What to upgrade first to make biggest improvement?

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dwkman0117

New member
I am new to computer based recording.
I have been a drummer/musician for many years.
Here is a list of the equipment I am using currently using to record some tunes by myself.
I would like to replace/upgrade many of what I have. Drum mics especially!
What would you suggest would be the best piece of the pie to upgrade first to make the quickest improvement in my sound?

Dell machine
Cakewalk Home Studio 2002 recording SW
SoundBlaster card
Behringer Eurorack UB1202 Mixer
Line 6 Pod2 – for guitar and bass recording – recent upgrade
Cheap Nady mics – 3(used for vocals and drums)
Acoustic drums
Samick Electric guitar and bass

Here is a link to 2 of the covers I recorded so that you can here where I am at. The pod2 wasn't used for the guitar/bass on these tracks.

http://www.swtestingsolutions.com/music/music_download_page.htm

Any suggestions would be appreciated!
 
If you are a drummer and want to get your kit sounding better you're going to need something other than those cheap nadys...
I would go with some audix (d-1, d-2, d-5, d-6)/akg (d-22, d-112) mics or sm57's for right now if you dont want to spend too too much.
Also consider upgrading your sound card...
 
Yes - I would like to emprove the drums - I believe the guitar and bass will sound good - they are direct and through the pod.
Any thoughts on the CAD microphone packages for drums?
 
Soundcard, Mixer, Software. If you are the registered owner of the Cakewalk HS you can upgrade to Homestudio 4 XL for like $55.00. I started out with 2XL and made the upgrade and it was probably the best upgrade I've made yet.

If you have an open PCI slot on your dell, upgrade the soundcard to an M-audio Delta 1010

I too started with a Behringer board and upgraded to a Yamaha MG series board, that upgrade was phenominal as well.
 
Creamyapples1 said:
Soundcard, Mixer, Software. If you are the registered owner of the Cakewalk HS you can upgrade to Homestudio 4 XL for like $55.00. I started out with 2XL and made the upgrade and it was probably the best upgrade I've made yet.

If you have an open PCI slot on your dell, upgrade the soundcard to an M-audio Delta 1010

I too started with a Behringer board and upgraded to a Yamaha MG series board, that upgrade was phenominal as well.
Click to expand...

nice - thanks! So the HS 4XL is that big of an improvement? In what ways?
 
$ .02

you said you want mics...buy mics... but you also asked about the weakest link and thas the card followed closely by the mixer.... do your self a favor and do both at once... gotta firewire port on that dell? probably not... so may require 20-50 bux for that but try one of the selfcontained pre/interfaces...
 
You can get a firewire PCI card brand new for like $5-10 if you want a firewire interface
 
If I missed it I'm sorry but it looks to me your weakest link is your monitors. Do you have any? If you can't properly hear whats going on it doesn't matter how much other good equipment you have.
 
If you find a decent audio interface that has a couple of mic pres built in you can ditch the mixer and soundcard at the same time and that might save you a bit of money. But definately upgrade the mics and soundcard. The audix fusion mic pack isnt too bad for a reasonable cost.
 
I have a firewire port on my pc, so considering I have the ablility to use either, what what be better PCI or Firewire? I would think PCI. I checked out the M-audio Delta 1010 suggested above and that looks sweet for not alot of $$.
Yes - I do need a pair of good monitors - I am only using the speakers that I got with the PC - grated they are the better ones available, but nothing to mention... that's why I didn't.
 
I would like to replace/upgrade many of what I have... What would you suggest would be the best piece of the pie to upgrade first to make the quickest improvement in my sound?
Click to expand...
Scrubs nailed it. The room is everything. My experience has been that cheap gear in a great room sounds better than the opposite.

Specifics :D OK, spend your money first like this: knock out two adjacent walls and move them back 50 ft, and make them not parallel with their opposites. Knock out the ceiling and replace it with one that's 4x as high and that isn't flat. :D :D

Alternatively, apply acoustic treatment to the room very carefully.

Best bang for the buck.

Ignore this if you've already done that. ;)

Tim
 
Haha Please Ignore My Caps Lock... I'm On My Phone...

But I Have The M Audio 1010 And Its Amazing. And It Makes The Sound So Much Better Compared To A Standard Sound Card.

And I Noticed You Asked About The Cad Mics ... There Amazing For The Price!!! They Had 2 Huge Reveiws On Them Saying How Amazing They Are.

