Industry standard/ workhorse gear

  • Thread starter Thread starter Skronk
  • Start date Start date
S

Skronk

New member
Hello, I'm currently in the process of acquiring the basics of a home studio but in my endless hours of research it seems I'm just discovering endless options to research further. A good example would be microphones, there are a LOT of different microphones! To a newbie this is a bit overwhelming seeing as every time I come across a recommended model I have to leave this website and check prices and such on a different website only to find its a $600 mic or its for a specialized purpose. So I'm hoping to get a solid place to start on the most basic stuff I need. The workhorse industry standard stuff. A good example would be the Shure SM-57. It's cheap. It's a workhorse. And while it may not be the best for recording say semi-hollow bodies going through class A amps in a mid-sized room on Tuesdays, its a good all around mic that'll get the job done. These are the kind of recommendations I'm looking for. And if I may make one more request I'd like to keep this opinion free, or as much as possible. I'm sure we can debate for hours why the SM-57 sucks or rocks but I'll be doing that research myself once I can narrow down my options. Hopefully this can be a very useful resource for beginners like myself to get an idea where to start. Feel free to mention anything a home studio needs: pre-amps, mixers, monitors etc. As usual my apologies if this has been done before but searching "workhorse" and "industry standard" didn't get me very far. Thanks to all who reply!
 
For what you describe, I would go for a Sennheiser MD 421 as a workhorse general-purpose microphone.

It's great for instruments and vocals alike.

And - unlike the SM 57 - there are not millions of fakes on the internet.
 
There are so many options for everything. Asking for definitive recommendations - but no opinions? Can't have one without the other.
 
mjbphotos said:
There are so many options for everything. Asking for definitive recommendations - but no opinions? Can't have one without the other.
Click to expand...


Sure you can! Here's how:

"say jack, what's happening?"
"Oh I don't know, just wondering what the industry standard in guitars were and stuff"
"Well, I don't get down with them but you'll find fender strats and gibson les paul's on countless records"
"Hey alright!"
 
Ok, you'll find Shure and AKG and Neumann and Sennheiser mics on lots of recordings.
You'll find lots of home recordists with M Audio, Presonus, Tascam, Steinberg, and Moto audio interfaces.
You'll find lots of people using M Audio, Yamaha, and KRK monitors.

Did that help you much? :facepalm:

Do some reading here - separate preamps and mixers are not needed in the basic homerecordist's setup. The audio interface has the preamps and you will do your mixing 'in the box' - in your DAW itself.
 
Since you mostly asked about mics, these are my suggestions:

  • Shure SM7B (great on bass, vocals, or just about anything)
  • EV RE20 (great on voice, bass, kick or low horns)
  • Shure Beta 57 (brighter than the SM, nice on snare)
  • AKG D112 (kick, bass, or floor tom, occasionally guitars when paired with the c418)
  • Sennheiser MKII 421 (good all rounder great on guitars or toms)
  • Beyer M160 (ribbon mic great on vocals, can take high SPL, killer on horns and room)
  • Beyer M88 (great on kick, vocals or snare)
  • Sennheiser e609 (guitars)
  • Sennheiser e602 (lesser known kick mic that is somewhere between a D112 and an Audix D6)
  • Sennheiser e604 (good for snare or toms)
  • Neumann K184 (or K84 if you can find them, great on vocals, overheads, acoustic or anything else high detail - smooth sound)
  • Oktava mk 012 (good for high hat, overheads, or acoustic guitar - good all rounder for high detail)
  • AKG c414 (vocals, overheads, room, great multi-pattern all rounder)
  • Royer R121 (guitars, drum overheads, horns or anything else requiring a warm ribbon sound without too much mud)
  • Audio Technica 4040 (most of their 40 series is great, great all-rounder - vocals and overheads)
  • Audio Techinica ATM350 (strings, double bass, bass guitar, or horns - AMAZING mic)
  • Audio Technica AE3000 (toms - only thing I used them on and they sounded amazing)
  • Neumann u87 (it's a Neumann - vocals, toms, overheads, room, pretty much anything)
  • Neumann u67 (see above)
  • Neumann u47 (front of kick, Frank Sinatra - WARM)


Some might disagree with me but those are pretty much all the studio work horses that have stood the test of time, IMO of course. You could make a top class recording with any one of those.

