Mic for Rapping

Im looking a LD Condenser Microphone for vocals. Im building up my Own Home Based at the moment. And we dont have any equipments. All we have its just a PC.

We'r looking for a Mic and a Mixer first of all or a USB Condenser Mic??

The Budget is going around 200 Dollars including shipping. What best can i get?

SP B1 Will be fine if i take Alesis i014 Firewire mixer? Or SP B1 With any mixer? Please give me some suggetions.

I would NOT get a USB mic for this purpose.

Are there going o be any actual musical instruments used, or is this going to be all virtual instruments that are programmed in the PC?

If the only thing you need the Mic for is vocals - I wouldn't waste my money on a mixer, go directly to a Rackmount unit with a Mic Preamp - or two built in.

For Mic's, I would get an MXL 990. You can get one with a Shockmount for about $60. When it dies, throw the thing away and buy another one.... but to be honest, I've had a pair of them for 10 years and they work just fine, and I've used them for everything from mic'ing a kick drum for about 6" in front of the drum, to a bass amp, to vocals.

It's a great economical mic.

Any Preamp that you get will need to supply phantom power.

I personally would say look at the Tascam rackmounted units. I've used Tascam gear since the early 1980's and it is good quality.

I went to a recording school and I was the only non-Rapper/non-R&B singer in the class. We didn't even have a mixer.(You shoul have seen me wiring all this stuff together o actually mic up a drumkit. LOL

We had a MOTU interface and an Apple G5 Mac, fully loaded with Logic Pro 7.0.

That was the one downside with the class. They didn't have a clue about Mic placement, tricks for mic'ing a guitar amp, even the uinstructor didn;t know half of the things I knew - but he was a keyboard player and, except for his 2 mic inputs on his interface, his entire studio was virtual instruments/MIDI. Which, I guess much of modern music evidently is.

BUT, I'll give them credit where it is due - those guys did some really creative things with that gear and the quality that they were getting could easily compete with any of the "mainstream"/commercial rap or R&B releases. It made me realize that I definitely need to switch over to recording on the Computer vs. my old Reel to Reel rig.

So whats best??

Sp B1 and Alesis mixer is not good?

It seems you already have your mind set on those, so if they are what you want, then go for it!

I'm not familiar with the SP B1, so I can't comment on it since i haven't actually used it.

You'd probably do best by going and asking this question in the Recording section. Ask other guys who specialize in Rap what they are using. That will give you an idea.... and ask to listen to their recordings.

I refuse to buy anything with "Alesis" on it because I've had too much bad luck with their gear, so I can't suggest them in good conscience. My experience has been that it wasn't very durable. (I had one of their effect units that cost me $100 a year just to keep it running. I've had a few other pieces, and they just weren't what I would consider a good investment.

But the reality is - unless you are going to be recording a lot of live Instruments, you really don't need a mixing board. Many studio's don't even have them except for the Mic pre-amps, as most of them mix in the computer with a mouse.

If you want the "look" and feel of a mixing board (rather than using a mouse to mix), I would say save your money and get a Mixing Control surface.

why dont u go to guitar center and demo 'em.

just get a few rhymes down so u dont look like a fool stumpling to come up with some flow.

Studio Projects B1?

That's the main mic I use for recording. I'd say its one of the best value mics out there; the best bang for the buck. There's a lot of better choices out there, but this is a good budget-priced mic that yields decent results.

And no, I'm not gonna rap for you with it.

Okay i got it. I should buy something and test it brother. According to my needs. It depends on what i want? What is better? To buy a good pre amp or mixeR?Or Control surface?? Whats the use differently?

Cant brother.Im from India. No Guitar Center here. We dont get these equipments here and if we get them they are around 5x of the actual price. Cant bear that.

If your primary goal is to recording at home then a mixer or pre-amp isn't really necessary. Just get a decent recording interface with good built-in mic pre-amps. If the interface's signal-to-noise ratio is high enough then you don't really need an extra pre-amp. For doing the music component, all you need is a synthesizer keyboard, which can usually go straight into the interface as well.

Alesis io14 Firewire Mixer has a god built in pre amp. How about that?

My interface can also go up to 192khz sample rate, which I find is a bit overkill. But mine has built-in controls to adjust the sample rate. I usually record at 48khz, even 96khz is a bit high. Higher rate will give you a higher quality recording, but the difference isn't noticeable. Also the higher rates are processor-heavy and file sizes get too big. Though overall the IO14 looks sound, not sure how good are the pre-amps on it. But I have a friend who swears by Alesis. I can't find any vendors for it. How much does it usually cost?

How do you know? Have you tried it out? These are discontinued in the USA, so you can't get them here.

