Advice on reworking my home studio

D

deafen

New member
My band has broken up, and we're going to sell the PA that I've been using to power my home studio. The board is an EV PSX2000, which has decent preamps and a 500 W/ch power amp built in. So without the PA head, I have to replace some stuff.

I already have an Alesis Studio 12R to handle signal routing and provide extra preamps for large multi-mic setups (e.g. drums). I also have an ART Dual MP (two Tube MP's in a rack unit) that I haven't used much. My monitors are NS-10M Studios. I mix entirely in the PC.

Here's the "must-have" functionality that I need to replace or buy:
* A few decent preamps
* Power amp
* Reverb for the headphone mix during tracking
* Larger rack

I've got around $800 to spend. I'm thinking about this setup:
* M-Audio DMP3 (two clean preamps), $200
* Studio Projects VTB-1 (one colored preamp), $130
* Hafler TA-1600 (75 W/ch power amp), $160
* Middle Atlantic 12-space rack, $100
* Any cheap (<= $100) used reverb I can find

That totals out to about $690. That would leave me a hundred bucks or so to do more acoustic treatment (never enough! :)).

Are there any options I'm not considering? What do y'all think of this setup?

Deafen
 
I'd make my own rack and save about 75 bucks, and then use it to get a better reverb/multieffects unit that you could also use for tracking and mixing.

Thumbs up for the DMP-3! The VTB-1 wouldnt be my purchase for an alternative to the DMP, so be sure to listen before you buy


Good Luck
Chris
 
Okay, cool. Thanks for the feedback! I think that I'm going to skip the VTB-1 and instead get the Lexicon MPX110. That way I can use the A/D converters in the Lexicon to track 10 channels at once through my Delta 1010 (like I'm ever going to do that, right :) ).

Chris, I've built my own racks before, but I'd rather just buy one than spend several hours of my life just to save $50.

I'll pick up a VTB-1 once the PA sells and I get my share of the proceeds.

So for now the list looks like this:

M-Audio DMP3, $200
Lexicon MPX110, $200
Hafler TA1600, $160
Middle Atlantic 16-space rack, $100
Various rack accessories (blank panels and a shelf), $40

I have another question about the DMP3, but I'll open a new thread for that. Thanks again!

Deafen
 
Even better: I just picked up an MPX100 on eBay for $95 + $7 shipping. The only discernable difference is that the S/PDIF output on the 100 is 20 bit, while the 110 is 24 bit. I don't care about that. Not even a little bit. :)

I'm also postponing the DMP3 purchase for the moment, until the PA sells. So I just put in an order at MF for the TA1600, the rack, the blank panels, and some other misc crap I needed (cables, stands, etc.) w00t!

Deafen
 
Followup

In case anyone was wondering how this turned out, here's what I did.

I bought the following equipment:

Hafler TA-1600 ($160 at MF)
Middle Atlantic 16-space rack ($100 at MF)
Lexicon MPX100 ($102 shipped via eBay)
Blank rack panels ($10)
M-Audio DMP3 ($119 at GC)

The money I saved left me enough to pick up a matched pair of 603s from Shreve for $174 shipped. And it let me upgrade my acoustic guitar purchase to a Seagull 20th Anniversary. Yay!

The Hafler is a very nice match for the NS-10s, I must say. It's got plenty of oomph. And the MPX100 is exactly like I remembered from the last one I used -- nice and smooth, with good presets.

The only problem I have now is that the rack is so tall, it's causing some reflection problems. I'm going to have to figure out a better arrangement for my workstation now.
 
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