equiptment/studio building

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Botinok

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iv decided to upgrade my whole studio and i have a cuople questions.

1) im looking for some monitors..but im on a low price range..im prolly gonna buy a pair of ebay cuz thats the biggest bang for the buck and i have had very good results with ebay...i dont really want to buy a reciever cuz they are expensive, so i was thinking of going with actives...which ones should i get? i was thinking of the alesis m1 actives, but i dunno

2) i have an AKG c3000b...but i need a phantom power preamp..and suggestiosn of what kind i should get? keep in mind im on a lower price range..so the cheaper the better..but i still want good quality

3) i need a soundcard...i was thinking of the delta 44....but again i have no idea...i dont do any kind of midi work, just vocals...so thats pretty much all i need.....i have a pretty good comp (over 1 gig ram, 2.4 P4, windows XP, pr8x mobo...120 gb HD, and a 60 gb HD..ect. ect.)

4) do i need a mixer? and if so what kind....i was at a studio the other day and they use a mackie digital mixer, which they say is awsome...do i really need it or should i stick to mixing on my PC

5) im turning a small closet into my booth...how do you think that would work, its probably about 8 feet tall, and mybe 5 feet acroos, and like 3 feet deep, i wasthinking of putting that foam shit that eggs come in on the walls, cuz thats what the local studio did, and they said it works great, but i dont know if the space is too small or what..

thats basicly all my questions for now...i know its kinda long, but any help would be appretiated...i havnt reall been able to get straight answers...

the studio that i was at are using a pair or alesis m1's and say they work great...but they havnt really tested anything else

thanks in advance

-Andrei
 
Botinok said:
iv decided to upgrade my whole studio and i have a cuople questions.

1) im looking for some monitors..but im on a low price range..im prolly gonna buy a pair of ebay cuz thats the biggest bang for the buck and i have had very good results with ebay...i dont really want to buy a reciever cuz they are expensive, so i was thinking of going with actives...which ones should i get? i was thinking of the alesis m1 actives, but i dunno

2) i have an AKG c3000b...but i need a phantom power preamp..and suggestiosn of what kind i should get? keep in mind im on a lower price range..so the cheaper the better..but i still want good quality

3) i need a soundcard...i was thinking of the delta 44....but again i have no idea...i dont do any kind of midi work, just vocals...so thats pretty much all i need.....i have a pretty good comp (over 1 gig ram, 2.4 P4, windows XP, pr8x mobo...120 gb HD, and a 60 gb HD..ect. ect.)

4) do i need a mixer? and if so what kind....i was at a studio the other day and they use a mackie digital mixer, which they say is awsome...do i really need it or should i stick to mixing on my PC

5) im turning a small closet into my booth...how do you think that would work, its probably about 8 feet tall, and mybe 5 feet acroos, and like 3 feet deep, i wasthinking of putting that foam shit that eggs come in on the walls, cuz thats what the local studio did, and they said it works great, but i dont know if the space is too small or what..

thats basicly all my questions for now...i know its kinda long, but any help would be appretiated...i havnt reall been able to get straight answers...

the studio that i was at are using a pair or alesis m1's and say they work great...but they havnt really tested anything else

thanks in advance

-Andrei
Click to expand...
hi

how many tracks do you want to record at once??
 
Botinok said:
iv decided to upgrade my whole studio and i have a cuople questions.

1) im looking for some monitors..but im on a low price range..im prolly gonna buy a pair of ebay cuz thats the biggest bang for the buck and i have had very good results with ebay...i dont really want to buy a reciever cuz they are expensive, so i was thinking of going with actives...which ones should i get? i was thinking of the alesis m1 actives, but i dunno


-Andrei
Click to expand...
I just got a pair of KRK RP5 Rokit Powered Monitors. I think they are extremely nice. They cost $150 each but probably less if on ebay. I was debating between these and M Audio BX5s which are the same price. I heard those monitors were really good but they sound like shit compared to these. No headroom on those whatsoever and not nearly as loud. The KRKs are very punchy and crisp. I also heard that Wharfedale Diamond Pro 8.2s are very nice but those are about $340/pair. They also have 8.1s that go for $250/pair.
 
Used monitors (off ebay or elsewhere) can give you more monitor for your money. The Alesis M1's are okay, but not to my liking because the bass response wasn't very flat, something that's not uncommon with monitors with smaller woofers. They aren't bad monitors, just not to *my* liking. For about the same amount of money ($200ish) you can probably find Behringer Truth 2031 monitors, which are also active. They have a flatter, better frequency response probably due to the 8" woofer. They are physically larger of course, your space needs to have a little more room. But for the money, even new they are a pretty good value for the money. A friend of mine has them and I have to admit they are pretty good for mid to low end monitors.

As far as phantom power, since you're considering purchasing a smallish mixer, if you go that route get one with phantom power and that kills two birds with one stone. If you find yourself a cheap digital mixer (TMD1000, Yamaha has one, etc) you'll end up with a s/pdif out, which you could connect to a soundcard of your choosing with digital in, and get the audio into your PC that way.

Delta 44 is a decent card, no quams about it.

I use a soundblaster live with an s/pdif in/out. Its a great card if you record digitally at 48Khz. If you record at 44.1Khz (CD), the soundcard resamples it to 48K and you have no choice in the matter, creating artificacts that essentially suck when you resample the music back to 44.1Khz. But, if you have a digital mixer at some point and will record at 48Khz, its a dirt cheap option.

