Steenamaroo
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I have Yamaha actives and I use beyerdynamic headphones as well as listening in the car/consumer systems to get a feel for what others will hear.
I know you’d all find this boring but I’d rather set up the microphone to an amp once. Ready for recording every time - the best place it can be and then I never have to worry about it. I feel it should be the arrangement that excites not the production - but this is probably where I’m going wrong.
Oh, I'm not sure I'd 100% commit to that idea!
I'd rather be a great writer/performer/arranger and competent at recording than the other way around.
To be honest, the *problem* with home recording is that we have so many tools and options to focus on that quite often we forget what's important.
Writing/Arrangement/Performance.
Everything after that should be an attempt to preserve or enhance. With acoustically recorded music, those are the three main things, for me.
If that's where your passion lies, don't knock it!
That said, Having some basic understanding of gear choice and microphone placement is important.
You don't necessarily need to do 100 comparison takes and work the mic to the mm, but you should know there's a huge difference between pointing at an acoustic sound hole and pointing at 12th fret, for example.
As far as gear...You're not into the minutia. That's cool.
You should have no trouble finding 'fun' threads on here or on gearslutz about 'desert island vocal chains' and that sort of thing.
I have no idea if your current interface/preamps are quality or not. Hopefully someone can comment there,
but there are plenty of reasonably priced combinations that you just can't go wrong with.
Like, if someone gave me an RME interface with a handful of onboard preamps, an sm7b, and a pair of c414s, for example, and said that's it...That's all you get...
I'd be happy enough.
Ok, it's different if you're recording a full kit, band, or ensemble, but for any vocal or solo acoustic performance, I struggle to see myself complaining about that ^^.