I Suggest You Get The Cad Kit And The 1010

You'll Be Much Happier
 
With Cakewalk HS 2xl you can't use VST plug-ins unless you opt for the patch that lets you use them, which at the time cost just as much to upgrade to 4XL which allows you to use VSTs (which you can find 23423423 of for free download, and 234232 that cost more money too, but there are some damn nice free ones). That was the biggest for me. I'm not sure how it goes now, but you can read up on it all at www.cakewalk.com as far as other differences:



64 audio tracks and unlimited MIDI tracks
Pristine audio quality up to 24-bit/192 kHz
Included instruments: Virtual Sound Canvas, Dreamstation, and Sfz
Integrate ReWire™ compatible applications including Project5™, Kinetic™, and Reason™
Add sounds from additional DXi and VSTi soft synths
Never miss a take again with Confidence Recording
Keep perfect time with a built-in audio metronome
Use included ACID™-format library to create backing tracks
Arrange & Edit

Powerful editing: multi-clip edits, loop-rolling, fade drawing, more
Frequently used controls are right at your fingertips
Precise waveform display for detailed editing
Unlimited undo/redo with edit history
Navigator Pane to get a bird’s eye view of your entire project
Tweak pitch, pan, and gain of slices in any
ACID™-format loop to make them your own
Paint MIDI drum tracks with rhythmic pattern brush
Edit and print music notation
Mix & Share

Responsive mixing with a 32-bit floating point audio engine
All the effects you need: 15 audio effects, and 9 MIDI MFX
Add VST and DirectX effects with full plug-in delay compensation
Customizable Track Icons for easy organizing and mixing of projects
Control surface support
Export your mix: WAV, ACID-format WAV, AVI, MIDI, MP3*, Real Audio G2, Windows Media Audio (WMA), and Windows Media Video (WMV)
Burn your mixes to CD with included Pyro Express CD maker
*Includes 30-day trial MP3 Encoder


As far as an interface goes, just make sure you give yourself enough room to mic your drums and expand if that is your desire, or you'll be buying something else on down the road.
 
You guys are Awesome! Thanks for all of your suggestions.. I knocked out the walls last night, as per suggested above, Slight problem though.. the rest of the house caved in... but anything for the right sound!
I am going to order the CAD mics today... and probably the card next month... I can't wait to be able to record 10 inputs at once.. great for the drums.
Thanks again for all of your help!
 
the 1010 can be alittle tricky, those 10 inputs are 8 analog and 2 digital. So unless you actually have a piece of gear with the SPDIF out, you won't get 10 ins from it, but you still get 8 which is pretty damn good. If worse comes to worse, you can use multiple M-Audio Delta family Cards in one PC, up to four.

Example 4 Delta 1010's for 32 analog inputs, 32 analog outs, 8 digital ins and 8 digital outs.


And if you want an honest opinion on drum mics. Save up some money, or buy a few at a time, nowhere does it say that you have to have your entire setup tomorrow.

You'd probably be better off with a few SM57s for snare/hi-hat, a Sennheiser Bass mic, Sennheiser e604s (I think) for toms, and a few Pencil condesors for your overheads. Just my .02 on that. Good luck though!
 
You have a few weakest links, but the ones I see as being the most glaring are the soundcard, mics, and monitoring. Room treatment is obviously very important and should be dealt with as well.

I see the mixer as less important because once you get the new soundcard you will most likely be recording directly into it, bypassing the mixer. At least that is what I would do. You'll get a huge quality jump that way. In that scenario your mixer will be used for monitoring purposes more than anything else.

So I would upgrade in the order I listed above: soundcard, mics, monitoring, some room treatment, and then after that software and maybe mixer.
 
I agree with the soundcard first, then decent mic, then monitors, and accoustics. Problem is, they are ALL high priority because the weakest link will ruin the whole chain. I suggest at least a Delta 1010 LT if the budget is tight. It uses the same drivers as the 1010 but doesnt have balanced inputs. Does have two mic preamps that may help with the budget. I think you could use it in a multiple setup with another 1010 if you decided to upgrade for more inputs and went with the full 1010 since the drivers are the same. Bottom line is that they all are important, you could get by with inexpensive monitors if you got lucky on the tracking, mixing and mastering. If youre really serious about quality, look at spending about 5 grand for two world class channels. As mentioned above, the mixer is least important, just for monitoring setup.
 
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