Check Out Producer Andrew Petroff’s Home Studio!

Andrew Petroff is a multi-genre producer, songwriter, and musician. Recent work includes songs with Sheryl Crow, Phillip Larue, Devon Gilfillian, David Nail, Sierra Hull, Savannah Conley, and Charli Adams.

Andrew’s work can also be heard on placements from Apple, HBO, Grey’s Anatomy, The Black List, How to Get Away With Murder, Fox Sports, Nashville, MTV, Riverdale, and ads for Beyond Meat, Dignity Health and Coca Cola.

In this video Andrew gives a gear run-down of his home studio and describes how he uses each piece of equipment.

Chapters

Chapter 1: Andrew’s recording set up

Chapter 2: What kinds of chains/plugins do you have?

Chapter 3: Monitors

Chapter 4: Where do you find your sounds?

Chapter 5: Keep learning

Chapter 1: Andrew’s recording set up

I have a pretty basic setup. I basically have two channels in a super small room. I have a mic line in, a guitar line, a microphone (SM7B) which I use on tons of stuff. It’s great on anything, great on vocals, really cool on acoustic guitar, awesome for percussion. It blocks out a lot of noise. So, some days here in LA its super noisy, people are stomping upstairs, singing outside. So, you only capture a vocal and not all the other stuff.

Then I have the southern blue microphone, which is a condenser mic. That picks up a lot more high end and a lot more detail. So, I find that a little bit better for female vocals. I then have a Vintech 1073 preamp, which is a copy of a Neve 1073. They sound great, I have a pair of those.

From there is a tube compressor made by retro. That then goes from there into my Apollo twin. This is my interface and this is what talks to the computer and gets the guitar and microphone signal into the computer. It also is what gets the sound from the computer out to my speakers.

Chapter 2: What kinds of chains/plugins do you have?

I have a mic signal chain, which everything goes through. And then I have another plugin which I just keep a guitar I set. That goes into a pedal board with volume pedal. Then I swap in and out pedals and tuners and all kinds of stuff. That goes into the Sands Amp Rack Mount, which I use about half the time, kind of on and off depending on what it is.

Then there is an amp simulator. It does a whole bunch of stuff. This one is a general Sansei, it adds this meat or you can overdrive stuff or sculp the tone, however you want. And that’s a cool tool just for going for something different. From there that goes into 1073 preamp and this Lindell audio compressor, which is a copy of an 1176. Then that goes into the Apollo.

So, each line, every input I’m going through a preamp and a compressor, and you certainly don’t have to, if you’re just starting out, but for me, it helps get really good tracks right into the box. So, I’m having to do less processing and I’ll still mix them EQ everything inside of there.

There are a million options on everything. That’s just what I’ve ended up with that works well.

Chapter 3: Monitors

These are Yamaha HS80M’s. They’re not crazy expensive monitors. I listened to S monitors for probably a month and then ended up finding these. They seem to translate well.

When you get your mix up and sounding good through them, they translate great when you play it for somebody else, and in your car, big stereo system, all that.

Chapter 4: Where do you find your sounds?

I have a bunch of hard drives and sample drives. A bunch of guitars, a bunch of basses, percussion stuff and then just things to bang on things. I bang on my table all the time. I mean, I just kind of be creative and see what I can come up with.

Everyone kind of finds their own way to do their thing. And that’s all you need. Everyone has a different way they approach each song and it’s just practice and doing it. Sometimes I have a rig I take on the road that’s just a laptop. Then I have all this at home and still just mess around with it. It’s fun to be completely out of your zone on new stuff.

Chapter 5: Keep learning

I watch a ton of tutorials ideas on YouTube. There are guys about mixing tracks, building beats, that kind of stuff. I still, every day, will probably watch one or two. I think that may be the most important thing you hear. Because you know, you’re not ever going to reach the point with songwriting or with building tracks where you’ve mastered it. There’s always something you can learn.

I try to get as much input, stay fresh and gather cool ideas. Maintain my creativity and listen to new sounds textures. What’s cool lyrics. How are they phrasing stuff? I just listen a lot every day at the gym, going home. I love exploring and finding new stuff, listening to old stuff. I love vinyl records. I think if you want to be good at anything, you’ve got to be a student of that thing. You got to know the history of it, where it came from, where it’s going, what’s working.

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Author: Marty Dodson