About preamps...

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PRiZ

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Is a compressor in a preamp better than no compressor?
I'm thinking about the Art Pro Pac MP.
Is having only one channel a problem besides not being able to record two people at once...?
This preamp is reg 300, but I've see it for 240.
 
You can use a compressor, etc., seperatly. The Art is called a "Channel Strip". A channel strip takes a preamp, compressor, EQ from an expensive mixing board into one unit to save money.
 
Priz- the other problem with a single channel is that you cannot record in stereo. You might want to do that on certain instruments like acoustic guitar, piano, etc.......
 
yeah!...but

All I'm recording is vocals, so I wouldn't need two, and if I wanted the effect I could copy what I've done in software or something, right...?
someone answer this...
is it better to have compression on the preamp just to give it that edge...? I know it can be done in software, but I think I've heard it doesn't work as well, as if done when recording vocals...?True/false?
 
qwerty

An outboard compressor will help keep you from slamming your converters. Aside from that, you'll have a hard time finding a $300 compressor that is better than an excellent plug-in.
If you want to go ART, thier best piece for the money is the Tube Channel 259. It is an excellent front end, and could very well be your "gold channel" if you can't afford to spend money on a super expensive preamp. It lists for $525, and can be had for about $400 or so. Save your money and skip the tube pac.
I'm either buying one of those, or a dbx 586. Haven't decided yet.
Enjoy!
Paul
 
great...

"An outboard compressor will help keep you from slamming your converters. Aside from that, you'll have a hard time finding a $300 compressor that is better than an excellent plug-in."
...a plug in is just a software program?
"It is an excellent front end, and could very well be your "gold channel" if you can't afford to spend money on a super expensive preamp."
...by this you mean it might last me forever...?
sorry for being an idiot :)
 
qwerty

By gold channel, I mean the ONE preamp that is your staple, the one the big studios abuse that costs like $2000 or more. For a lower budget home recording person, our "Gold Channel" might be along the lines of a $500 preamp that is the best you can afford. Then, you might have a little Presonus Blue Tube or whatever its called ($199 or so) that will be your "optional preamp" if you will, for maybe getting a different color, but the ART will be the one you ususally use because its truly a decent preamp and sounds pretty good. Just dont make a little $50 preamp your staple if you want good recordings. At least get something decent. Read the review of it at prorec.com Try the Presonus MP20, its a dual preamp, and its decent, but no eq or anything. Really nice.
A plug in is a software compressor, yes.
 
asd

Oops, I goofed when I looked up the numbers... the Pro Channel is the one I was thinking of, not the Tube Channel... a little bit more expensive, but not much.
heres a review..
http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/052CE8CB2FAAC9818625687A00752A7B
I'd check out that mp20, too. Also, symetrix makes one that sjoko likes alot, check out thier stuff too.
Paul
Oh, the closest thing I can think of to a $2000 preamp is the dbx I mentioned, and its about $1000 list. I'm probably gonna get that and a Lucid 2 channel, perfect stereo setup for about $1500 total. I won't need much more at that point, aside from a dedicated high quality clock and a 5th job.
By the way, when choosing soundcards, if you are at all serious about putting money into it, try to find a card with a clock input, like the Delta 1010, if you might wanna buy a clock later in life.
 
hmmm...

I'm pretty sure the Lynx one has a clock...
what do clocks do anyways...?
I'm trying to find a preamp that's oriented around vocals, with a voice processor or something, but there all really high in price, or the one's I've seen are.
What is delay, when it comes to effects processers and reverbs etc. I just finally found a review form someone about my digital reverb I bought off someone a year ago. It's from 1987 and everything about it really sucks, but apparently it has nice delay :)
kinda pisses me off, I thought it was going to be good, it was made by Korg, now I realize it was a waste of 150$.
I didn't know jack about equipment back then, and trusted him.
He still doesn't know it's sh*t though, I've talked to him and he wants it back, mayby, I'll will just give him it back!..ergh!
...atleast then I get to be a nice guy :)
 
Re: qwerty

tubedude said:
An outboard compressor will help keep you from slamming your converters. Aside from that, you'll have a hard time finding a $300 compressor that is better than an excellent plug-in.
<<snip>>
Click to expand...

What about the RNC (Really Nice Compressor - http://www.fmraudio.com, less than $200USD each) I use 2 of these in Super Nice Mode on vocals and ac. guitar while tracking into my Delta 44.
Smooths out my levels, keeps me from clipping, sounds much better than the few plug-ins I've tried, don't have to go back to analog once recorded. I know that when you compress while tracking, there's no "going back" and that you should compress while mixing, but my music is pretty simple acoustic stuff, and I've had good results tracking with my RNCs and a Great River Pre (a bit pricey at $1300). This combo is my "Gold Channel"

Good luck Priz!

