Looking to upgrade my Home Setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter kess
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kess

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Hey Guys,

I'm looking an easy way to get a much better sound and make a bunch of cd's at home.

My idea is to record vocals and guitars at home and then send them to someone else to mix and master.

At the moment I have

Computer - A Newish Macbook
Focusrite Pro 40
Software - Reaper
Mic -A Blue BlueBird Microphone
Room Treatment- Mattress' and Duvets thrown around room :)

My Idea is to buy....

Neuman TM103
Neve $1000 PREAMP--
And get some good Room Treatment

My thinking is this be a good step up to get good professional recordings. Then then send them unto to someone else who specialises in Mixing and Mastering has (I dont have the time and can't be bothered) all the equipement/plugins etc and knows how to use it?

Thanks for your help.

Kess
 
Throwing money at your setup won't guarantee any results, although it certainly can't hurt. What's wrong with the recordings you're making right now?
 
I have found that better gear, with weak skills, or a crappy room , will not automatically make your recordings suddenly sound pro.

You should be able to get some quality recordings with the gear you already have.

But that stuff will help if you know what your doing.
 
+1.
Do the room treatment first and then see how things go.
I bet you'll be surprised and pleased with the result.
 
And get some monitors and learn at least rudimentary mixing skills. If you can't do that, you won't know what needs to be changed in your recording techniques to get better sound.
 
Interesting, maybe the room treatment is the way to go then, and see how it goes.

How would yous rate the Focusrite Pro 40 compared to something with 'Neve' written on it....a slight improvement or a world of difference?

Pinky the recordings I'm getting sound like its been recorded in a bedroom,,, especially flute and vocals. I have a mate who has the Neuman TML103 and he built a vocal booth in his living room (he has two houses!). He uses a very basic mixer and the sound I got playing in there sounded like a a decent studio quailty compared to mine which sounds like a good 'bedroom quality'. So I guessed it was the mic he was using that made the difference (picking up a fuller frequency range or something). But maybe the booth was the major factor.

Thanks for any futher thoughts.

Kess
 
It sounds like your current setup is capturing a lot of background nosie in the detail, in which case the room treatment might help the most. Obviously this will naturally help to deaden your recording environment and allow you to regain some control of the reverb using plugins later. You might also want to consider some filtering or a compressor/limiter. There's a lot of gadgets you can put inline that will help eliminate some of that background noise without changing the character of the vocals. The neve preamp would help along these lines. I have very little experience with this equipment as they tend to cost more than I'm willing to spend.

You could also consider getting a more directional mic where it only captures your voice and flute and little else (but you lose some overall detail/crispness).

If you move around a lot when signing or playing flute, then that will also want to be taken into consideration. You'll want a mic that captures the entire 'picture' rather than a directional mic.

Without hearing a sample it's hard to know for sure.

Fwiw, I have zero room treatment. I sacrifice crisp mic recordings for the ease of not dealing with background noise and add my own reverb. Since the mic I use (Shure PG81) still captures most frequencies and subtle things I bring them out later in the software if I need/want to.

Some people want consistency in their reverb and spend a lot to make their recording 'booth' (computer room, living room, wherever). I cannot always tell the difference between artists who go cheap or go big. By time all the other instrumentation is added and mashed together the nuances are usually lost anyways. Good technique and skills with software plugins / effects can buy you a lot of quality in post production. It sounds like you don't want to be bothered with learning, so the other direction is to throw money at it and hope it comes out the way you want. My music budget is very limited so I have to make compromises.
 
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Hey, your right that I'm not up for too much on learning all stuff about home recording.

I see myself as a musician first, so Im just looking to create an envirnoment where I can go in and and play and spend as much time as a need to get the takes that I'm happy with and then, hand them over to someone else to who knows all the technical stuff.

I'm wondering now how those portable mic sheilds are compared to acoustic room treatment? Has anyone done a detailed analysis and presented their findings anywhere? Because if they worked I'm now thinking with a mic shield (which saves the hassle of room treatment) and a good set of headphones (which saves the hassle of room treatment and super studio monitors) I can get on with producing good recordings.

Though if thats seems to good to be true then my guess is because it proabaly is.

Thanks for your thoughts

Kess
 
Save the pre amp money and put it into even more room treatment and really good monitors.

Audition the TLM103 before you buy...it suits some things, not others. Frankly you might do better with a small choice of well-chosen cheaper mics.
 
+1 again.
If you mic a bad instrument you know to upgrade the instrument.
If you mic up a bad room you upgrade the microphone? It's just going to pick up the bad room better/differently.
 
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