Recording:

I used to use Syntrillium – Cool Edit for all my recording, but they sold out to Adobe who turned it into Audition (with some impressive upgrades and all of the loopology loops included).

I also have the T.C. Electronics Power Core PCI card – it’s pretty cool and when you purchase it you can download X3 for free – it’s basically a software version of their famous Finalizer.

As of 4-1-05, I’m using the Waves Diamond Bundle Plug-ins (vst) – all I can say is “holy crap- how did I live without this?”.

I record vocals through an AKG C414 B-ULs microphone into a tube pre direct into m-audio delta 1010lt cards – with two of these cards loaded into a P4 w/ 2 GB DDR memory I built myself (from a barebones kit I bought from Tiger Direct), I’ve got a rock solid 16 tracks simultaneous recording PC that works great.

(UPDATE: I’ve recently been experiencing problems with the computer freezing on me during recording sessions of 12 simultaneous tracks or more – usually around the 5 minute mark. VERY annoying – but I’m hoping when I upgrade to Audition 2.0 that will fix it.)

(UPDATE 9/12/2006: OK Audition 2.0 completely blows – as far as I’m concerned Adobe has ruined a nice program (f%#king dilhos) – so we’re actually REGRESSING in the name of progress – I installed the old version of Audition back on the 16 track PC which always worked fine, and now when I do my mixdowns and overdubs I transfer the session to a P4 workstation with Audition 1.5. So far, it’s working out very well).

Equipment:

Mixing Boards: Mackie 1604 VLZ Mixer, Behringer Eurodesk MX3282A 32 Channel Mixer with 8 subgroups.

Microphones: Cad E-100, Shure SM 58 Beta, [7] SM 57′s, Shure SM 81 Shotgun (for Hi-Hats), AKG D-112 (kick drum), [5] AKG C-418 (for toms), [3] Sennheiser MD 421 II (for toms), [2] MXL 990 (cymbal overheads) plus the AKG C414 B-ULs

FX: T.C. Electronic G-Major , T.C. Electronic M-One XL, Alesis Quadraverb, Yamaha GEP 50, Korg rack tuner, Heil Talkbox, a bunch of foot pedals fx (mostly BOSS) and a crybaby wah-wah.

Monitors- JBL 4206′s, Tannoy Reveals, Samson Resolv subwoofer, Alesis reference power amp.

Guitars: Roland-ready Fender Strat, Modified Kramer with Kahler super-tuner tremolo, EMG pickups and GK2 Roland Midi pickup (for my Roland guitar synth), Takamine Acoustic.

Basses: Gibson Grabber and a Fender Jazz Bass Special that I removed the frets from and loaded with vintage P-bass pickups.

Amps: Mesa Boogie Mark III Limited Edition, Gallien-Krueger 400 Bass head, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and a Fender Blues Deluxe.

Keyboards: Korg Triton and E-MU Proteus. The E-MU is also running the Proteus X emulator module via a P4 with 1 Gb RAM and it is sweet. The grand pianos are simply amazing. I also have access to Korg M1 and Yamaha DX-7, and a Kawai that belong to Kent and Don – and although it doesn’t look like much I absolutely LOVE some of the Kawai sounds (which you hear quite a bit of on Brightest Skies).

Drums: Tama Rockstar, Zildjian Cymbals, DW Double Bass pedal, Ludwig snare. Also LP congas and bongos and a few percussion items like cabasa and fish etc.

Some recording links:
Mix Online | Emusician | Tweak Headz | ProRec | Home Recording | Sonic Control | Remix Mag | PC Recording | Recording Depot | Pro Sound Web | Musicians Tech Central | Home Recording Connection | Record Production | GuitarPlayer.com | BassPlayer.com | KeyboardMag.com | EQmag.com | Backbeat Books

Click on thumbnails to see full size photos of the Zen Chaos Studio: