Needing comments on my possible setup

[bloodyvalentine]

Hey,

First of all, i'd like to say hi for everyone, since i'm new and I hate asking stupid questions like a dinosaur without presenting.

ok, this being done, lets get on with my question. i'm planning to record a couple of metal tracks with my friends, so nothing really serious untill now, just to get a chance to play a lill bit with my gear and software and eventually be able to get better results, and maybe record with a more serious band.

So I guess most of you already know what i'm going to ask, but i'd like to know if 1st recording with that stuff will ever sound right and 2nd if there is anything better I could buy. i know these are pretty low-end devices, but anyways.

ok so my gear is:

--> computer <--
- 4GB ram
- 2 ghz C2D
- HD2600 (512mb ddr3)
- 300GB HD

-->sound card and mixer <--
- M-audio fast track usb (the very first one, wich has 2 ins, one XLR and one 1/4)
- behringer XENYX 802 (6 1/4 ins, 2 XLR ins with phantom power) (not bought yet...)

--> mics <--
- samson Q7 as a vocal mic (BTW, is it better than a shure c606? cause i'd believe so, but i'm kinda unsure about it...) (not bought yet)
- CAD DMTP7 mics for drums (not bought yet either)

--> software <--
- Guitar Rig pro 4
- Adobe Audition 3.0

I guess thats everything. My last question would be if plugging my drums mic in my mixer then hooking it up to the sound card would sound great, i know the best thing I could do is buying a 8-ins sound card but thats way too expensive for me and the m-audio perfectly does the job.


thank you very much guys
BTW, feel free to comment on only part of the gear since i'd like to know if everything i'm planning to buy works the way it is supposed to.

 

[mjbphotos]

You might want to give Reaper software a try. What about monitors?

 

[bloodyvalentine]

ok, i'll probably give reaper a try... and well I'm not planning to buy any monitor now, I have very good headphones i'll use until I get something else, but my drummer said he could buy some, so let see...

 

[Minion]

You can probably get an old used M-audio Delta 1010LT (8 in/8 Out/Midi/Spdif) for $100 or less and rent/Buy a Mixer that has Direct outs for each channel and be able to record 8 Ins at a time for pretty cheap .....

Cheers


PS: I used to record my Drums through an 8CH mixer into a 2 ch Interface and got OK results but it took a Lot of tweaking on the mixer before I was able to get a good mix ......

 

[bloodyvalentine]

hey,

thanks for responding. I had a look @ the m-audio delta 1010, and i gotta say it looks kinda good, but i forgot to mention my main recording comp is a laptop, so no ways to hook the card to it :s thanks anyways, +repping everyone responding to my topic BTW

 

[bloodyvalentine]

don't know if it is tolerated here but up?

 

[The Cancers]

Why are you gonna buy a 7 piece drum mic kit when you're only gonna have three preamps total?
Why are you buying the mixer? Am I incorrect in assuming you don't have any external preamps? What are you going to do with those 6 line ins?
Skip the mixer, get yourself an external preamp to send to that line input on the m-audio (which I'm assuming you already have) - art and behringer both make some in the $20-$40 range - then get yourself something besides a seven-piece drum mic kit (only two pieces of which you'd be able to use anyway). Maybe something like this:
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/CAD-CM217-Condenser-Mic-Buy-One-Get-One-FREE?sku=271324
You wanna mic your drumset, figure out where in whichever room you can record in they sound the best, and mic them with a two mic setup. Google it. It's what they did for years and years.
And years.

And finally.
Is it gonna sound good?

No.

So what. It'll sound better than the last time every time you do it.

 

[bloodyvalentine]

hey,

thanks for responding to my post. About that mixer thing, i assumed that since 5 of these mics were dynamic mics, i could just plug em in the mixer, set em from here then hook the mixer to my m-audio card to record, without using any external preamps, but since i'm a total beginner in that domain, maybe you could confirm me i'm wrong to try to do it that way?

 

[The Cancers]

Any microphone needs a preamp.
Condensers additionally need phantom power, but those trs inputs on that mixer will not amplify any microphone loud enough to create a usable signal.

That's one of the reasons why mixers and interfaces with more preamps are always more expensive - it's a more complicated and expensive circuit to cleanly amplify the tiny signal sent by a microphone than it is to just mix in a signal that's already at line level.

 

[studiogenocide]

Glad this Thread is here...

I feel like such a noob in this respect: I know my gear pretty well, but overall I really don't know gear.... I've been using the same gear now for about 10 years I guess, and now that we've expanded our little studio, I see my gear needs to expand, but truthfully, I am not really sure exactly what to get.... so maybe this is the place to ask being that we are on what this young man needs...

The other day, someone told me to up their vocal signal in their headphones. Well, on my DAW, I maxed out that channel volume at like +6 dB, but it still wasn't loud enough. I compensated by turning the other tracks down and boosting the headphone out signal, but I know there has got to be a better way, a more efficient way. I am thinking an upgrade in my DAW with outs going into a headphone amp would fix this problem (currently my DAW has 4 ins and no outs). The one I want has 8 in/ 8 out. Am I on the right track?

