Hi guys,
I scanned through this topic and it's quite interesting... May I suggest a few things here which I think in my humble opinion has been overlooked.
First What is the purpose of the studio or recording set-up or whatever you call that? Is it only for voice dubbing? Or is it for live recording of a few musicians? The point is, the purpose of your set-up will determine the next things to be discussed
After deciding on your purpose, you may now reconsider your budget... Is this forum for a professional recording studio? Or is it only for a home studio? Or a bedroom studio? You need to be very specific in creating workshops for this since each design of a studio matters. The room acoustic is a very broad, hard and yet I think the most important thing to consider when you've decided what to set-up.
Before buying your hard wares and other gadgets, you need to have discussions on room acoustics depending on what type of set-up you have in mind!
Second What is the scope of your workshop? What musicians are to benefit from it? Mic Techniques really differ from case to case for example, are you planning on recording a choir? Or a band? Or a string chamber?
So many things to really discuss before you get to the topic of MIXING, EFFECTS, COMPRESSOR and others... Right now I can think a whole lot of other stuffs to discuss in details and it would fill an entire book.
I agree with discussing what is sound first, all of us must learn how to understand the nature of sound waves and the issues you need to learn involving sound waves from phasing issues to others alike.
I hope this helps.