But yes, something similar to that unit is what you need. I personally would go with a different brand.

I would steer you toward a MOTU device myself as I have used those without any problems over the years. Actually, almost all the local guys that I personally know who have PC-based home studios have MOTU except for one guy who wanted the bragging rights of buying a small Protools set up - and he spent about 20 times what the other guys spent. (The Control Surface was like $9,000 or something like that. Way out of the budget for most of us for a home studio.)

I don't know what it would cost in India, but the "MOTU Audio Express" is around $400 here in the USA.

I couldn't find a price for the io|14.

And no, I'm not gonna rap for you with it.

So, since we now now that it is what you use, he could just listen to anything you have posted to be able to tell the quality of it.... which I now now is good because the recordings you've posted have a good vocal tone to them.

The funny thing is, when I was in recording school - all the rappers were just using SM58's, hand held, right in the studio.... which seemed nuts to me due to the handling noise, but that was what they all preferred.

One young guy in the course was hilarious. About every 3 weeks, he was getting arrested for getting caught smoking pot in some public place, and would spend the weekend in jail, where he would have a jail cell conversion to Jesus over the weekend... So on Monday he would come in preaching telling us how we were all gonna go to hell, and by Friday he was out partying again until he got arrested the next time.

I was going,"Man, if you're gonna smoke pot - just don't do it in public!"

Which recordings do you mean? Some times I would just use my {censored}ty netbook's internal mic. lol

You were either doing vocal scales or slides - I listened to it last week, i think it was fairly recent. If that is the case, then your netbook's mic sounded REALLY Good! LOL

io14 use to be for 200 Dollars when they came in. They are not available now. The guy here is selling me for 85 Dollars excluding Shipping. The guy has done alot of good deals with almost everyone. So i kinda trust him. Hes a good person.

I dont have enough money for the Interface and Pre amp. Thats why am so confused. I got Low budget and have to buy something Bang for the Buck. SP B1 Can be good with which pre amp or mixeR? LOL

AND ROFL AT THAT STORY OF THAT POT SMOKER AND YOU KNOW WHAT. I DO THE SAME AS THAT GUY DID. Smoke In Public LOL

That scale was using the B1 but with a very low mp3 sample rate.

I just found some samples. Check them out:

Studio Projects B1: http://picosong.com/hqe

And netbook mic (if you're interested ): http://picosong.com/hqP

It sounds okay. What about mixer or pre amp?

What the heck, if you can get a good deal on that Alesis io|14 - and you have faith in it - go for it!

As long as it isn't broken, it should do the job.

GOD. THANKS ALOT. YOU SOLVED HALF OF THE PROBLEMS MAN. lol

{censored} is really confusing what to buy?? Should i buy USB Audio Interface also for better production?

And secondly i dont know about the pre amp's of Alesis. Can you help me to review it?

I hope my singing didn't put you off from buying this mic. lol

(Next time I'll try to rap in an Indian accent)

Anyway, here's some reviews of the IO14

http://www.zzounds.com/productreview--ALEIO14

http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/7617

I'd say stick with the built-in pre-amp for now. I would only get an external pre-amp if there's not enough noiseless mic-gain.

There's a recording forum section in these message boards. You can go there to ask as well.

I hope my singing didn't put you off from buying this mic. lol (Next time I'll try to rap in an Indian accent) Anyway, here's some reviews of the IO14 http://www.zzounds.com/productreview--ALEIO14 http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/7617 I'd say stick with the built-in pre-amp for now. I would only get an external pre-amp if there's not enough noiseless mic-gain. There's a recording forum section in these message boards. You can go there to ask as well.

LOL!

Davie, you've got a really good voice, but then I already knew that from hearing the other files.

I have no way to know - I've never even seen one of them. I know nothing about it. It might sound like crap, but you could always resell it if you don't like it.

There is a saying in the Audio world - "Buy Once, Cry Once!"

From my perspective, if you buy this Alesis unit, you are going to be crying more than once, which is why I tried to steer you toward buying the MOTU unit.

So tell me a good and noiseless unit for around 80 Dollars. It can be pre amp or mixer or USB Audio Interface but should be noiseless, YOu know. Thats it

I hope my singing didn't put you off from buying this mic. lol (Next time I'll try to rap in an Indian accent) Anyway, here's some reviews of the IO14 http://www.zzounds.com/productreview--ALEIO14 http://www.harmonycentral.com/products/7617 I'd say stick with the built-in pre-amp for now. I would only get an external pre-amp if there's not enough noiseless mic-gain. There's a recording forum section in these message boards. You can go there to ask as well.

LOL FOR SURE. Tryna do that once. You will die laughing.

Aight thanks alot brothers.