Please help with this setup

[PastorPoster]

Hi everyone,

 

I need your help in trying to make some gear purchase decision.

My budget is up to 3K.

I need to record a professional sounding CD (not demo) which I plan on

selling at the end of concerts. Style is acoustic, vocals, (not loud Rock n Roll) - where detailed recording counts.

 

 

Microphones;

I need a "multitasking" mic. Vocals are at the top of the list.

Rode NT2-A, Studio Projects C1.

Other suggestions ?

 

Mic Preamp;

Groove Tubes "The Brick", Studio Projects VTB-1

Others ?

I am considering MOTU 828mkII for audio interface and I don't know much about the quality of pre's the MOTU.

 

Audio interface;

I heard miracles around the Apogee Rosetta but the price . . .

Trying to keep away from the lowermost end (Mbox, Omega, Spike etc'.) am somewhat torn between the MOTU 828mkII and the Apogee Mini-Me. The later is USB vs. FireWire on the MOTU, plus the MOTU has lot more I/O, but the pre's on the Mini-Me and the quality of converters is better on the Mini-Me.

What do you think ?

 

Monitors;

KRK V6, Yamaha MSP5.

Other suggestions ?

 

 

Thank you.

[geek_usa]

Originally posted by PastorPoster Hi everyone, I need your help in trying to make some gear purchase decision. My budget is up to 3K. I need to record a professional sounding CD (not demo) which I plan on selling at the end of concerts. Style is acoustic, vocals, (not loud Rock n Roll) - where detailed recording counts. -snip- Thank you.

 

 

To be frankly honest with you, I would skip buying the gear and just find a good studio in your area with good rates and talented engineers. You'll probably get what you're looking for there moreso rather than buying gear and learning how to record. Recording and mixing has a VERY steep learning curve, and even if you had all the money in the world to buy the most expensive/recommended gear (not always in the same category), money cannot buy experience...and to truly optimize your useage with said equipment, experience is needed.

 

Just in case you choose to ignore everything said above, I'll throw in my two coins for gear recommendations.

 

 

For vocals :

 

You're heading in the right direction with the R0DE. Mucho good reviews. I've also heard/used the Shure KSM series, which has a very sparkly quality to it, if that's what you're aiming for.

 

 

For a mic preamp, I would suggest a Grace 101. The FMR RNP is also a heavy contender, but since you're only looking to record acoustic/softer stuff, the Grace would be ideal, since it has a light, airy quality that the FMR doesn't posess (as much).

 

 

For an audio interface, someone else will have to help you with that. I'm a total rookie at audio interfaces and don't want to lead you in the wrong direction.

 

For monitors, I've heard wonders about the KRKs, but I use Tannoy Reveals that sound pretty dashing once the newness wears off (you can fix this by purchasing a used pair rather than a brand spankin' new set).

 

 

 

Hope whatever I said helps. But please take the former advice. I think it will suit you much better at this point.

[where02190]

Agreed, 3k isn't going to buy you what you need to do the job even reasonably good, and 3 million can't buy you the skills and experience you need to do it right. $3000 however can go a long way in a midline studio. I've done many (what the client and myself) consider extremely professional quality recordings for $3000. Talk to other musicians in your area that you respect of this genre, and find out who has the best reps for quality and satisfaction.

 

You could end up with $3k worth of gear and still have a crappy sound. In addition, and I speak from experience, it is very, very difficult to play both engineer and musician, and one always suffers. Find a good engineer, develop a relationship, and do what you do best, be a musician.

 

Invest your money wisely.

[seaneldon]

if you're specifically recording acoustic guitar and vocals...do you need more than two preamps on the audio interface? stereo mic setup for acoustic guitar, one mic for vocals...

 

maybe consider the RME Desktop card with a Multiface II for your I/O and converter (better sounding converter than the MOTU stuff, yet just even more digital I/O like optical and such in case you want to expand on inputs later), a Trident S20 for your two preamps, a Blue Sky 2.1 Media Desk for your monitoring, and a BLUE Bluebird and Sennheiser e614 for large and small diaphragm mics.

 

Clean yet colorful with a professional converter and good monitoring. Perfect for recording acoustic guitar and vocals. Now you just need some talent, but I don't think they stock that at Sweetwater. Maybe Mercenary does...they've got EVERYTHING.

[Kiwiburger]

I have a few Rode mics, and I would say be very, very wary of being influenced by reviews (especially second hand reviews). Advertisement make the money for magazines, so expect the heavy advertisers to have the most postive reviews in those magazines.

 

Most of the cheap chinese mics come from the same factories. Rode is a little different in that they have a little more input into the quality control (so they can label them as Australian) - but for all that the first NT2a I recieved had a serious fault and sounded awful. As a result of that, my supplier sent me another, and also an NT2000 to trial. The difference was HUGE - so needless to say I bought the NT2000. But then I decided that - for some sources - I could use the harsh sound of the NT2a, so I kept it.

