Is it a nude of Mariah Carey Moshe? Please tell me it is...
You haven't been around much lately buddy. Got something cool you are working on? Or are you getting in some more active duty with the military there in light of recent events? Or did you find a mistress?
You bet I would *trade* a ART for a NEVE. I would much rather have both though. But come on man, read what I am saying earlier in the post. You KNOW what I mean in the overall picture. People almost commit suicide over the decision to purchase a piece of gear that most can little appreciate, and many are expecting that their recordings are somehow going to sound wonderful because of it. I have MANY wonderful sounding recordings using an ART, and I have FAVORED an ART over other ClassA pre's in production in the past, and will so many times in the future. The difference though is nuance, and in the realm of things, my point is that people should worry less about their damn preamp, and start using ANY preamp and start learning the things about audio production that is going to make a difference. If I slant towards saying to just buy a $100 dollar per channel pre and get on with it, I am saying that in context that many around here that would buy an NEVE, API, Avalon, Drawmer, etc.....would be listening to it through Yorkville monitors, in a room that has so many nodes (and tracking rooms that are even worse...) and putting a Studio Projects mic through it! Damn me for suggesting that maybe they get themselves a $100 pre and spend the $1000 they saved and get something that will REALLY benefit their production, like good monitors, a variety of mics, and some room treatments! THOSE THINGS will make a MUCH MUCH MUCH bigger difference in overall fidelity of a production than the difference between an ART and a NEVE. Listen to my friggin' mp3. Indeed, there were many things that could have been improved on it, but I can assure you that those things had more to do with the damn foam covered wall basement it was tracked in, the limited mic selection, pre-production time to strengthen up playing and source sounds and a more cohesive approach to the mix than it had to do with ART's being used on almost every track. In SPITE of all those above mentioned problems, which you and I KNOW are SIGNIFICANT issues in a productions end quality, that demo turned out sounding VERY professional, and most that hear it cannot guess that it was tracked using gear associated with home recordings. So, you cannot look me dead in the eye and say that your production is going to benefit MORE from investing in a $1200 preamp than it would from fixing MANY OTHER problems. That is just not so. The ART works QUITE well enough to achieve very professional results in the hands of a person that has an idea on what they are doing.
Fuck it. I have heard crap that was recorded on a Mackie to 16 bit ADAT's that blows away productions that have enjoyed more time, ALL KILLER GEAR BEGINNING TO END, etc.... It wasn't the gear that made the difference. It was the engineers willingness to make the most out of what they had.
It is about balance. I am sorry. A $400 preamp is a bad decision over a $200 preamp when you skimp $200 on MONITORS! THAT is what I am saying. A $2500 preamp WILL NOT improve your overall audio quality in the same way as puchasing $2300 worth of decent mics will! That same damn $2300 savings will go a long ways towards room treatments that will help you hear just how bad my all ART preamp recordings really sound!
The jump isn't significant enough. I am tired of everyone around here bitching about how I suggest HIGH DOLLAR solutions for just "home recordings", but by the same token, these same people pronounce a fucking ART as SHIT, and go spend $600 on a preamp that they are going to use in their bedroom!!! That is gall dudes! And there isn't one fucking professional engineer on this site that can disagree with this assesment. I WOULD NOT spend $2500 on a preamp when I have a perfectly usable ART sitting right here that I KNOW will deliver PROFESSIONAL RESULTS to my HOME RECORDINGS when I have a need for $2500 worth of room treatments!
It is about priorities, and mostly around here, they are fucked up. You guys ask for the "best" of something, then put the "worst" price imaginable to pay for it as a condition, then bitch because I point out how that price won't buy your anything that resembles the "best" and even spend the time to illustrate WHY it won't. But then some moron comes back talking how X Brand of this or that has "specs" as good as Y Brand that costs 10 times more so it SHOULD sound just as good right? I mean it IS just a damn home recording.
Tell you all what. Go do a recording just like the one I posted up earlier in this thread. If you are seriously going to do it, contact me and I will tell you on down to the brand of wire that was used on EVERY track, and whether the preamp output passed through a patchbay or not! You can use your Mindprints, and dbx's, and all those other "mid priced" preamps for yours. Let's see what you results are going to be! Certainly, at best, only about as good, unless you can just smoke my pants as an engineer, and I can tell you that if you are THAT good you wouldn't even be talking about "mid priced" pre amps in the first freakin' place.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
See, I am still smiling. This is just all bullshit talk. I am playing devils advocate and making you all step up and explain your reasoning for all this talk about preamps. It IS rediculous.
My "real" opinion. Give me a rack full of NEVE's, API's, Manley's, Oram's, Drawmer's, Telefunkens, etc.....ANY day. But I am not so stupid to think that THEY are the reason I get good sounding final products. I have used them, and have used the crap too, and my take is that the pre's are actually very low on the food chain of investment. IF, and few around here are at this "IF" level, you have your engineering chops down cold, all the "important" things like mics, monitors, tracking room acoustics, and control room acoustics, are all in order, and you have clients that are doing something important enough to warrant a huge time investment, well THEN start thinking about preamps. If you are missing ANY of those elements, and ART will work JUST FINE for you.
The proof is in the pudding. Don't act like you want to be recording like big boys unless you are prepared to take it all the way. Buying an expensive preamp is a last step in taking it all the way.
Eddie
7 posts and the dude thinks he knows everything about our site here!
Did you miss Ed's post? Buh? Wuh? Unh?