Help me decide on some equipment.

[shoe]

I'm going to start by saying that I'm very new to recording. I've only been messing with audio production software for a few years and have recorded things using other people's equipment and paid close attention when other people recorded my band. What I'm getting at is that I still have a lot to learn.

My band and I are looking to record ourselves this time around. I'm not so much worried about drum mics yet because I have a close friend that I can borrow them from. I am looking to get a a decent mic for recording vocals and guitar. I also need an interface. We're looking for a cheap solution and hoping not to have to spend more than 500 alltogether. We're obviously not looking for master quality recordings but something that still sounds clear a little professional. From what I've been reading, I do understand the curve in mic quality : pricing and that it's possible to get a decent mic for what I'm looking to spend. Also I was recently impressed when somebody showed me they're drum recordings used only 3 mics (2 overhangs and a kick). I'm wondering if I even need an interface with more than 3 inputs (wierd number I know) if it will save me some cash (and I will be borrowing decent mics for drums to pull that off if I have too). Software is not an issue for me.

If it means anything, the genre of music we play is similar to oldschool 90's hardcore, sometimes getting a little heavier but not too much like metal. We like a very crunchy guitar sound and there's a lot of yelling, if not screaming in the vocals. ( we have some rough cut demos at myspace.com/pointcounterpointny ).

Any tips or suggestions are really appreciated. Thanks!

 

[apratsunrthd]

For mics, I've landed on the following:

MXL V67G for vox ($99)
Naiant X-Q for acoustic guitar ($42 shipped)
Orange County Speaker ES-57 for electric guitar cab ($40 shipped)

I use an M-Audio AudioBuddy (got it for free) for my pre. I find it pretty flat and clean --works for me. Though, it only has 2 channels. But hell, they're cheap -- buy two or just buy a decent mixer.

Do you have an interface? I use the TonePort UX1 which suits me fine. If I had it to do over again, I'd have popped for the UX2.

I hope this helps.

 

[suprstar]

Youre looking to record yourselves on a PC right? How many channels at a time max? You wanna do the whole band in one take, or are you planning on doing one instrument at a time?

The cheapest you could get by with is getting a USB mixer like a yamaha mw10 or something, you could record a mixed drum track, then go back and record bass, then guitars, then vox. You wouldnt be able to mess with the drum mix after tracking tho.. You'd have to re-track drums if the snare was too loud or something, and you couldn't compress the kick by itself, etc. Equipment needed would be a usb mixer $100, SM58 for vox $100, SM57 for everything else $100, total $300. Kinda cheesy way of doing it, very un-flexible, it'll be hard to make work, but it CAN work..

If you can throw down a little more $, you can get a firewire interface. Id get something by Presonus or MOTU, it'll run you $500 at a minimum, it'd certainly include Cubase LE or something sufficient. Then the 2 mics $200, $700 total. You can easily get a track for every drum mic, record everyone at once (assuming you can isolate everyone), it's 100x better for 2.3333x the price.

And it still wont be enuf, you're gonna get sucked in... You'll want better mics, better plugins, more tracks, some 'comfort' rack gear, better monitors to mix it on, it just goes on and on and on....... Just a forewarning Good luck!



edit: M-Audio Delta 1010 LT - check it out.. A lot cheaper than a fw interface, it might be able to do what you need, I'm not sure.

 

[shoe]

I'm not looking for DAW (I have almost all of them) and instruments aren't an issue. I'll most likely be recording on a Mac depending on what DAW I'll feel like using. All I need is a mic and something to connect mics. We don't record live because there's really no reason for us to. I was looking at a lot of firewire interfaces (I think I meant interfaces and not a pre) though so I'll check out all the ones you listed. Thank you!

 

[haystacker99and]

I agree with superstar

Presonus Firepod... musicians friend has them for like 400. You can get excellent sound out of these if you just manipulate and play with it for a while. Its also very userfriendly and a great workhorse.

 

[shoe]

Hmm, a lot of people have recommended that to me so far, I'll look into it. Thanks

 

[dgatwood]

Hmm, a lot of people have recommended that to me so far, I'll look into it. Thanks

If you're considering spending $400 on a FIREPOD, and particularly if you're a Mac user, IMHO you'd be crazy not to spend the extra $50 for a lightly used MOTU 8Pre. Here's one for $450.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Motu-8Pre-Audio...18&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&timeout=1218779027661

The drivers are better (lower latency, lower CPU load), the sound quality is IMHO slightly better, and the product is quite a bit more reliable based on what I've seen. (By reliable, I don't mean less buggy. I mean fewer catastrophic hardware failures. )