question on gear and direction

aeolian20

New member
hey guys this is my first post here and i am new to the board..i just had a pretty general question related to studio gear..my goal is to be able to produce really good quality home recordings for my band that consists of vocals, 2 guitars, bass, and drums (no midi or synths)..so far my equipment is:

pc 2.36ghz, 512mb ram, 80 g hd, 20 g hd
logic platinum (with too many plug ins to list)
aardvark q10
rnc
2 shure ksm27 condensors
1 shure sm58
1 shure sm57
1 shure sm57 beta
akg drum mic kit
(various other cheap mics)
berhringer b2031 truth monitors

then of course we have all the amps guitars a mackie 808m and 31 band eq for pa stuff with speakers and monitors and all that..my main question is from what i have should what type of quality recording is realistic for me to achieve and what do i need to focus on improving/attaining to reach maximum results (while still being cost effective)...btw my band plays modern/alt rock type music..thanks
 
How are you connecting the mics to your sound-card? You might want to get you a pre-amp. I sure that you know what that is but if you don't: It warms up the sound and gives it "beef", "pattnes"
and really helps. And never record with any effects or eq or compression on unless you have too. Save the processing tell AFTER you have recorded. /but bascicly There is no RIGHT way or TYPE of way to get good sounds. Just stay in your studio for hours at a time and work on things and experiment like i do. And another thing, Don't focus on getting ONE Track to sound it's best like i did. You See i was going nuts trying to find a good drum sound and after i did i saw that i had been agnoring the other tracks and speding all my time on the drums. Each Track needs it's own attention.


Good luck and welcome to the BBS!


zeke
 
as far as mic pres go the aardvark q10 is has 8 pic pre's on it..it interfaces with the pc through its own pci card that i installed to the pc..it also has its own software (mixer) where you can adjust gain and volume levels for all the chanels going in..the aardvark also has phantom power on mic pre's 1-4 and you can place ouboard effects on inserts 1-4 that are tied to pre's 1-4...so that is how i get it to the pc...as far as your comment about putting nothing on when recording i would agree with that..but isnt it good to have some sort of initial compression while recording to achieve a better signal without peaking/clipping on applications like vocals or maybe drum overheads? i dont really know but that is one of my big questions of the day..thanks
 
Oh yeah, i would agree to putting like maybe a limiter on the channel just to keep it from peaking and distorting. But compressers affect the sound so i would leave that to mixing.

zeke
 
so is it a general rule to use a limiter when recording opposed to compression and if so what is a really good limiter..i was under the impression that most times they are somewhat the same and have not found a lot of info on the "limiter" side of it..thanks
 
A limiter is a brick wall compressor. When you set the threshold on a compressor to say, -6dba, with a ratio of 2:1, it will reduce the signal with a 2:1 ratio when the signal breaks the -6dba barrier that you have set. With a limiter, if you set the level to -6dba NOTHING will go above -6dba. It makes a brick wall. It's usually used to raise the volume of a track or song and limit transients from clipping so that you can actually do this. For recording if you think you will be clipping a lot, using a limiter will stop your signals from clipping so that you have somethign to work with. I would recomend a compressor instead of a limiter. But even with compression if you really push it, it can still clip.

Zeke, compressors and limiters both affect the sound. Generally applying compression after you've recorded is best because if you track to disk/tape with compression you can't take it off. But sometimes it is good to use a bit of compression while tracking to prevent the signal from clipping. Also people have said that an outboard compressor will do a better job of compressing on a clean analog signal before it has been munched up into digital 1's and 0's by AD/DA converters.

For a home recording situation i would definatly recomend a compressor and not a limiter. The RNC is supposudly super good at a very very good price. If i'm not mistaken it gives you 2 channels of compression so you could compress a stereo recording if you wanted to.
 
The diff between a good limiter and a bad one is that the good ones will keep you single in control better then the bad one will. A good compresser/limiter is the berhinger composer pro for $89.00 www.musiciansfriend.com


zeke
 
As far as what sound it's realistic to get with your current setup, I'd guess pretty good, with good engineering. As far as improving your sound, you are weak on pres and mics. Your Aardvark is not an Avalon, and your Shures aren't Neumanns. In other words, you have fairly advanced processing capability for a signal that is so-so. That doesn't mean you can't get lovely sound with what you have, but if you want to build, build the signal chain at the beginning. The best instument you can get into the best mic, through the best cables to the best preamp, then to the sound card. I'd be looking for a Rode NTK, Neumann TLM103, Shure SM7B, and maybe a couple of Grace 101's and a Joemeek twinQ. Best of luck, your current setup ain't half bad.-Richie
 
ok so are avalons basically "the stuff" when it comes to pre amps..and if so how are the different models comparible between the vt-737p (mono pre/compressor/eq)...the m5 class a..and the dual mono versions?
 
There are lots of good pres available, and Avalon is one of many choices. My suggestion would be to get 2 channels of clean pre w/ no compression or EQ and compress them with 1-2 RNC's if you want compression during tracking, or with plugins if you want to wait to mixdown. Then get 2 channels of more colored pre with compression built in. The first could be met by Grace 101's, a Pendulum, Toft, or a Davisound TB-10, which would be my first choice if you can wait 6-8 weeks for them to build it. For the colored channels, Joemeek twinQcs works great, and lots of people swear by Great River. The Avalon sort of does a little of both, and don't come cheap. My first choice would be Davisound TB-10, 2 RNC's, and a Joemeek twinQcs. Ooh baby. Then start building your microphone cabinet. Right now, the stuff you have to record things is a lot better than what you have to record.-Richie
Note, I like them in pairs, good for stereo recording.
 
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