bluegrass acoustic song

pcstudios

Member
I've been trying to decide whether to buy a better quality preamp. After getting serious about my recording techniques and mixing with what I already own, I may not buy anything after all.

Right now I have a Golden Age Pre-73 Jr with a Neumann TLM102 mic. For stereo micing the guitar, banjo and mandolin, I also used a SM81 straight into the interface pre. I was going to either buy the ART Pro Channel II Preamp/EQ/Compressor or splurge and get the Chameleon Labs 7603 Preamp/EQ.

I play acoustic bluegrass, and did all the parts on this song. I didn't use many plugins on the mix. On the master I used compression, mid/side eq, stereo imager, saturation, limiter.

If you guys think I should just continue to work with what I have, and that the sonic quality sounds good enough for distribution (not that I want to push this particular song), then I'll consider recording people with my current equipment.

View attachment Darlin Cora master_print2-St.mp3
 
I liked the tune dude. Not much mix advise other than maybe EQ the guitar. There's one chord that gets a bit muddy. Maybe have the guitar stand on it's own a little more. Overall a really good effort.
 
It felt just a little dense, and maybe the bass droned a little for my taste. I guess I like a little more acoustic, "thumpy" [bass] sound, and it might let it breathe some, because I just didn't feel quite as much give and take, overall, as a real ensemble might have.

I'm not sure what you are looking for, and you don't say what your interface is, but a preamp is pretty far down on the list of things that will make a difference IMO. You've got a lot of color options with the Pre-73, but I'd probably look at something more vintage-y sounding in mics before another pre.

I would skip the stereo micing of instruments in something like this (i.e., this many instruments), too.

But, a lot of personal taste there, and the tune stands up pretty well. Good job!
 
It felt just a little dense, and maybe the bass droned a little for my taste. I guess I like a little more acoustic, "thumpy" [bass] sound, and it might let it breathe some, because I just didn't feel quite as much give and take, overall, as a real ensemble might have.

I'm not sure what you are looking for, and you don't say what your interface is, but a preamp is pretty far down on the list of things that will make a difference IMO. You've got a lot of color options with the Pre-73, but I'd probably look at something more vintage-y sounding in mics before another pre.

I would skip the stereo micing of instruments in something like this (i.e., this many instruments), too.

But, a lot of personal taste there, and the tune stands up pretty well. Good job!

I'm using a Yamaha-Steinberg UR44 interface. I kind of lied about the instruments - for bass, I'm using an electric bass and not an acoustic bass. Everything else is acoustic. That may account for some lack of thump. I'd much rather hear an acoustic bass for songs like this, but I don't own one.

I'm liking the stereo mic method because I like the smoother result of using 2 mics than just 1. Plus, you get a stereo image from 2 mics you don't get from mono. If you look at the stereo signal you see one second the left is a hair higher than the right, and then vice versa. This gives a pleasant sound to my ears. I think the harsher frequencies that may need dynamic eq on a mono signal actually experience some pleasant phase cancellations when you mic in stereo.
 
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