am i missing something.?

[fivestarpacheco]

ok so im trying to have a nice home recording studio. what i have so far is a vocal booth in a closet covered inside with auralex foam, Rode NT1-A (mic), Motu 828 mkll interface (using sonar 8 with it), Studio Projects VTB1 series (mic preamp). my computer is good and i have krk monitors. now i see everyones pictures of their studios and they have mixers and all these kinds of things. what else do you guys suggest i should get.? ive been using the mixer in my DAW. im looking for the sound when i record in this audio clip. http://limelinx.com/files/e8bdee55ecbdc47165e77dcb69ecd49b. i juss cant get that nice clear sound. is it my mic preamp.?
how much better would my recordings sound with a presonus eureka.?

 

[Bristol Posse]

ok so im trying to have a nice home recording studio. what i have so far is a vocal booth in a closet covered inside with auralex foam, Rode NT1-A (mic), Motu 828 mkll interface (using sonar 8 with it), Studio Projects VTB1 series (mic preamp). my computer is good and i have krk monitors. now i see everyones pictures of their studios and they have mixers and all these kinds of things. what else do you guys suggest i should get.? ive been using the mixer in my DAW. im looking for the sound when i record in this audio clip. http://limelinx.com/files/e8bdee55ecbdc47165e77dcb69ecd49b. i juss cant get that nice clear sound. is it my mic preamp.?
how much better would my recordings sound with a presonus eureka.?

I'd say work with what you have until you know what is missing. Until then, If you don't know what is missing, anything you add is just preverbailly throwing mud at the wall and hoping something sticks.

Primarily focus on getting a good recorded sound with what you have, all the gear in the world is not much use if you don't have good source material to work with. Work with your gear until you reach the limits of what your gear can do, at that point you should understand it well enough to know what the weak link is in the chain that needs to be updated to get a fractional increase in quality.

 

[fivestarpacheco]

yea maybe your right . i think its just because i want to be able to do all these great things but its probably because i only know so little about making music right now. i only started this a month ago. its kind of indimidating. im uusing sonar 8 it seems difficult to use

 

[jamesduysen]

It sounds like you have decent enough gear to get good quality recordings. Like the above poster said, you want the best possible source. Make sure your vocalist does a good clean performance.

The sample audio you provided has been extensively processed. All of the EQ, Compression etc. is something you will have to use correctly(and sometimes sparingly) to get the sound you want.

When you are eqing, try fishing for frequencies. Find the ones that are particularly pleasing and boost them and find the ones that are particularly annoying and cut them. This can be done by lowering the Q then boosting the gain on a particular band and sweeping through the frequencies to find offending sounds.

Hope this helps,

-jD

 

[michaelSHK]

It very well could be your booth. How big is it? You might be better off tracking in your room instead of a closet.

 

[RAMI]

You might be better off tracking in your room instead of a closet.

I'd go so far as to say you'd ALWAYS be better off tracking in your room instead of a closet. I don't know why there is this influx lately of people building little "booths" and recording in their closet. It's never better. Treat the big room and record there.

 

[dkelley]

yes, +1 the last poster.

a vocal booth being ideal for recording vocals compared to a treated room is a fallacy. you get far worse early reflections in a vocal booth and they're way tougher to tame. a good vocal booth is INCREDIBLY hard to create and requires a LOT of top notch acoustic treatment to absorb all of the early reflections - and everything in a booth that small is an early reflection.

record in your room.

oh, and imho sell the nt1a (which will have a funny midrange tone to it, just how nt1a mics sound, not bad, but noticeable) and get a more neutral mic like a cad m179 or a better all around vocal mic (even a cheap mxl v67g is a better vocal mic than an nt1a imho - it doesn't have that nasty midrange thing which, in your case, will be exacerbated by the early reflections of your vocal booth). edit: if you're not mentally set on a condensor (which isn't 100% the best choice always), pick up an sm7 or a heil pr30 or an EV RE20 - amazing mics, all dynamics, 2 out of three need plenty of gain (sm7 and re20), but all sound great. all soudn better than an nt1a imho.

but mostly, record in your room. the vocal booth is only necessary when you need isolation when recording vocals at the same time as a loud guitar or drums or a full band or whatever.

sorry about that - the advantages of affordable vocal booths are a myth that needs to be debunked. a real vocal booth is far more difficult to build properly than just adding some basic wall treatments to your main room.

 

[The Cancers]

I'm really glad to see the pr30 included in that list of quality large diaphragm dynamics. It's just a great mic.

 

[Armistice]

Now that you've got a spare padded closet, your vampire mates can hang out there in the daytime...

How anyone can sing their soul into a song in a small confined space, technical limitations aside, is beyond me.

Go for the room and treat it as best you can...

Good luck!