HR Vets: Clue Me In

[Kottke]

I know so little about home recording, but want to learn from people with experience. I am a serious music hobbiest and have recorded a couple dozen songs at home, all acoustic, keyboard, and vocals (in the Paul Simon, Cat Stevens sparser acoustic vein). Here is my scenario...

For my first couple dozen tunes I used a 30 dollar cheapie mic, Cakewalk, and my very high-end PC (sound card, physical and working memory, processing power). That's it. I got so frustrated with the effort it took to avoid scuzzy sounds from the mic that I started reading about HR and discovered a whole new world out there (i.e. this board). So I committed to a major revamp of my equipment, as in, buying some (keeping my PC).

So now I have a new AKG C414B/ULS mic, but I know I need a preamp (Avalon 737 SP keeps being recommended), and want to know what else I should get to make life easier, more fun, and give me more control and options. Some guy at a gear store said I should get a digital interface so that my PC can 'handle' the sounds coming from a nice preamp. And people talk monitors, too, and on both of these areas...I have no idea!

What I know I want: I love high quality and reliability and will pay more for it. I am a big acoustic instruments guy, but want to be able to add electric guitar and bass, as well.

Can some people with experience clue me in on what a good quality gear chain could be for my scenario? Thanks so much for any help you can offer.

 

[SonicAlbert]

I have a couple of those AKG mics and like them very much. I don't think you'll ever outgrow it, although you may wish to add more nice mics as time goes by.

What sound card are you using? It may be that you'll want to upgrade that as well. Will you ever need to record in stereo or is a single channel all you need?

Basically, a good recording chain would be something with a good, mic, preamp, and converters. this would ideally go directly from the digital output of the converter to the digital input of your computer soundcard. Or if the sound card converter is good enough, you would go from the preamp to the sound card analog input.

Finally, what is your budget? When you say you are willing to pay for quality, that is sort of an open question because the sky is the limit as far as how much this stuff costs. Whether you need two channels or one makes a big difference too.

A good quality but still somewhat budget setup would be something like your AKG into a Grace 101, then the Lucid 2496 AD converter. If you want to step that up a notch, then you would go for a $800-1,000 per channel preamp into something like an Apogee Rosetta 200 or UA 2192 converter.

 

[Cyrokk]

Perhaps the most important part in a higher quality setup is a good listening environment, which consists of decent studio nearfield monitors and a clean amp that drives them (if they are not internally powered), placed in a good room. You will not be able to bring your recordings up to quality fidelity unless you can hear how the sounds are recorded. Everything else in your chain is secondary to this - even a microphone, because you can get decent results from almost any microphone if you record it in an environment conducive to getting the best sound it can record from, and again, you won't know this until you can hear it in a good listening environment.

Aside from this, I would say that decent microphones, and A/D converters are worth researching, along with a decent soundcard. While most people are satisfied with this setup, a bonus is to take advantage of analog mixing, which leads to higher quality sound than mixing within the pc. If you want to take this route, look into good consoles such as Soundcraft. However, in order to use a mixer, you will need a soundcard that features analog outputs, which will narrow your soundcard options. For this I would highly recommend the Hamerfall and Digi series from RME.

 

[Kottke]

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 is my current sound card.

I will soon have a great room solely for recording purposes, so I want to get some additional gear (preamp and converter/digital interface) for under 3k.

(btw, "converter" = digital interface? same thing?)

 

[mshilarious]

I love high quality and reliability and will pay more for it. I am a big acoustic instruments guy

Then build a good room. Head over to the Studio Building board if you need help with that.

 

[SonicAlbert]

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 is my current sound card.

I will soon have a great room solely for recording purposes, so I want to get some additional gear (preamp and converter/digital interface) for under 3k.

(btw, "converter" = digital interface? same thing?)

First thing is to get rid of that sound blaster. I'm not up on PC audio interfaces, but you should be able to get something relatively cheap that have digital SPDIF and/or AES inputs, and is up to professional use. Maybe the Emu interface, but I'll leave it to the PC guys who really know that end of things to make the good suggestions.

Dividing your $3k between a preamp and a converter, I'd go with about $1,500 for a two channel preamp and the rest toward the converter. That should get you into something like a John Hardy M-1, Millennia HV-3C, or maybe Grace 201 if you can find a good deal on one. There are others. Any manufacturers price of around $1,700-2,000 will usually get discounted enough to get into your price range.

Then maybe find a two channel converter for around $1,000 or so. Maybe the Lucid 2496, for example. Something like an Apogee Rosetta 200 would be great for you, but might stretch your budget a bit depending on what mic preamp you got.

However, there are other ways to do this that would save you some money, allowing you to upgrade other portion of your studio as well.

You could get a preamp and converter that has both in one box. A couple good examples of this are the Grace Lunatec V.3, and the Apogee Mini-Me. These are also two channel units.

 

[mattamatta]

I dunno if I would say that analog mixing inherently leads to a higher quality sound.... Depends on what you use, how your use it, and even your sense of aesthetic. Some people think analog summing using high end passive summing busses sounds better, some don't.

Unless you've got a great analog setup with some high quality outboard gear, I dont see much of a reason to work with analog at mixdown unless it's just a preference thing.