Instead of buying DMP's,RNP's, Meeks, and the like....

[Michael Jones]

Good discussion here. I really like to see this kind of thought exchange.
There will always be 2 schools of thought on this toipic.
Those that say a $200 - $500 pre is all you need, and
Those that say you're missing out if you haven't tried a $2000 pre.

Having gone down both paths, I tend to agree with the latter.
I think my first outboard pre was the audio buddy. It ended up as garage sale fodder real quick. I was so dissapointed in that little box.
Somewhere down the line I acquired a dbx286a. Better. But it's sits in its box in the closet now.
Sometime later, a friend lent me his Joe Meek. An ok pre to be sure, but still, less than stellar in my opinion.
Sometime later I bought an ART PRO MPA. Some people like them, some don't. I do. But to my discerning ear, it still seemed to lack luster and shine.
My next purchase was a PAIR of Audix 35102's racked by Brent.
My initial thoughts on this pre were: ehhh, that's better, but...

BUT, as pre's go, this one is more sophisticated than the others I've had, and it took me a while to learn how to really use it. But once I did, I instantly understood the meaning of words like: discrete, transparent, and shimmering. These were not expensive pre's either. I think they were around $950 each plus the power supply. I can't remember, it's been too long.
But the point is, with each "upgrade" I've been able to hear a difference in overall sonic clarity, especially when mixing down several tracks.
(I'm also convinced that Brent and his team are nothing short of magicians, and my next pre purchase is definately comming from them!)

So, to answer you're initial question Mr Q: are we better off foregoing all this "pro-summer" gear, and jumping off into the deep end of high dollar mic pre's?

I'd have to say no. Your ears will tell you when its time to upgrade, in the meantime, you have to cut your eye teeth on something.

 

[JuSumPilgrim]

Good discussion here. I really like to see this kind of thought exchange.
There will always be 2 schools of thought on this toipic.
Those that say a $200 - $500 pre is all you need, and
Those that say you're missing out if you haven't tried a $2000 pre.

Having gone down both paths, I tend to agree with the latter.
I think my first outboard pre was the audio buddy. It ended up as garage sale fodder real quick. I was so dissapointed in that little box.
Somewhere down the line I acquired a dbx286a. Better. But it's sits in its box in the closet now.
Sometime later, a friend lent me his Joe Meek. On ok pre to be sure, but still, less than stellar in my opinion.
Sometime later I bought an ART PRO MPA. Some people like them, some don't. I do. But to my discerning ear, it still seemed to lack luster and shine.
My next purchase was a PAIR of Audix 35102's racked by Brent.
My initial thoughts on this pre were: ehhh, that's better, but...

All the cheap pres you mentioned are basically worthless and I would never use them on guitar, vocals or drums. The PRO MPA? Once you add a 3rd track with any art pre, the noise level and definition in your mix are gone. Joe Meek? Maybe on a couple of guitar tracks. Certianly not as a main pre. Never mind the dbx286 and audiobuddy. Its much easier to do clean for $500 than dirty. But thats what you want to be relying on most of the time.

 

[Michael Jones]

Pilgrim - I'm not advocating cheap pre's; quite the opposite in fact.
The point is, if I can hear the difference in a $300 mic pre and a $1000 mic pre, then I'd be willing to bet I can hear the difference in a $1000 mic pre and a $3000 mic pre.
That's not to say that you have to rush out and spend the kids college money on your next pre. Nor is it to say that you can't get excellent results with that $300 mic pre. And your point about the room, the performers and the ability is well taken. But to advocate that there's no difference at all between a $500 pre and a $1500(+) pre is irresponsible.

All other things being equal you won't convince me that this mic pre:

Is better than or equal to this one:

Littledog is right though, most all of us would do better to concentrate on our rooms rather than our rack.

 

[littledog]

If you want to work effectively with more than one performer at a time you really need a good mixing console. Any studio that wants to have any kind of flexibility and efficiency has to spend 10x the amount on standalone pres and specialty items just to be 50% as proficient as a good console. So with that in mind if your question is console or pres then the console should come first.