 

The point being: if you believed the reviews, and bought an NT2a as your sole studio mic, you would be struggling with a harsh sounding mic, and possibly thinking it was good. You might even post a glowing review of it - until you compare it with something better. I have an NTK too - which is another league altogether.

 

But - for vocals, I found that often the Shure dynamics (SM57, SM58, Beta 58 etc) gave a warmer, closer, less essy sound. I got an SM7b (correctly spelled - not to be confused with SM57) which is now my most favorite vocal mike.

 

The condensors are great on guitars - and if you are mic'ing acoustic players who sing, I highly recommend a figure-8 mic for maximum rejection of the vocal.

 

Are you recording real drums? How many channels do you really need?

 

Do you really want a noisy PC in the same room as your mic? That's the problem with most cheapie interfaces - distance is against you. I recommend running your PC in another room - and that can change your requirements. You probably need to think about physical layout and cable lengths - bearing in mind the limits of USB, Firewire, unbalanced audio etc, etc

 

I use a Lucid AD9624 converter - it gives me peak meters to watch, along with the VU meters on my preamps/compressors. I can run s/pdif or AES/EBU to the next room. The sound quality is excellent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[where02190]

 

The condensors are great on guitars - and if you are mic'ing acoustic players who sing, I highly recommend a figure-8 mic for maximum rejection of the vocal.

 

 

A figure 8 pattern picks up both in front and behind of the mic, which would mean much more room sound (both guitar and vocal) than a cardiod, which picks up primarily from the front only.

[Kiwiburger]

Have you ever tried a figure 8 on acoustic guitar? I have a singer/songwriter who needs to play and sing at the same time. It was driving me nuts trying to get some good seperation. Cardioids and hyper-cardioids still got a lot of bleed, which meant that any eq or effects applied to the guitar affected the vocal, and vice versa.

 

Figure 8 mics have an extreme plane of rejection - its fairly narrow, but it is much more effective rejection than any other mic.

 

Picture the mic in the normal vertical position - you normally play into the front, and it pickups up room sound from the back. The plane of rejection is at the sides, in the same plane as the two diaphrams. Now imagine that you tilt the mic 90 degrees, and then twist it. So the front is facing the guitar, the one plane of rejection is aimed right at the singers mouth, the other is aimed at the floor. The back was aimed into the room, so I rubber-banded some thick felt onto the back.

 

The result was amazing seperation. I was able to apply chorus onto the acoustic guitar for some songs, without chorusing the vocal.

[Tullsterx]

 

Originally posted by PastorPoster Mic Preamp; Groove Tubes "The Brick", Studio Projects VTB-1 Others ?

 

 

I wouldn't buy the SP VTB-1. I have one of those and I really can't find any good use for it. I've used it as a pre for lead and backing vocals and as part of the direct-in signal path with my guitars and with my acoustic. The built-in preamps on my US-428 are better.

 

Also, the guys that are saying you can't produce anything great sounding for 3K obviously work in rip-off shops. . . uhh, I mean "professional" studios and music stores. Not to be trusted in my opinion.

[where02190]

 

Originally posted by Kiwiburger Have you ever tried a figure 8 on acoustic guitar? I have a singer/songwriter who needs to play and sing at the same time. It was driving me nuts trying to get some good seperation. Cardioids and hyper-cardioids still got a lot of bleed, which meant that any eq or effects applied to the guitar affected the vocal, and vice versa. Figure 8 mics have an extreme plane of rejection - its fairly narrow, but it is much more effective rejection than any other mic. Picture the mic in the normal vertical position - you normally play into the front, and it pickups up room sound from the back. The plane of rejection is at the sides, in the same plane as the two diaphrams. Now imagine that you tilt the mic 90 degrees, and then twist it. So the front is facing the guitar, the one plane of rejection is aimed right at the singers mouth, the other is aimed at the floor. The back was aimed into the room, so I rubber-banded some thick felt onto the back. The result was amazing seperation. I was able to apply chorus onto the acoustic guitar for some songs, without chorusing the vocal.

 

 

If you don't have any or very minimal room reflections. I own and have used many mics capable of figure 8, and understand what you mean, but as I stated previously, it is very room dependant, as the figure 8 mic picks up equally well on both sides, with a small null zone along the center of the 8. If you record in a very dead room that is fairly good sized, then yes you can obtain some good rejection between singer and guitar if the singer is not singing very loud, however is there is ANY appreciable room reflections, or the singer is singing loud, then the back side of the figure 8 mic will hear and record the vocal as loud or louder than the guitar.

 

It's critical the artist understands the process as well, and you can achieve some good separation, however I find it to sound rather unnatural, and prefer to use a two mic setup that gets a good blend of guitar and vocal as it sounds in the room.

 

See "Women and Dreams" on the listen page of our website(llink below) as an example of this technique.