Erik Byrne of Chicago had a dream to set up a top notch home studio since he bought his first Fostex four track in the 80s. Back then having a home “hobby studio” with high end gear was just a dream unless you had suitcases of money lying around. These days, as everyone reading this knows, things have changed. People like Byrne (who I hesitate to call hobbyists because they are frequently as skilled as professionals) can now realistically afford to put their dream studios together.

He didn’t just do it out of the blue. Byrne has played music for over 20 years and worked as a sound engineer. He also says he interned at a recording studio for a few weeks but hated getting coffee. Like many these days he is mostly self taught.

Tell me a little bit about the computer you built .Was it built specifically for music and is there anything you did different or included (or did not include) for the sake of producing music?

I built it for recording audio from the ground up. I picked a motherboard that has 6 PCI slots. One for the video card that supports dual monitors, and four for the a/d converters. I currently use 2 M-Audio Delta 1010's and 2 M-Audio Delta 44's, this gives me the ability to record 24 tracks of audio simultaneously. I put a Pentium 4, 3.6 gig processor in it with 2 gigs of ram and use Windows XP for the OS. On the operating system I followed a couple of on-line tutorials to strip it down in order to disable a lot of the background programs that hog resources.

What are the most important features a computer must have to be ideal for recording? Why?

Expandability and processing power. Even though my current set up is ideal for what im doing now I may want to expand from 24 to 32 inputs. To do this all I will have to do is add one more a/d converter in the empty PCI slot and im good to go. As far as processing goes, you can never have too much. With the processor and the ram I have set up I can run multiple plug-ins on all tracks with out even a hiccup.

Give me more details on the hardware you use What brands and models do you prefer?

Well as I stated I like M-Audio stuff for converting. Never had a problem with them and I can't fix what isn’t broken. I also use an outboard Mackie 24/8 mixer and various compressors.

Can you tell me why you use the above hardware?

I prefer to use an analog mixer. Nothing beats the hands on feel of mixing on a board. I typically use the computer as a means of storage and editing and get "hands on" when it comes to mixing. I also prefer outboard compressors. It's more intuitive for me to dial in the sound im after with a knob as apposed to a mouse click. I do like using plug-ins for reverb effects and such. Not only is it cost effective to purchase a couple of software bundles as apposed to a couple pieces of rack gear, but you can apply the to multiple channels.

What software do you use now for recording (sampling etc) and what have you used in the past?

I like using Vegas for multi-tracking and Acid for midi. I started using Vegas when version 1.0 came out and the interface was easy to navigate and had a low learning curve. With every new version that came out I've upgraded to where now im using V6.0 . I have demo-ed several other programs that encompass audio and midi, but rarely ever use midi so didn't see the need to change.

You also have a simpler smaller set up? Why? how do you incorporate the two set ups into your work?

The smaller one is 16 inputs I use it with my laptop to do remote recording. If a band wants to record a simple demo or a live event, I can set up at their location with minimal effort. After everything is tracked transferring to the tower PC for mixing over my network is a breeze.