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You don't need an "excellent" mic to get great vocals. You also don't need to be 3-4 inches (!) from the mic. I mean, you can certainly get an excellent vocal from, say, an Aston mic, which will set you back about 200-300 bucks. I use Cad Equiteks, the 100 - 200 - 300-- I'd stack those...

The monitors are too low on the desk! Raise them up so that they're at ear level. Also, the left monitor is at the wrong angle, and the right one seems off too; both speakers should be firing at ear-level, meeting at a point just behind your head. Your head is at one point of an equilateral...

Drummer goes first--it's especially easy in our case, since he wrote the songs. He knows exactly what to play. If I'm working on my own stuff, then I work out the song on acoustic guitar, then play to a click or some kind of simple beat, then vocals, then I massage the beat the click, adding a...

Tape is back? Only in his dreams.

Exactly! The recorded and mixed song is a thing unto itself, often very different from a simply recorded live performance. Do what you want t get the sound you want.

Wow! I know Howe has quite a few acoustic instruments in his collection.

Might want to have your hearing checked out too.

Yes indeed. You want to avoid using too many plugins if you can help it. I know a lot of "pros" use ungodly amounts of plugs, and I think once you get used to using them, you can't get unused to it. Plus, many of their colleagues use the same plugs, so perhaps they feel the need to use them too.

Yeah, I bought a modded Berhringer ADA 8000, from Revive audio. The first thing I noticed about the unit is it got very hot--the faceplate by the on/off switch was quite hot to the touch after about an hour's use, definitely hotter than the stock ADA 8000. I thought, "how long will this thing...

Our band direct injects all the electrics (and the other guy's acoustic also), after either going through an old Line 6 Pod xt (me) or some distortion and delay pedals (the other guy). I Can't imagine doing it differently. We monitor on headphones. No dicking around with mic placement or...

One of the main things to look for in buying a pre-amp, or any kit, is, "Is it going to last?" One aspect of good gear is that it (should) at least far outlast something that is far cheaper, but this not always the case, is it?

"Can anyone suggest something that's really going to sound great?" Yes: all the pre-amps you listed. It's the room, and the monitoring. SOS magazine famously did a blind mic pre-amp shoot-out years ago, with well-known (and expensive) mic-pre's losing out to a . . . ART pre-amp, the Pro MP...

It might be time--well past time--to start using amp sims. At least try it out. You can eliminate a huge amount of lost time. There are some really good ones out there, and even the cheaper ones are quite good. Things have progressed mightily in the sim department. I recently saw a story in...

I believe those outputs (and inputs) are balanced. Also, I have an ADA 8000 that does (did--I stepped up to an ADA 8200) sync up to a Focusrite 1st and 2nd generation 18i20. I'm probably just lucky; those interfaces do not get along well sometimes with Samplitude.

Hello Dave, Yes indeed! Thanks! I thought there might be something called "stand-alone mode" for the 18i20, but didn't follow through on the search at Focusrite's site, maybe because I know of the expertise of people here.

I have two Focusrite 18i20s, and I was wondering (hoping against hope) if I could use them as input and outputs only: that is, don't use it as the main interface, but rather more like, say, a Focusrite OctoPre. I was thinking of using them along with an RME RayDat card. Why do I have two? One...

"I recieved a stereo track of a nylon acoustic guitar to learn for a collaboration. Timing , tuning and overall quality was pretty poor but it had a Huge sound and covered All of the stereo field." The great sound is essentially moot if the perfomance is poor, no?

If you were trying to make it sound a little like Barber's "Adagio For Strings" you succeeded. Sounds pretty good to me, EQ-wise.

Well, I'd say about ten to maybe 20 minutes before monitor-listening is pointless, unless I'm recording an electric guitar or a synth and I don't have to worry about a mix decision, or were I'm sitting or standing in the room. I mix it up, using open- and closed-back phones before the final...

Many audio interfaces, such as the Focusrite 18i20, which I use, can give you up to 5 separate mixes, whereby you can adjust the levels of the individual inputs/players and the DAW output to suit each mix that goes to those players.* These are latency-free, because they bypass the DAW, though...