advice

[jreel1]

I am looking for a decent powered mixer and speakers for my home studio. I have a $700 budget, including speakers. I will be using a fostex mr-8 for track recording. I will need some phantom power inputs. Please give some feedback or reccomendations.

Thanks,

jreel1

[radiorickm]

well, i have an mr-8 in my home studio......
but there are a couple of things i might ask you to clarify

#1 are you looking for "speakers" or are you looking at "monitors"?
#2 is there a specific reason you are looking at a "powered board" as opposed to a different combination?
ie. powered monitors/board or power amp/monitors/board

the boards with power inside them are not necessarily the best candidates for a recording board (not saying they wont work or can't be used) but there are issues like fan noise and stuff....

anyway....how many inputs do you want on the board

i went for overkill on mine because i use the board for PA also, but i will tell you if you think you want 4 inputs order 12! you will use them up a lot faster than you think.

also are you looking for built in dsp... anything like that??

just a couple of questions to get us on the right track to helping you along.

[jreel1]

okay here goes. i don't have any speakers or monitors so i will be starting out with the basics. i want some speakers that can hook up to whatever i buy and when i plug them up noise comes out. if you mean floor monitors, then no, that is not what i want. i will be using mine for a p.a. also, so maybe you can help with that. i found a behringer pmx1000,600w(bridged) with 12 channels and 6 phantom power inputs for $350. forgive me for this, but i don't know what the acronym "dsp" means. if you mean on board effects then some would be nice, but i mix through my pc so that isn't a big deal to me. another must would obviously be a line/record out so i could run the thing to my mr-8.

thanks,

jreel1

[radiorickm]

The behringer board you have mentioned will work for what you want to do for now.

First off, to clarify.....

The term monitors refers to TWO things really, and i didn't clarify.....sorry

Studio Monitors are a very special kind of speaker, designed for a very flat frequency responce and "near-field" or close up listening.

PA floor monitors are a different animal all together.

The term DSP means "Digital Signal Processing" and usually refers to onboard effects, such as reverb chorus etc....

now then

Because your board is "POWERED", you will need to get a set (or at least you can get by with a set, because they are generally cheaper) of PASSIVE monitors. Use the internal amps to power them, and use your line outs to feed the MR-8. There are a lot of them out there, and at least one user here on HR.COM is a dealer for the Wharfdale's and will make you a hell of a deal. (just search)

Don't try and use the studio monitors for PA use. The studio stuff is designed for listening to up close, and not for projecting a sound farther away. You will need to get a set of PA Speakers also eventually.

hopes this helps to get you started.

just to let you know, i now have 2 stereo amps in my studio. I feed the output from my behri board to the MR-8, and the main out to my first amp and speakers. These are swithchable between several sets of speakers, from a set of Bose, a higher end of Memorex, and just a coulple of "junk" speakers to compare the mixes on. I also have the Control room out ran to another amp, and into a set of ALESIS 1 monitor speakers for my C/R stuff, main mixing, solo's and stuff like that.

good luck with your recording stuff.

[jreel1]

Thanks a bunch for the info. So , since I mix my music at my pc, it would seem that I could get away with buying a set of P.A. speakers first and work from there. Is this correct?

jreel1

[radiorickm]

i guess depending on what your priorities are.........

yes, you could buy the PA speakers. and use them for PA and for recording.

but like i said, PA speakers and Studio Monitors are 2 entirely different things. eventually, you will NEED monitors.

you can use your computer speakers or the pa speakers for the recording, or "tracking" part of the process, and they will both work. the idea in the tracking phase is to get a good clean signal into the recorder. Ideally you should record with NO, or as little as possible processing ie eq, compress etc... especially since you are dumping the trax into a PC. you can process them in the pc and on the way out to the mixdown deck. However, note that the pa or computer speakers will effect this to a point, which you will have to learn to what point.

even headphones aren't quite good enough for true MIXING, the next phase of the process. Mixing is where you adjust all the volume level to each other, and do the panning and stuff like that. this is where the critical listening of the true monitors comes in. You need to hear the details for the imaging and stuff.


so, start saving 'dem pennies!!!