antichef
pornk rock
With the RNP, time is on your side - provided you have enough channels to do what you need to do now, you can take your time and research (and listen whenever you can) - all good suggestions in this thread.
A lot of it has to do with what you want to record and under what conditions. When I started recording drums, all of a sudden I wanted a whole bunch of tracks at once, and perhaps because I don't know what I'm doing with mic placement and / or gain staging, I had problems with clipping and other nastiness and so I wanted high headroom pres that were good sounding and somewhat idiot-proof, and if I was going to go to that trouble, I figured re-sale value was important. I wound up getting 2 API 3124+ units (total of 8 channels and also an attenuator so they don't clip my converter) and one Great River MP-2NV (2 channels) that I use for overheads (making it sound as clean as I can - I also use it for other stuff, of course). I also use my TnC preamps (sort of like the GAP 73, I'm told) for kick and snare. I'm happy, and I can probably resell these for roughly what I paid as long as I keep them in good shape (I got them all used, except for the TnCs). I had to save up for quite a while, though
And while I was saving, I would have been perfectly happy to be working with a RNP, I bet - I recorded plenty of tracks of acoustic and electric guitar, bass, individual percussion instruments, even some vox, that I'm still perfectly happy with using preamps that are usually considered inferior to that one.
edit: and, yes, by the time I finished getting all the parts of my drum recording rig (including mics) the cost absolutely dwarfed the cost of my drums, which is kind of silly, except when you consider that the cost of my (used, beat up) drums absolutely dwarfs the value of drumming skills, which is even sillier.
A lot of it has to do with what you want to record and under what conditions. When I started recording drums, all of a sudden I wanted a whole bunch of tracks at once, and perhaps because I don't know what I'm doing with mic placement and / or gain staging, I had problems with clipping and other nastiness and so I wanted high headroom pres that were good sounding and somewhat idiot-proof, and if I was going to go to that trouble, I figured re-sale value was important. I wound up getting 2 API 3124+ units (total of 8 channels and also an attenuator so they don't clip my converter) and one Great River MP-2NV (2 channels) that I use for overheads (making it sound as clean as I can - I also use it for other stuff, of course). I also use my TnC preamps (sort of like the GAP 73, I'm told) for kick and snare. I'm happy, and I can probably resell these for roughly what I paid as long as I keep them in good shape (I got them all used, except for the TnCs). I had to save up for quite a while, though
And while I was saving, I would have been perfectly happy to be working with a RNP, I bet - I recorded plenty of tracks of acoustic and electric guitar, bass, individual percussion instruments, even some vox, that I'm still perfectly happy with using preamps that are usually considered inferior to that one.
edit: and, yes, by the time I finished getting all the parts of my drum recording rig (including mics) the cost absolutely dwarfed the cost of my drums, which is kind of silly, except when you consider that the cost of my (used, beat up) drums absolutely dwarfs the value of drumming skills, which is even sillier.
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