"Lo-fi" recording sound without mic pres

[cptnspoon]

First up, please be kind, I'm 60% muso, 38% computer nerd and 2% dabbler in audio recording so forgive my complete ignorance!

A mate and I have been jamming and recording via the following:

2 Shure SM58's on drums (1 bass, 1 snare-side)
1 Shure Beta 58 on guit amp
1 Samson C03 Condenser (phantom power thru mixer) on guit amp
1 Behringer B5 Condenser (same as above) on overhead drums

These go straight into a Delta 66 for recording. The 2 condensers are routed through the mixer (which only has 2 outs) and all other mics are plugged straight into the Delta 66.

My situation is this...we record old style delta blues with a 60's rock bias and we both like the dirty sound however I'm looking at moving to a firewire interface so I can retire my desktop computer and make use of my laptop more (it's a Dell M1730 so it's not lacking in grunt).

QUESTION IS: Will moving to a firewire (was looking at PreSonus FP10) with mic preamps clean up the sound and make it too pristine? I know this might seem strange as most people are after the complete opposite, but I don't want to make the investment only to lose the character of the recording. We're quite fond of the old sounding grunt that this setup is giving us...I simply use ProTools to "normalize" the tracks to get the volume out of them (I know that's not suggested...but we don't seem to get much noise from it).

The "lo-fi" sounds we're after are similar to early Black Keys style music (and yes I'm aware they used mostly analog equipment but...well, I ain't made of money).

ALSO does anyone have any suggestions for achieving that warm, fuzzed vocal sound (some suggested run the mic thru a guitar amp and record the output via another mic)? Again, from the recordings listed above.

Thanks for any help, sorry for the long post!

 

[omtayslick]

That shouldn't be a concern. There are plenty of ways to "dirty-up" a recording after the fact. There are numerous tape emulation plug-ins and the like that will do just that, if that is the desired result. And many of them are free.

 

[rayc]

You could try an orange crush mouth harp mic from naiant for the vox or one of their micro valve mics & overdriver the signal a little. You could get a tube pre & give it grief.
Firewiring won't be scuzzy unless you make it so. (I wouldn't be in a hurry to dump the desk top - laptops has "issues" with recording like so many other things).
Borrow a firewire device and try it out - see if you like the results.
Why not a second OH mic? with a pair you can go "recorderman" style and get a great drum image.