10dB. In addition he's running a PC based sequencer and has several keyboard modules each having as many as six outputs each. His current setup is inadequate for his needs and he's asked me how he can best spend his money to upgrade to pro line level and a better sounding rig.

 What Are Your Current and Future Needs?

 The first question I ask when consulting for a studio is: What do you want to be able to accomplish? This is often a tricky question because you might base it on your current setup and stop short of your potential accomplishments. Sure you could repair your current setup and make it easier to work like you are now but if you step back and look at the possibilities there are more options for you to consider.

 For instance, for John's setup (the home studio consult I mentioned above) he's constantly wrestling with the technology and that's sapping his creativity. He doesn't have a patch bay and when he wants to get out of his gear he's having to re-patch and re-think his setup. A patch bay is an expensive proposition and while very convenient, it's existence has to be weighed with the budget. I considered all this with his setup and came up with the following solution.

 The Answer

 John's budget called for a console in the $1500 price range. The most affordable and feature-packed console in that range that I found was the Behringer MX3282A. With 24 inputs however it was woefully lacking for John's needs as I saw them. With no patch bay (we decided not to implement a patch bay for his setup) he'd still be short of inputs. The next step up is the Behringer MX9000 8 bus mixing console. For approximately $800 more you get more than twice the console. 48 inputs, 24 channel meter bridge. Balanced tape inputs, 4-band EQ and six aux sends. This way he can get by without a patch bay, keep ALL his keyboard inputs on the channel faders. Have enough tape returns to take care of his new 8-track digital multi-track (ADAT) and for future inputs. For the extra money he's buying into an system that will handle any future multi-track or MIDI gear upgrades. He won't have to buy a new console for some time and when he does it can be another system that will handle his current and future needs which by that time will have expanded as well.

 Conclusion

 When I explained to John that spending the extra money now was a hedge against having to upgrade soon and he'd be actually saving money, he agreed that it made sense. We also decided to upgrade from his current -10dB analog multi-track to an expandable at pro level. He was excited about the fact that now he'd be in control of the technology instead of the opposite. Which is exactly how it should be!
 
 

 Buying Gear Part 2

 Dateline: 5/5/98
 

 Buying Smarter

 Usually what happens is you save enough money for buying that perfect addition or upgrade to your studio. Perhaps it's a newer console or tape machine or a reverb or microphone or two. You've had this picture in your mind for 9 months or so and NOW you're ready to buy. However, this is the time you should hold back a bit and re-assess your needs and the marketplace. Look at any audio magazine and you'll see that the toys are coming out at the fastest pace ever. In other words if you don't like the gear now, wait five minutes.

 Case in point. I work for the Conservatory of Recording Arts and we're doing a major curriculum and facility upgrade. Our digital/midi instructor has been putting together his dream studio now for over a year. He submits his suggestions to the boss and literally almost weekly he goes in and changes it. This is because he's re-assessing his picks based on the marketplace. This does not mean that the budget changes, in fact it might mean what he wants is cheaper. The way it works is, if you're the first one out with a piece of gear you can charge whatever you want (ADATs for instance). If you're a competitor in a thick field then you're going to price your gear competitively to capture your hunk of the market.

 How to Stay Current

 Reading the major audio magazines can keep you abreast of what's going on in the business and what's new. Especially the review magazines. My personal favorites are:

      Recording Magazine
      Mix Magazine
      Pro Audio Review
      EQ Magazine
      Electronic Musician
      Keyboard Magazine
      Guitar Player Magazine
      Audio Media

 Subscribing to this list alone could eat up your budget so I'd suggest a few things. Hang out at the library and read whatever they subscribe to. Hang out at the bookstore and do some serious browsing or subscribe to a few standouts that look the best to you and give you the info you're looking for. There's also the famous "say can I borrow this mag for a few days" trick. I think once you start making a habit out of reading everything you can get your hands on you'll think more than twice about spending your money.
 
 
 

 Buying Gear Part 3

 Dateline: 5/12/98
 

 Newsgroups

 Now more than ever there are many resources at your disposal for finding that new or used piece of gear for your studio. The newsgroups are a major source of bargains. I've bought and traded over the newsgroups very successfully. Just by posting a WTB (want to buy) and the name of the piece of gear, you can get a few nibbles at the very least. I always establish phone contact first and then make the leap of faith with a COD using a bank check. There is no guarantee here but I've never been burned. My favorite newsgroups to browse in are:

      rec.audio.pro
      rec.audio.marketplace
      rec.audio.tech

 Browse the Bargains

 Your web browser is also a great way to shop for gear. All the major mail order companies have websites. The advantage to buying mail order is there is no tax if the company is out of state. These companies are also in direct competition with each other and will often meet or beat the best price of a competitor. There are often specials that are run on certain pieces of gear that are being discontinued. Here are some online mail order resources:

      www.fullcompass.com
      www.musiciansfriend.com
      www.hermes-music.com
      www.lmmusic.com
      www.interstatemusic.com

 Whenever I'm ready to buy and I have to buy new, I always canvass the major companies for prices then pick the best buy. Then I'll come back to my favorite company that I've dealt with before and see if they'll match the price for me. Service here is a big plus and I've had the best luck with Full Compass. Sales rep George Wirtanen has always been square with me and if I've had problems they've been quickly dealt with. Building a relationship with one company or salesperson can be a big plus for you.

 Recycle

 When I lived in Los Angeles I relied heavily on a weekly bargain newspaper called the Recycler. Although they're not in every city you can often do mail trades or buys depending on the buyer. The Recycler has a great online searchable database of all their issues from many major cities. It's considered the bargain bible in Los Angeles and is a great resource.

 I often try to find a used piece of gear before I'll buy new. First off you'll pay a lot less for it and usually if it's been well treated it's just as good as new. The questions you want to ask are:

      Was the gear used in studio or for live applications?
      Smoking or non-smoking environment?
      How many hours on the heads? (tape machine)
      Any routine maintenance performed?
      Why are you selling it? (any problems?)

 Lastly don't forget my Buy of the Week. This feature is always available right here and is updated weekly from the pages of Pro Audio
 Marketplace.

 Calling All Bargains!

 I'd like to make a special request from all of you. If you have any gear
 buying resources that I've missed that you could share with all of us could
 you put them on the Home Recording Bulletin Board? This way we can all
 benefit from each other's experience. It's your input into this site that makes
 it like no other.