Cheers :)
 
Last edited:
mjbphotos said:
Ok, you'll find Shure and AKG and Neumann and Sennheiser mics on lots of recordings.
You'll find lots of home recordists with M Audio, Presonus, Tascam, Steinberg, and Moto audio interfaces.
You'll find lots of people using M Audio, Yamaha, and KRK monitors.

Did that help you much? :facepalm:

Do some reading here - separate preamps and mixers are not needed in the basic homerecordist's setup. The audio interface has the preamps and you will do your mixing 'in the box' - in your DAW itself.
Click to expand...


I don't understand why you're being so antagonistic. I've only made a couple posts so I couldn't have offended you already. I asked about mixers and pre-amps and such because I have an analog set-up. My only other posts were in the analog forum but I thought it more appropriate in the newbie forum. Maybe it was a dumb idea for a thread but nobody is forcing you to answer so why not just skip it instead of trying twice to make me feel stupid for asking a question IN THE NEWBIE THREAD. Thanks to the people who did reply and especially the super detailed mic reply. I just thought people could throw out a couple answers known to be what a lot of people start out with that serves them well till they get more experience.
 
I actually don't think that $600 is a lot for a mic but here is an absolute newbie mic answer where no budget has been stated:


For Vocals and acoustic instruments get an Audio Technica AT2020 or AT2035, or better still a Rode NT1. There are many more but they are almost all the same quality.
Then get a SM57, for micing guitar cabs, percussion, etc

You will get both for way under the $600 mic, depending where you are in the world (I wish people would say, not everyone lives in the USA) probably under $250 for both. Then the collection begins.

Mic pres? Mixers? You need a good recording interface (1000's out there, look at Tascam, Presonus?) and software with a mixer, Reaper maybe?

I think the problem with the answers is that the question is a bit vague.

Alan.
 
Skronk said:
Sure you can! Here's how:

"say jack, what's happening?"
"Oh I don't know, just wondering what the industry standard in guitars were and stuff"
"Well, I don't get down with them but you'll find fender strats and gibson les paul's on countless records"
"Hey alright!"
Click to expand...

Naw, that is just redundant.

You asked for a judgment without opinion. That is not possible in recording. Even if you gave exactly what you wanted to achieve/the gear you have/the instrument you are recording...there is no possibility of knowing the sound of your room/the instrument/the quality of the instrument... Not to mention the performance, which trumps everything else.


This is a question that cannot really be answered without opinion.

Who was being antagonistic? Sounds like your response, recorded on a mic that someone inappropriately recommended without opinion to base it on, recorded through an interface that has no reviews.

Opinions are exactly what you should be looking for. Just watch out, as there are many out there with bad opinions.

Off to a good start 5 posts into this forum, delegating what is good info tho. I see this working well for you. :)
 
Oh I missed the bit about the analog setup, should have said this at the beginning,

You just need a mixer that has direct recording outs and tape monitoring. There are a few around, again it depends on the budget. If your budget is low, look around for an old Tascam studio mixer like the M2524, you will pick up for a few hundred $.

The attitude thing comes about when the question is so open that nobody knows what is really being asked, and a lot of the questions have been answered a 1000 times before. "I need to buy string, how much do I need" type questions. Try asking by stating

what it is you want to do
How much you want to spend
What are the expectations of the results

Alan.
 
Mo Facta has a nice list. I would add:
Shure sm81
AKG C451B
Beyerdynamic m201
 
jimmys69 said:
Naw, that is just redundant.

You asked for a judgment without opinion. That is not possible in recording. Even if you gave exactly what you wanted to achieve/the gear you have/the instrument you are recording...there is no possibility of knowing the sound of your room/the instrument/the quality of the instrument... Not to mention the performance, which trumps everything else.


This is a question that cannot really be answered without opinion.

Who was being antagonistic? Sounds like your response, recorded on a mic that someone inappropriately recommended without opinion to base it on, recorded through an interface that has no reviews.

Opinions are exactly what you should be looking for. Just watch out, as there are many out there with bad opinions.

Off to a good start 5 posts into this forum, delegating what is good info tho. I see this working well for you. :)
Click to expand...