After that everything else is icing on the cake. My main purchasing guidelines these days are never buy anything that puts all it's value in digital processing.

I understand that many people are dead set against Pro Tools or other similar type studios, but assuming it is a direction that one MIGHT choose, it is possible to invest in high quality preamps running directly to the converters, with the mixing board functioning only as a monitor and cue mix device, thus making the need for an expensive console less important.

I probably record as many varieties of sources as anyone else, and while you could make the point that my Pro Tools HD recordings are by definition inferior to your analog ones, I like to delude myself into thinking that I am skilled enough to make them at least in the ballpark. At least the clients, so far, seem to think so...

 

[JuSumPilgrim]

Pilgrim - I'm not advocating cheap pre's; quite the opposite in fact.
The point is, if I can hear the difference in a $300 mic pre and a $1000 mic pre, then I'd be willing to bet I can hear the difference in a $1000 mic pre and a $3000 mic pre.
That's not to say that you have to rush out and spend the kids college money on your next pre. Nor is it to say that you can't get excellent results with that $300 mic pre. And your point about the room, the performers and the ability is well taken. But to advocate that there's no difference at all between a $500 pre and a $1500(+) pre is irresponsible.

All other things being equal you won't convince me that this mic pre:

Is better than or equal to this one:

Littledog is right though, most all of us would do better to concentrate on our rooms rather than our rack.

Michael, youre making huge generalizations. There is plenty of shit in the $300 pre category and there are instances of quality. Youre saying that pres like that aphex pre which is probably bad is worse than a neve. Wow. Youre a sonic genius. Nobody will argue that point. It gets less clear when youre talking about the grace, RNP, mindprint, sytek, and others (not as compared to neve but other clean pres in the clean genre +$1k). Im just pointing out the ridiculousness of painting with a broad brush. All $500 pres are not the same.

 

[Michael Jones]

I am making huge generalizations, it was in response to your comment that more money = better is childish. Which in itself is a huge generalization, and not necessarily true. And again, I'm not suggesting that everyone should go out and buy a $3000 pre-amp.

The question here was something to the effect of is it better to save up for one high-end pre and spend $1500(+) or acquire 3 $500 pre's over a period of time. Ultimately, you can only answer that question for yourself. There's pro's and con's to both paths.
I advocate saving your money. But that's just my opinion.

Merry Christmas to you and yours!

 

[alanhyatt]

Saving money and not working is not necessarly a good thing. Getting the most out of what you have, and what you can afford is a very good thing. No one wants to eat fish every night. Variety is a great thing.

Everybody's ears are different, so the ongoing opinion battle of what sounds better on this and every other BBS will continue long after the roaches take over the world. No one is right, and no one is wrong. If you can say I like it....then its good.

The question will always lie with the user. Is that user happy with what he has. If he is, then the money was well spent. There will always be new bigger and bad ass mic amps coming out. So what... Its like getting a new computer, the new toy is always appreciated more than the old one, but when it comes to audio, dont throw anything away, hold on to what you have, because the more variety you have, the better off you will be.

Hi end, low end, if it works....it works. Don't ever believe these guys who say you cant get good work done on low cost gear. Your engineering skills, good room acoustics, and a good set of monitors will get you further than you think. New expensive gear will not automatically make your room better, so in fact, a more expensive mic amp may not do not better than a low cost one based on the room and the engineer.

So on with the show guys. Gear is all good if you can use it.

 

[TexRoadkill]

I understand that many people are dead set against Pro Tools or other similar type studios, but assuming it is a direction that one MIGHT choose, it is possible to invest in high quality preamps running directly to the converters, with the mixing board functioning only as a monitor and cue mix device, thus making the need for an expensive console less important.

I probably record as many varieties of sources as anyone else, and while you could make the point that my Pro Tools HD recordings are by definition inferior to your analog ones, I like to delude myself into thinking that I am skilled enough to make them at least in the ballpark. At least the clients, so far, seem to think so...

Arent you the guy who uses 2 mixers for monitoring

I was making my statements kinda regardless of recording systems or sound preference. After trying to use a mini digital mixer/DAW only setup just for myself it drove me nuts trying to do all the simple little things that you do for monitor mixes and such.

When the choice is one decent 24 ch mixer or 2-4 channels of high quality preamps I think the console is still the better value over all. 2-3 grand can buy you a lot of mixer but not a lot of specialty preamps.

 

[crosstudio]

my problem is that I didn't know what kind of studio I wanted to have when I started.

initially i just wanted something i could hear my guitar parts on so i could write songs for church... so I got a tascam porta-something-5 for my birthday (16).

then, i found out about midi (ok, this was a long time ago) and striping the 4th track with MTC so I could sync my yamaha xv4500 to the porta5.

then a sound man from another church died and his wife gave me a peavey mixer (with the s-s-s-s-proing reverb) and a big muff.

then I bought a casio drum machine second hand so i could make beats. it had 4 sample pads with .2 seconds of sample time per pad.

then my dad found out about this thing called cakewalk and built me a 286 (this was the DOS days) to run it on. I got an opcode MQX ISA card so I could connect the porta-5, my keyboard, and my drum machine and get them to sync.

that was my studio. I'd never heard of a mic-pre, or a compressor, or a limiter, or reverb and since my parents didn't allow me to listen to any secular music in the house, I could only play "gospel".

i spent alot of my summer job money on that drum machine and midi sync card and went to college penniless.

probably 2 years later I got an alesis quadraverb, and all my music buddies were coming to my apartment to do "pre-production" which was a laugh. we didn't even know what that meant. they were just practicing so they could go into the real studio (Nightflight in Oxon Hill, MD) and get it right in less time.

I've gradually gotten better equipment and gradually charged more money per hour.

i remember with great pride going into Chuck Levin's Music Center and buying that blackface ADAT (since sold).

i also remember buying the digitech harmonizer (the low-budget autotune of the 90's). that was probably the worst purchase i ever made. even worse than that stupid m-audio duo.

I just bought an RNP which should arrive (according to UPS) tomorrow. I'd been using the mic-pre's in my Mackie 1604 for the past 10 years (i upgraded to the vlz pro about 4 years ago) and its time for an upgrade. I went with the RNP instead of the Grace 201 because I cant honestly that having an $1800 pre-amp connected to the rest of my gear is going to drive up the price of my beats. That's like putting 20" triple-chrome Sprewell spinners on a 1992 Ford Probe.

pss. thank God for rec.music.marketplace and other newsgroups that i sold equipment on before ebay came along.

 

[chessrock]

Since you say you never heard anything done on a pre in the $1K range that made you perk up and say "Wow, I assume that you have personally done all the comparrisons on these $3K boxes you own. Being this is the case, then you are more than qualified to offer your opinion on the subject.

Uh . . . now that you mention it, YEA ! You're pretty much spot on, there, skippy! Congrats.

The last time we got into this, your high end mic in your studio was a Marshall V67, and you mic amp was a Joemeek! So, how did you go from basement studio to Oceanway Mid West so quickly?

Uh . . .no.

Say Alan, how's that weight loss program of yours coming along?

 

[crawdad]

Saving money and not working is not necessarly a good thing. Getting the most out of what you have, and what you can afford is a very good thing. No one wants to eat fish every night. Variety is a great thing.
Hi end, low end, if it works....it works. Don't ever believe these guys who say you cant get good work done on low cost gear. Your engineering skills, good room acoustics, and a good set of monitors will get you further than you think. New expensive gear will not automatically make your room better, so in fact, a more expensive mic amp may not do not better than a low cost one based on the room and the engineer.

So on with the show guys. Gear is all good if you can use it.

Amen.

I've done work I was proud of on an 8 track Teac with a Teac mixer and a Yamaha REV7. I've done work I was proud of on a 3340. Made some great recordings with an ADAT, a Mackie board, a Tube MP and one 4033.

Expensive gear does not give the uneducated a leg up in the audio world. Great recordings will always be about talent and knowledge of application before they are about hi end gear. Just because you bought a Ferrari doesn't make you a race car driver. In the world of audio, you don't have to have the Ferrari, though its nice if you know how to use it.

I've heard some of the worst garbage come out of studios that had every cool piece of gear there was. The ultimate is great gear and a great engineer, but given the choice between the two, I'll take the great engineer every time.

 

[Dot]

Concerning the approach to gear, put me in the George Massenburg school of engineering. In this interview, George states the following:

Exciting, thrilling performances on 78 or cassette are better than a turd at 96/24. Look, here's the secret: Work your ass off to make as good a path as you can. Steal. Kill. Borrow. Lie. Work around the clock for as many years as it takes to get the gear right.

_____________

Dan Richards
Digital Pro Sound
The Listening Sessions

 

[Middleman]

Great link, good read.

 

[alanhyatt]

Say Alan, how's that weight loss program of yours coming along? [/B][/QUOTE]

Actually, now that you mention it, I have lost 26 pounds! See the good thing is I can loose the weight, you will always be...well I won't say it on this thread, but you can guess what that is.

Still care to invite me to you state of the art facility? I will be in Chicago pretty soon. We should hook up!

 

[Gidge]

Alan,

come visit down this way and Ill put those 26 pounds back on ya....go food,good drink.......


my take....Id rather have a few very good preamps than one great one......

 

[Meshuggah]

I'd use the money to hire a good band with good gear, and a chance to record them in a good room.
The best recording I've ever made is with a mackie and sm57/sm58/C1000s, monitored through a PA. Why? The BAND was REAL pros..

I have a mackie and a dbx576.. When I have a good accoustically treated studio and plenty of clients, I might consider buying high end gear. As of now, I get along pretty good with my cheapo mixer and my cheapo mics.

 

[alanhyatt]

Alan,

come visit down this way and Ill put those 26 pounds back on ya....go food,good drink.......


my take....Id rather have a few very good preamps than one great one......

I prefer to leave them off, now that they are off.... Unfortunately, world travel is a bitch on the diet, but I would love to come down if I am in the area. At least I could buy you a beer, and who knows, maybe even bring you a present...

A great preamp is wonderful to have, as long as you can afford them, and even then, you need others to get the job done, so we are in the same camp when it comes down to spending some money for the first time.

 

[chessrock]

See the good thing is I can loose the weight, you will always be...well I won't say it on this thread, but you can guess what that is.

Reason I asked is because I was going to suggest that if you get too skinny, you might consider transplanting some of the stuff between your ears. It's not a difficult procedure. A lot of dumbass gear pimps are having it done these days, only I hear they take it a step further by replacing the fat from between their ears with the stuff that comes outa' their ass.

Still care to invite me to you state of the art facility? I will be in Chicago pretty soon. We should hook up!

Call me. I'd love to hook up for beer as long as you're buying. 773-235-5795

 

[alanhyatt]

Reason I asked is because I was going to suggest that if you get too skinny, you might consider transplanting some of the stuff between your ears. It's not a difficult procedure. A lot of dumbass gear pimps are having it done these days, only I hear they take it a step further by replacing the fat from between their ears with the stuff that comes outa' their ass.



Call me. I'd love to hook up for beer as long as you're buying. 773-235-5795 [/B]

Hey Cheese Rock,

Sure I am buying, but beware, there might be poison in it. I will be there in 6 short weeks. After my visit, I am sure you will be able to come up with all kinds of things to call me.

 

[chessrock]

You're on. I'll be sure to take you somewhere's around Broadway and Montrose or Roscoe (neighborhood we affectionately refer to as "Boystown"). I'm sure the guys there will have plenty of things they'd like to call you.