Mini-Me or Grace 101 + Lucid AD

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vibralux

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Hi guys,

have searched for reviews of the above gear and have spent a week on thinking about it but I can not make up my mind. please help !!

So- I wanted to upgrade my channel strip- get some good AD converters and a mic pre. So i came up with an idea for an Apogee Mini- Me, but... although it has some spectacular reviews on its converters and pres, it does not have a wordclock in our out and I heard its built quality is lame.

The other option is to get a Lucid AD2496 which is a standard and a grace 101- a classic- but then I would only got a one channel and no compression.

Now thats my setup- I would like to record vocals thru the MXL 990 or AKG 414 to the Grace+Lucid/ Apogee Mini-Me converters and then to the digital in of my Roland VS 1880. ( I use it for vocals cos the VS is quieter than my PC)

Which option do You think is better/more flexible? I am manly confused about the pres quality on Apogee - are the Mini-Me;s pres worse than Grace ?

Any advice would be highly appreciate as I am exhausted with the thinking...

Cheers

Marty





:confused:
 
I think you basically answered your own questions. If you're only doing one track at a time, you'd probably have a slightly better-sounding setup with the Grace+lucid, althought the mini-me should be more than up to the task. If you'd like more channels, or if you like the portability factor of the minime, then go with that.

In other words, I would let the features and your priorities dictate this purchase, rather than whether or not one will sound light years better than the other, because that's really not going to be the case.
 
Well, since I have everything you mentioned, here's my 2¢. The MiniMe is more "forgiving" on a variety of sources/instruments than the Grace/Lucid combination. The Grace may shine on some applications, but after some extensive A/B-ing in the studio, it wasn't quite "the shizzle" on a number of tasks, most notably vocals. I'm not a huge Apogee fan (my Rosetta has been gathering dust since I got the Lucid, Benchmark & CraneSong) but the MiniMe surprised me. It does a really good job on a variety of tasks, and while it's not always the perfect choice, to beat it in most cases you'd have to spend a lot more money.

Scott
 
DigitMus- since You have both units I would like to ask You couple more question ;)

1. On Mini-Me- can I bypass the pres and the compression totally? Meaning- if I would like to record some synths, guitars etc. using different pres and only use the converters, can I do that?

2. I dont quite get the idea of the two screws in the front of the mini-me. I mean- those purple knobs are dedicated for the mic/instrument gain setup? Right?

And the screws are there to set the line in levels? Do I have to adjust them every time I want to run some instruments thru the TRS jacks?

3. On the Apogee site they say that Mini-Me can output a digital black and become a master clock for my comp/Vs 1880. I that true? If I run the digital black signal thru my roland VS-1880 and than to my PC- will I have everything synced to the MiniME clock?

4. I heard that the build quality of Mini Me sucks. Is that true?

5. If I want to buy a Mini Me without the USB option, can I buy it later or do they make "permanent" versions of the unit- either with or without the USB option?

Have You heard about the Fire Wire option? YOu think its a better Idea?

6. You have mentioned that Grace did not work quite well on vocals ? Why?

7. Do You now if The minie me can be used with the European voltage standards (220V)


I know it s a lot of questions, but You are my only hope, since I live in Warsaw/Poland and there is no fu..... way to try those unit out, so I have to
rely on You guys :) , and I dont want to spend all that cash for nothing. Any help will greatly appreciated and will contribute to the American-Polish friendship

:D

Cheers

Marty
 
Oh and one more thing- do You know if the AKG C414 xls will go nicely with the Mini-Me or Grace? I will mainly use this mic/pre combination for the vocal aplications.

CHeers
Marty
 
9. What's the fastest land animal?

10. "Timmy, you ever see a grown man naked?"
 
Cmmon chess- I know I am bugging You guys with a lot of questions, but they are all related to the mini-me issue. Just wanna be shure... And I would not ask them if I did not make a search, which I did, here and on ten other forums. But You guys seem to be the most professional ones ;)
Gimme some of Your wisdom, as I shall do to the upcoming generations of the homerecording gear pimps :cool:

Peace

Marty
 
Yea, but ... um ... there's reasons why sales people and customer support centers exist. :D These are the kinds of questions you ask a retailer. Make these monkey boys earn all 10 bucks of their commision, ya know? I mean, seriously, you're asking a guy from Southwest Florida if the power supply meets European specifications. Don't you think it's a bit much?
 
Well, yeah- You got me on that one. That is the question I could ask to the support. But thats the only one. I mean I was a salesman once and well... I had to sell stuff. They are the last people I want to talk about gear. Really. At least thats what I learned from my experiences. If DigitMus is a guy who is actually using it, he is the person I should ask. :p

Howgh

Marty
 
The reason the Grace doesn't shine for vocals for me{I have a pair} is that its too abrupt/hard sounding..When it works on something it works well..When it doesn't its not a pleasing experience.YMMV/IMHO ect. ect. Lately I've been useing them for keyboard DI's when I need alot of "cut" in a mix for say, something like string pads..Good luck in your search :)
 
I was shopping for the same sort of thing not too long ago. Though I was looking for a bit different set-up, it was still relatively the same. A pre with a built in converter or a pre plus a converter.