Ever have those days when it seems like the whole world has gone mad and you're the only sane one? When I do I realize it must be me and try to step back and see what I'm missing. Maybe you guys can help me see where I went out of tune. I re-read my original post and I just don't see where I asked for judgement. I asked to be told what a couple mics that a good chunk of people use are. An industry standard if you will. Then I wrote that I'd like it to be general purpose and not specified to a hollow body in a mid sized room etc and I'm told I need to specify the room and instrument. From there I'm told my response sounds like it was recorded through an interface that has no reviews. I have no idea what this means. Does it mean I'm too new? Because even a bad interface would have reviews so to have no reviews means I just got here, right? Well ok, I'm new. Maybe if there were a category just for newbies where they don't have to be afraid if they ask a question they'll get jumped on. Sheesh. Even if you had no idea what I was talking about in my first post (which I'm guessing you didn't read well after stating I asked for judgement) you surely could have figured it out after the multiple examples and me thanking the people who replied with actual information. But because I'm here to learn I will apologize, to you sir, for my ineptitude in describing what information I seek and I will try again to better explain myself with a couple more examples.

"Hey I just bought some new headphones, seems x, y and z are the staples for the beginner. I went with z cause they're cheaper"

"Shopping for monitors, eh? Most beginners go with a, b or c.

It doesn't have to be all inclusive, the next guy can add "hey don't forget these monitors, they served me and a lot of other people well when we first started. I just find it hard to believe that every person started with a different microphone that was specific to recording country musicians in mid sized rooms when playing acoustic guitars but not lap-steels. There has to be some kind of mic that's more of a standard for beginners than others. Same goes with monitors, every single person bought a different set of monitors when starting out? There's no two or three kinds that seem to be common?
 
I used mic just as an example. Thanks for all the great mic information you guys have given me.
 
I Would use tool times Binford 8200! >chimpanzees grunting of approval<
 
Skronk said:
As usual my apologies if this has been done before but searching "workhorse" and "industry standard" didn't get me very far. Thanks to all who reply!
Click to expand...

Well...first off, what do you really mean by "industry standard"....?
I mean, you're on a home rec forum where at a conservative estimate I would guess that at least half the guys posting have never been involved with the recording "industry".

Also, when you feel a $600 mic is a bit too much....well, in the "industry" you might find some $6000 mics being used regularly.

And.....even if you were just talking to all recording industry pros, you could end up getting many different answers AFA what each person thought the "industry standard" was for them, so in the end, it will still be opinion based info in most cases.

Not trying to give you a hard time (I don't think anyone here is)....but you seem to be expecting some sort of group mindset here about what is "industry standard" gear, and I don't think you will get that.

I think the better approach would be to state your goal and what kind of budget you have, and then just go from there.
The beauty of audio gear these days is that there is so much of it and at wide variety of prices....so "industry standard" will not be the same thing from person to person and from budget to budget.
 
miroslav said:
I think the better approach would be to state your goal and what kind of budget you have, and then just go from there.
The beauty of audio gear these days is that there is so much of it and at wide variety of prices....so "industry standard" will not be the same thing from person to person and from budget to budget.
Click to expand...

Yep.
Tell us:
1) What gear you have now
2) What style of music, instruments, voices you will be recording
3) What your budget is

Everything you are going to get is an opinion - some may have more concensus than others.
 
Lol. I guess the OP meant no flame wars, please...right?

Like, he doesn't care if you love or hate sm7b...Fact is it's ubiquitous and incredibly useful.
Kinda goes without saying that for every mic there'll be someone who doesn't like it.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Lol. I guess the OP meant no flame wars, please...right?

Like, he doesn't care if you love or hate sm7b...Fact is it's ubiquitous and incredibly useful.
Kinda goes without saying that for every mic there'll be someone who doesn't like it.
Click to expand...

Yes! Yes! That's exactly what I'm looking for! Ubiquity! Surely there's a handful of models that are very common and will serve a beginner well in a general all purpose way? I hear you guys asking for gear and space and music style and I understand that would help for a more precise answer but I'm not looking for a precise answer. If I said its for rock on a strat played through a Marshall I'm sure you'd recommend a great mic for that but what if the next day I'm playing black-polka on a Casio through a pignose? I'm just starting out, having to purchase a different mic for any musical possibility seems best a bit further down the road for me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top