-Evan
 
Hey I missed this thread somehow...

I have been using the ARt TubePac for a couple years now. The compressor doesn't have enough controls (only threshold, a slope button, and a speed button) to be very useful. And when it kicks in, it's pretty noisy. You'd be better off using a pre amp and a RNC or a DBX comp than using this. In fact, I think I'm going to sell mine to someone if they will buy it.

H2H
 
thanks!...

I think I bumped into exactly what I had invisioned...
It's the Presonus VXP voice processor/channel strip.
It's 700 retail, but I've found it quite a bit cheaper, funny how my preamp is gonna be more than my soundcard, is this normal? anyways it looks like the "gold channel" for me...
Has anyone used this, or own one of these, any feedback is apreciated...? Here's a review...

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/06E03733904615448625687A008135A4

Also when is someone gonna tell me what delay is...?
 
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I think??? Bruce (Blue Bear) has that unit and loves it......
 
I'd like to hear from him...

I'm really thinking that tube preamps are better though for some reason, but I'm sure a preamp of this calibre will soung great with a good mic. It's listed at 800$ ...I found it for 530$ on sale.
Do you think I should grab it and never look back...?
 
DISCLAIMER: The following may sound harsh but I mean well and I only wish you the best of luck!

c7sus said:
I think you should go back to your employer and beg him to re-hire you.
Click to expand...

Truer words may never have been spoken. Man, I don't know what kind of bread you were makin' but this stuff gets expensive fast and unless you are the next [insert now rich and famous prodigy musician] you are not going to be making ANY money off of it for a damn long time. For real. Get used to it.

You come on this BBS with weird and uneducated questions saying that you quit your job to make and record music. Well thats all fine and good, but probably the best advice I can give you right now is "don't quit your day job." There's a reason that became a catch phrase and that reason is you. Even the people that "make it" have (in most cases anyway) worked extremely hard to get there.

In nine days you've racked up enough posts to become a "senior member" but show me another senior member who has so little to add to the community. And I don't really care about that, but at least listen to the guys like c7sus, H2H, tubedude, and Gidge that have been around a lot longer than me and DO contribute to community.

I want to emphasize what c7sus is telling you. If you could book some time in a small studio, or even just ask the engineer if you could sit in a few sessions just to watch what goes on, you'd probably walk away with experience more valuable than some piece of gear.

Also, he's right again, you're gonna be digging though the gray area to find your answers. And the best answers will come from what you learn on your own. That's why I recommended to you in another thread that you just get an extremely basic setup, like an SM57, an ART Tube MP, a decent sound card (even an SB Live is surprisingly decent), and some software (can even be free stuff, like PTFree). Once you have all of the above, just use it, learn it, and then use it again, and learn it better. Once you really know how you use this gear you will have realized its limitations so you'll know what else you'll need, and you'll be able to do justice to some better gear.

And please keep your day job. ;)
 
Ohhh come on guys! let me be a senior member.

nah, but seriously I think you all are fairly far off due to the fact you only got one side of the coin.

I have spent numerous days in a proffesional studio, working on my own music with the help of an almost proffesional producer.
(It was mainly hardware, but a computer to)
I have been searching through the internet and BBS's like this for the last month or even more...That's what these bbs's are for, help!

Here's some more reason's why I quite my dayjob.
1) My boss was abusive, and constantly put me down, I could have gone to court and sewed him, but that's not my style...
2) I was working under an environment that was as close to slave labor as Cananda gets. I seriously think half the people back in the overheated kitchen where illegal immigrants or something to the nature, they couldn't even do simple addition and subtraction to find their hours worked...the place would be closed down deffinitely if they new what went on.
3) Working full time five days a week was okay, because I had a vision of getting this equipment I'm getting now, but the yearn to express and create was to strong to deny any longer...even though I new I should of saved atleast another grand.
4) I was stressed. An all you can eat restuarant, that housed about 200-250 people during my shift, I had to cut
and refill all of the salad and deserts and as hard as I worked it just wasn't possible to fullfill the task...my boss just watched and waited for me to fuck up in any way to yell at me, or he would just make something up to yell at me...I'm serious!
5) I'm prepared to go with out cash for a while, and am planning on getting a part time job for extra cash, but if I work full time, I can tell you now my music ain't going nowhere...instead, I figure aslong as I'm working on music or working on something, even though I'm not getting paid, it will pay off.

Now you all are telling me I'm not ready yet, even though I quit my job to do this, I'm risking alot... The reason I have so many posts is becasue I spend most of my time doing what I quit my job to do...It's not hard to put up posts if that's all you have to do... and alot of the posts I ask are stupid, I even no the answers some of the time, but I wanna be sure... I'm cautious, I don't make blind decisions.