I ended up with the seperate components.

I'm glad I did. Now I have the option to add a different pre and still have the converter. I think that alone would make you going the Grace/Lucid route more sensible...
 
DigitMus said:
I'm not a huge Apogee fan (my Rosetta has been gathering dust since I got the Lucid, Benchmark & CraneSong)
Click to expand...
You looking to get rid of it?
 
yes- but if You can bypass the pres on Mini Me (which I think is possible), You could still use other amps.

Cheers

Marty
 
I have your answer for you. It may confuse you or through a wrench into your thoughts but I would buy a used Apogee TRAK2. I had one for years, 2 pres 2 very great A/D, I also had the D/A card in it.

Talk about great, find a used one, they're out there. You will never even think of a mini me after hearing the mic pre's in this thing. Should you open one up you won't believe how it's built. GOOD AS IT GETS for 1 or 2 instrument tracking at a time and 2 track monitoring. Good Luck with your decision!


vibralux said:
Hi guys,

have searched for reviews of the above gear and have spent a week on thinking about it but I can not make up my mind. please help !!

So- I wanted to upgrade my channel strip- get some good AD converters and a mic pre. So i came up with an idea for an Apogee Mini- Me, but... although it has some spectacular reviews on its converters and pres, it does not have a wordclock in our out and I heard its built quality is lame.

The other option is to get a Lucid AD2496 which is a standard and a grace 101- a classic- but then I would only got a one channel and no compression.

Now thats my setup- I would like to record vocals thru the MXL 990 or AKG 414 to the Grace+Lucid/ Apogee Mini-Me converters and then to the digital in of my Roland VS 1880. ( I use it for vocals cos the VS is quieter than my PC)

Which option do You think is better/more flexible? I am manly confused about the pres quality on Apogee - are the Mini-Me;s pres worse than Grace ?

Any advice would be highly appreciate as I am exhausted with the thinking...

Cheers

Marty





:confused:
Click to expand...
 
Man- this is twice mu budget- even for the used ones. I am looking for pre and converters for 1400$. That's all I can spend on this...

Peace

Marty :rolleyes:
 
Sorry to take so long getting back to you (I don't get here that often). As has been noted, a lot of your questions would be best answered by an Apogee rep. I'll talk about the things I know off the top of my head (I'm not at the studio & can't consult the manual...). You can bypass the preamps by using line input, you can bypass the compressor/limiter by not turning it on (by the way, you can adjust the compressor settings by removing the top of the unit - just a FYI). As to the little screws, I believe (it's been a while) that they are for matching the levels of the line inputs to each other, I've only adjusted them once, when I first got mine (which is why I can't be sure what they do...). I don't use digital black, I use wordclock sync, and the MiniMe has to be the master ( no WC input) - I strongly suggest a wordclock/sync distributor if you're using more than 2 devices connected digitally. As far as firewire/USB/no USB and upgrading, I really have no idea - there was a thread on www.gearslutz.com a while back, if you search under "MiniMe" you should find it.
Let me reiterate that if you need 2 channels of mic preamp with A/D you'll be hard pressed to find anything better at the same price. The pres are fairly neutral, with enough clean gain even for my ribbon mics. It's not a Great River/Chandler/Neve/etc. but if you have such tools in your arsenal, just run them into the line in and use the converters (and the C/L which is quite usefull).
 
Thanks DigitMus- I think I will give it a try. If I can bypass all the pres and compressor- thats cool. Well, anyway I will be using them cause it will be my best preamps in the studio (so far I only have the Mackie Onyx prreamps and the lame VS 1880 pres...), I just wanted to be shure if I can bypass, cause I am planning to expand my gear in near future (as always :D ) and finally get some serious amp like Great River ISA or Avalon.
The last thing- do You remember if MiniMe is built wih good quality? I found some posts saying that it is not well built... Any thoughts on that?

Thanks

Marty

P.S

I have also emailed the guys at Apogee a week ago- still no response...
 
vibralux said:
The last thing- do You remember if MiniMe is built wih good quality? I found some posts saying that it is not well built... Any thoughts on that?

Thanks

Marty
Click to expand...

You know, I saw a couple of those posts and wondered what the heck they were talking about - mine appears to be built like a tank. Maybe the assembly line or quality control had a bad week at some point... :D
 
cool- thanks again for Your help. I think I will go with the Mini-Me. I can always upgrade later for some great river or avalon :rolleyes: and still use the mini-me converters. I guess i cannot go wrong with that one, although there is one more thing that bothers me You see I will be using the Mini Me for two purposes:

1) I want to record vocals to the VS 1880 spdif in- in which case I guess I wont need any special wordclock settings (only two devices, right ?)

2) I also want to record some bas, guitar etc. thru the VS 1880 spdif (I am using the VS as "thru box", so I can monitor the levels more acurately before they reach My Echo MiaMidi spdif in). Now- In this case do I need an extra wordclock or anything else? In this case I wont be recording anything into the VS- it will only act a "thru" box to my comp and Nuendo 2.

Peace
:D
 
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