tiny room HR review and Holy Grail mic / chain

CoolCat

Well-known member
In the mood to compare all the gear Ive stacked up in this crap-hole room with a search for my Holy Grail Vocal Mic/ Gear combo up to 2019.
I love gear, but for 2020 Im streamlining and going to try more playing and improve the Playback and dump bad habits.

I asked myself WHAT DO I REALLY NEED?
Solo-Hobby HR doing this a couple hours a month. I realized I spent more time shopping for gear than using it.'
Being lazy I want a Holy Grail Vocal Mic that doesn't need a lot of help later and works in the Tiny Crap room here.
I need a decent Playback system.

I have too many Preamps.
So starting with the SM7, that takes the best shot at removing crappy room issues while having a "fame name"...
the preamps were recorded into Reaper.

1) interface preamp
2) DMP3
3) DAV Bg1
4) ART TPS
5) LA610
6) PodFarm Realtime Neve1073 and more

then I thought...to blow the dust off the best mic Ive owned technically and most expensive the RODE NTV Tube with jensens, wimas and a $1200 retail mic....LDC etc... same preamps....same procedure to Reaper..
then I thought, the KSM27 LDC...why not!....round out the selection of mics to include the non-tube LDC.
same preamps..... same procedure...

after putting the Tracking closed back headphones away and turning ON the ugly reality monitors in a crap room that I rarely use, the playback began...the next day....with rested ears.

Im unbiased in all of it because I don't care really. First I noticed how crappy it all sounded, my room etc.. so turned off the monitors and went for the Beyer880 Headphones and Grace Design 901 headphone amp. (I should just sell my monitors too they are no good in this tiny room.DYNAUDIO BM5)

The Playback Gear shows how little difference my preamps and mics seem to make, it all sounds kind of blah with no combination jumping out like HOLY GRAIL!!!! is found. I admit its all done like in Engineer testing voice which is even more boring.

Interesting was the S'sss and Ssshhhesss" seemed to peak the worst. Mostly when the Compressor was cranked. Again in the Fake Closed Back delusional tracking the SSS's and crap is hidden due to closed back bass heavy muffled speakers...

The logical part of my brain seems to have once again concluded, with what so many have said a million times before, Recording DRY and doing the fun stuff later in the Mix with the best playback system you have is better for me. Tracking Headphones LIE basically...lol

so for 2020.... Im going to one mic, the interface clean recordings and everything else is going, I might keep the DMP3 because its so cheap or the Cloudlifter because its so cheap and simple and allows me to not have to reach behind the rack.
...but both these cheap and simple units soundwise seem to sound as good as my much more expensive items...in my room for my needs.

In Short...IMO
1) Closed Back headphones are horrific for setting tones during tracking...especially in extreme mode. Everything sounds bassier and better in this but when played back can sound like ass.

2) Monitors in a closet room of crap probably brings everything down to some blah level of HR acoustics.
**So probably better off using good open back headphones and a nice headphone amp in this environment.
Logical just use the BEST PLAYBACK system I have for making important decisions. So no monitors, no room money spent, Headphone Amp and Headphone for mixing in this tiny room of HR Hobbyness.

So Black Friday and Christmas Sale will happen, and purge the small pile that seems so large a pile in a super small room here...Streamline sounds better than burnt out...so Im streamlining. REVERB seems to be the best place to sell imo. GC offers shiiiitmoney and FleaBay seems to have too much flea bag customers and scammers.

Of the 22+ Tracks...the Interface Preamps win for me, recording dry and clean is wiser for my skill level.

So my next test is to gather all my mics and plug in the 8 Channel interface and compare then sell the non-needed mics without any outboard help and no FX & Tracking Headphone decisions will be made.
 
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