As far as what mixer to buy, you'd need one with mic preamps for sure. Another option is to consider an all-in-one unit, which is a hard disk recorder and a mixer in one unit. Some of the eight channel units aren't too bad as far as price on ebay. Korg, Roland and Yamaha have competing units, if an all-in-one floats your boat.

Your vocal booth is a little small, but egg crates won't help you. The studio local to you is clearly uninformed. Heavy moving blankets would do you much better than eggcrates, and you can hang them on hooks so you can take them down when you're not recording vocals.

Hope that helps....
 
woah, thanks a lot dude...would is be better quality if i bought a separate mixer and a sep. preamp, or any my level it wouldnt matter much. and by an all-in-one unit..do you mean something like m-box?...i was thinking of getting m-box but its a lot harder to upgrade with that, and i dont wanna be stuck with pro-tools
 
Not necessarily this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=41480&item=3780604288&rd=1

But something along those lines. They offer decent value for the money because they combine a mixer, a multi-track recorder, and possibly some digital effects. Tascam, Korg, Roland, Yamaha, Fostex and Akai (and others I'm sure) make these kind of units for almost any budget. Some of the medium priced ones have a scsi port you can attach an external CD Burner, and the more pricy ones often have one built in. This is what I mean, all-in-one, essentially a recording studio in one machine.

While the prices can be attractive, they generally aren't expandable. So if you are fairly sure in a year you'll want sixteen tracks, save the money for it over time because buying an 8 track now, then upgrading it in frustration a year later, blows.

The other advantage of all-in-ones is your cabling costs are much less. YOu don't need cables between the mixer and the recorder, because they are in the unit itself.

The obvious drawback is, well, pour hot coffee on it and you lose your mixer AND your recorder. But aside from the dirt cheap ones, they aren't terribly fragile - about the same as any other piece of respectable recording gear.

Here is one a friend of mine has, and he loves it. I can't say either way because I've never used it:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15199&item=3781680209&rd=1

And don't mind my e-bay links... it was just convienent for me since I have another browser open at ebay at the time I wrote this :)

Now about the pre-amp. Personally, I don't believe "your level" or "your abilities" should dictate whether you buy a pre-amp or not. Generally, you balance the sound you want (with flexibility) against what green stuff is in your wallet. I got away for years without one, but I didn't have the tonal charactoristics in my recordings that I really wanted. For a while I chose to "live with it" and continue forward. After a while, I couldn't live without one, so I soldered together one with vacuum tubes. Overall it sounded pretty nice, was very much hum free, but the unit was extremely fragile, because I didn't enclose it properly. I never intended to move it, but alas, I moved several states away and guess what happened to it.

I currently have a Focusrite ISA220 which is a rather pricy unit, but its soup to nuts and works well for vocals as well as acoustical instruments. It captures amazing detail and really makes things sound warm. But, its about $1500 or so. And there are a lot of choices below that price range, all the way down to about $200.

What I would do is buy whatever mixer, all in one, direct-to-computer device you've got your heart set on, then work with it for a while, practicing EQ settings for vocals and such, and if you truly are disappointed, save up for an external pre-amp. But some of the zillions of mixers/all-in-ones have decent preamps too...
 
thanks again...now these all in one units..can i link them to my PC and then edit using cool-edit or cubase, or whatever software i use...cuz thats what i have in mind...i dont need a super good pre-amp...so this might be an option for me....

the m-box has 2 focusrite preamps...what do you think of the m-box..is it worth going in that direction and then using pro-tools on my pc?
 
Botinok said:
thanks again...now these all in one units..can i link them to my PC and then edit using cool-edit or cubase, or whatever software i use...cuz thats what i have in mind...i dont need a super good pre-amp...so this might be an option for me....

the m-box has 2 focusrite preamps...what do you think of the m-box..is it worth going in that direction and then using pro-tools on my pc?
Click to expand...


Some of the all-in-ones can hook to a PC. You have to do some research. The idea of the all-in-one is to skip the PC/cubase/sonar entirely. or, use the PC to make CD's.

If you really want to use the computer, then you'll need some kind of analog input into the PC, and there are many, many ways of doing. The M-Audio is one way of doing, and while technically they have focusrite pre-amps, I can assure you they aren't of the $1500 variety.
 
yeah then i guess its not for me...i like editing on pc..it gives me a lot of flexibility plus..i can make mp3's that i can spread through the web..and then make cd's...what do you mean by analog input...what about digital mixers and such.....

thanks for all your help again..greatly appretiate it
 
Botinok said:
yeah then i guess its not for me...i like editing on pc..it gives me a lot of flexibility plus..i can make mp3's that i can spread through the web..and then make cd's...what do you mean by analog input...what about digital mixers and such.....

thanks for all your help again..greatly appretiate it
Click to expand...

It sounds to me like you might want to consider an alternate option, then, which would be an external interface like this:

http://www.midiman.net/products/en_us/FireWire410-main.html

which has mic preamps, phantom power, and a multi-channel interface to record into your computer. Most of these come with a software package like Cubase LE that is a good platform for mixing and editing, with other goodies to boot. It can also act as your soundcard to interface with your studio monitors. If your PC doesn't have Firewire, a Firewire (IEEE 1394) card is only $20-30 to add.

Anyway, just some random thoughts from what popped into my head whilst reading this thread.

Darryl.....
 
well m-box is another one like that..i was looking into that..but ill check this out too..thanks
 
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