Mixer vs. Firestudio preamps??

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chirping *#!&%*

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I didn't know exactly where to put this as it kinda pertains to a few different things, but as it's my first post I figure why not put it in here in the kiddie pool since some of this is new to me.

So I just purchased a presonus firestudio about a week ago because I wanted to be able to do some home recording and get a decent recording of practices and also have some way of getting down new ideas before I moved on to the next thing and forgot them. I read and research on here and read most of a couple home recording books and just decided it was the cheapest and easiest way to get into home recording. I got it and love the new Studio One software and got some pretty good recordings with it. When I was recording drums I noticed it took a lot of eq'ing to get it sounding decent. So then I decided to just run it through a soundcraft emp 6, which is by no means a great board... but it does have pretty decent preamps. I really noticed a difference and with both just running flat. Now I'm wondering if it would be worth the money to get a good 16 channel board and just mix everything on there and just bypass the presonus preamps. I know lots of boards have a line out that just goes through the preamp and is prefader so all it would have is the preamp and not any of the eq. I think if I go this route I would like to have a board with lines out that are post fader.

A few things...

1) Am I totally stupid and have misheard the quality difference? I'm a drummer after all.

2) Whatever I get I want it to be something to grow with, I don't want a quick solution that I will be disappointed with after just a brief period of time. I just did that.

3) What are some good board options if that is the route I should go?

Thanks,
Newb
 
well, I suppose no one cares or knows or cares to know.

fun times.
 
I have used the Firepod which is an earlier version of the Firestudio and didn't have any problems with it, but maybe their quality has gone down.

Did you have the mics in a slightly different position when you recorded with the Soundcraft? That could have been a factor along with different tunings of the drums.

Board Suggestions:

Mackie Onyx 1640i: I own this one and have been very pleased with it so far. I can do 16 track recording via Firewire with this and it makes a great live board as well. $1,499

Allen and Heath ZED 16R: I haven't used this one but have heard good things about it. If I remember right you can set up each channel fader as a midi controller in your DAW. $1,998

Midas VeniceF : There are a few sizes of this one and it has the best preamps out of these three boards. I haven't used this one either but it has the most features and is overall the highest quality. $4,827 for the one with 16 mono inputs.

All of these the Firewire, insert, and direct outs are pre-fader. Not sure why you want these outputs post fader, since wouldn't you want your original tracks as consistent as possible?
 
For the price I was under the impression that the firestudio had some decent preamps. The mixer could have been coloring the sound a bit, does it have eq's?, an fx bus?.

Also, you should record discrete channels for each mic your using. It's wayyyy easier to mix drums if you have individual tracks.
 
I can get a very good sound out of the presonus firestudio, I just had to tweet it more. In fact I ended up with a better sound with the firestudio, but that was after doing a little eq'ing after the recording and a dash of compression and a little gate here and there. I didn't really get that far with the soundcraft, but effects are effects so I'm sure they can polish just about anything. All the mic positions were exactly the same and I had it broken down... Kick, Snare, Tom, Floor Tom and two overheads in exactly the same position. I just pulled the cables and switched from the presonus to the soundcraft and left everything flat just with no adjustment on the eq just to see the difference. The only reason I tried it was the kick sound coming into the presonus sounded poppy and not very warm. I moved the mic around a bit and tried a few different things. I finally gave up and just added some effects to fix it which doesn't seem like the right way to do it. I'm pretty new to recording and tweaking things. I don't know if this is just how it is or if it's a crap in crap out situation like usual. I mean you add a full band in there and I bet the average person couldn't tell me which kick was digital and which was analog, but it sounded warmer and smoother to me without when the signal was flat and undisturbed.

I was thinking about post fader because I figure if you get it right going in then you don't have to mess with it as much.

I was kinda thinking along the line of a Allen and Heath MixWizard3 that has direct outs.

I don't know. I'm just trying to find my way in this recording world, but honestly... I'm having more fun just playing around with recording the past few months than I've had playing music in a good while.
 
I know that the Allen and Heath's direct outs are pre fader and post EQ from the factory but I believe their is an internal jumper to make them post fader. Mixing while tracking may make applying compression and automation more difficult in the mix down phase.
 
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