 

[mixsit]

I feel like such a noob in this respect: I know my gear pretty well, but overall I really don't know gear.... I've been using the same gear now for about 10 years I guess, and now that we've expanded our little studio, I see my gear needs to expand, but truthfully, I am not really sure exactly what to get.... so maybe this is the place to ask being that we are on what this young man needs...

The other day, someone told me to up their vocal signal in their headphones. Well, on my DAW, I maxed out that channel volume at like +6 dB, but it still wasn't loud enough. I compensated by turning the other tracks down and boosting the headphone out signal, but I know there has got to be a better way, a more efficient way. I am thinking an upgrade in my DAW with outs going into a headphone amp would fix this problem (currently my DAW has 4 ins and no outs). The one I want has 8 in/ 8 out. Am I on the right track?

Your question kind of derails Bloodyv's, better in these cases maybe to begin a new. But the logic is sound. When the range is maxed out, nothing left but to reduce the others, 'hotter in the mix being a relative thing. So are one of the out pairs doing phones mix in this case or..?

Why are you gonna buy a 7 piece drum mic kit when you're only gonna have three preamps total?
Why are you buying the mixer? Am I incorrect in assuming you don't have any external preamps? What are you going to do with those 6 line ins?
Skip the mixer, get yourself an external preamp to send to that line input on the m-audio (which I'm assuming you already have) - art and behringer both make some in the $20-$40 range - then get yourself something besides a seven-piece drum mic kit (only two pieces of which you'd be able to use anyway). Maybe something like this:
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com...REE?sku=271324
You wanna mic your drumset, figure out where in whichever room you can record in they sound the best, and mic them with a two mic setup. Google it. It's what they did for years and years.
And years.

And finally.
Is it gonna sound good?

No.

So what. It'll sound better than the last time every time you do it.

Yes. A decent bare bones setup; For example 2 or 3 for the kit, a pair maybe for a left/right stage'/room (work on decent real amp blends) and a line out from the the pa/vocal mix .

 

[studiogenocide]

Yes, I have two stereo outs, one for monitors, and the other for phones, in which case I have split 4 ways for 4 users- me included. I was thinking I could get a new DAW, the 8 would be plenty of ins for what I am doing, and route the outs that I need boosted to the headphone amp (I don't have yet), and then if someone needed a specific signal boost, I could turn a knob rather than mouse an entire mix..... I suppose what I am asking is, do I have the right idea? Will this do what I think it does? I have a ton of other wuestions about gear as well, maybe I should start a new thread!

 

[bloodyvalentine]

Hey,

after reading many things about preamps, I think I have two choices left:

1st, but everything as planned, and record my drums with only the 2 condensators that come with th 7-pieces kit, then add individual preamps to the 5 remaining pieces when i'll have money.

2nd, sell my m-audio interface and buy a 8-ins with preamps one, wich would be expensive but kinda easy to use.

any recommentadions about one of those options, gear you could sell me for cheap or you know I could get for a low-price would be great

p.s. I live in canada, so sending links to websites that won't ship here is totally useless

btw thank for responding, I think I was about to have a bad surprise X.x

 

[The Cancers]

Just remember that, with option 1, you'll still only ever be recording two tracks into your DAW (one from the XLR in, one from the line in in the m-audio).
Now, one or both of these will be a mix of multiple mics (accomplished using the line out or outs from the Behringer mixer), but they'll only be two editable tracks within the DAW.
Option 2 will allow you two have up to eight different tracks recorded simultaneously, and you won't need to spend the money on the Behringer mixer or the several extra preamps.
And, in my experience at least, the preamps in one of the eight-input firewire interfaces that generally retail around $500 new are as good as, if not better than the entry level art or behringer single channel preamps you'd probably end up buying.
I'm not sure why you feel like you have to buy that drum micing kit.
Any microphone can mic drums, and any two can be a "drum micing kit."
The drummer doesn't look at playing a kit as playing seven different instruments, he looks at it as playing a kit.
So you can get great sounds by treating it like one instrument and using one or two mics to pick up the sound of it played all together.

Either way I think, ultimately, for flexibility's sake, unless you're supremely confident in your ability to combine the outputs of seven microphones - all residing within the limited space of a single drumkit - into a usable (let alone good sounding) take on recording (which is way harder than it might initially seem because of the phasing issues that arise when sound waves from the same sources hit all those different mics at slightly different times), you ought to go with option two of the two you provided.

I think in the meantime, though, you ought to get yourself just a single sdc, (or a pair - like those buy1get1 Cads I pointed out) and a cheapo external preamp - total investment under $100 thus far - and work with what you do have for an interface.
2 inputs, two mics, experiment with the dynamic you have plus a condenser overhead, or the two condensers overhead in a stereo configuration, whatever, and play around in the room you've got.
I'll go ahead and guarantee that it'll sound better than that behringer mixer, 7-piece drum mic kit, and five crappy external preamps, and by the time you have enough saved up to buy that eight-preamp interface, you'll know what to do with all eight of them.

 

[The Cancers]

And I just read the PS. Dude, that was just an example of the ridiculously cheap piece of shit microphones you can get individually (and of which your 7-piece kit will be made up) without having to pay for several piece of shit microphones you will likely never end up using more than once.