"Even the people that "make it" have (in most cases anyway) worked extremely hard to get there."

I still don't think I'm working near as hard as I could be...but more than most, with out a dought.

"In nine days you've racked up enough posts to become a "senior member" but show me another senior member who has so little to add to the community. And I don't really care about that, but at least listen to the guys like c7sus, H2H, tubedude, and Gidge that have been around a lot longer than me and DO contribute to community."

If you havn't noticed in the last few days I've helped out as many people as I have knowledge to do so...take alook! there's quite a few...

"NONE of the people here learned this stuff overnight. You're not gonna either. making a bunch of rash purchases at the suggestion or recommendation of complete and total strangers is foolish at best. No one here knows what YOUR NEEDS are. BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR NEEDS ARE!"

I've bought a computer after quite extensive research, that's it.
I was sick of wasting 2/3 of my time waiting for my computer to load, it was an old 486 with a cable modem, I new it would be beneficial to have a quicker computer.
I KNOW WHAT MY NEEDS ARE!
I'll list them right now:
I need a soundcard...I've found one!
I need a preamp...I'm almost positive I found one!
I need a mic...I've found out alot about mic's and am ready to decide.
I need a pair of monitors...same as above
I need an amp...am planning on getting a built into monitors system.
I know the programs I need, and have put that into concern when bugeting what I have.
what else do you need to know...
I need to know more and that will never change...
I'm not planning on leaving this board ever, so deal with me, or ignore me, but in my world I'm the king of this sh*t, self proclaimed!
 
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Re: I'd like to hear from him...

PRiZ said:
I'm really thinking that tube preamps are better though for some reason, but I'm sure a preamp of this calibre will soung great with a good mic. It's listed at 800$ ...I found it for 530$ on sale.
Do you think I should grab it and never look back...?
Click to expand...
Hmmm... sorry... I missed seeing this somehow!

Anyways - yes the PreSonus VXP has worked quite well for me - nice sound, and I was pleasantly surprised at running my Korg synth thru it lately - the IDSS (tube emulator) circuit really warmed up some of the harshness in the samples.

The only downside to the unit is the compressor - it has only limited application (since no paramters can be set)... I only use it occasionally on vocals if necessary, but I prefer to compress after the fact anyways if needed.

Just a comment on tube preamps (your post following the above question)... I posted this a couple of times in other threads... Tubes at the lower-end of the gear price range mean sh*t... all that has happened is a tube gain stage was placed into the circuit to add a coloration to the sound. It is more marketing hype than any true tube functionality. If you take the tube out of the unit, it will still pass a signal! How's that for non-essential stages...

A true tube pre will run you at least a couple of grand and you're looking at the Manley's, Neve's, Avalon's, Drawmer (Fletcher series), etc... and these units have been designed as tube circuits -- not simply a single tube stage... which is why the price tag is so high - good tube circuits are expensive.

That being said, you can get very good results with mic pres at the under 2K or even 1K mark, just don't fool yourself into thinking the tubes in gear at that price makes much of a difference....

Bruce
 
Your Needs

Priz,
Hang in there bud! I think people are trying to figure out your needs at a higher level. What type of music do you play? What instruments? What do you wish to accomplish with the recordings when they're done? Demos to send to record companies? Recordings to give out to family and friends? To sell at gigs? When embarking on an adventure like this, it's good to let people (as well as yourself) know your expectations. Kind of like a business plan when starting a business. You don't go and proclaim "I want to start a business, I know I need a computer, an office, a filing system, and some cubicles!". You need to state what the business is for - such as "I want to sell widgets to people via the internet". It will be a long road ahead, it will be frustrating...But when you get that great track down and play it back and smile, it will all be worth it! One of my best experiences was recording a solo acoustic guitar fingerstyle track late one night. Sounded really good, in the morning I jumped out of bed and before I made my coffee I fired up my system to listen back to the track, and I smiled again!
(done my rambling)
I apologize if you stated your needs somewhere else (I'm trying to keep up with all these threads!), but if not, knowing some of your goals would help us a ton!
Good luck!

-Evan

PS-not a slag, but you may want to check some of your spelling and grammar before posting. :cool:


PRiZ said:

I KNOW WHAT MY NEEDS ARE!
I'll list them right now:
I need a souncard...I've found one!
I need a preamp...I'm almost positive I found one!
I need a mic...I've found out alot about mic's and am ready to decide.
I need a pair of monitors...same as above
I need an amp...am planning on getting a built into monitors system.
I know the programs I need, and have put that into concern when bugeting what I have.
what else do you need to know...
I need to know more and that will never change...
I'm not planning on leaving this board ever, so deal with me, or ignore me, but in my world I'm the king of this shit, self procalimed!
Click to expand...
 
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