next logical choice?

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goodbyebluesky

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Seeing as I have none of the following, what are the opinions here on what I should purchase first as the next logical choice of gear aquisition.......?
  • Graphic EQ- which I have no experience with but I think could clean up my guitars. I get some boominess and loose-sounding bass frequencies while even recording direct and a good eq should help with that right?
  • Compressor- I'm a bit intimidated since I'm not educated on how to use one, but I know I need it. Especially if I end up recording bass rather than go direct.
  • Tube Preamp- I won't be recording vocals for a while so its not critical yet, but I know I need one and would like to get one versatile enough to track everything through it and really warm it up.
  • Reverb- I put this last since its mostly a post-recording thing and I won't be turning out finished stuff for a while. I'll probably get blasted for this but I can also use the reverb/delay in my POD in a pinch. Kind of a lo-fi alternative used subtly.

This is the extent of my setup right now:
  • Line 6 POD Pro for recording guitars direct
  • 2x12 cab, can be mic'ed in the future when I upgrade mics
  • Samson Servo amps, one for guitar rig, and one for monitors in the future
  • Tascam DP-01

So whats everyone's opinion?
 
If you like the POD enough, I'd say forget about the preamp for now. The compressor might be a good idea but if you are recording mostly high levels of distortion on guitar then you won't have much use for that though. However, a decent compressor is never a wasted tool and you can slap it on pretty much anything and twist any knob as much as you want without damaging your gear or your ears. I would forget about the EQ. You should be able to get rid of your problems without an EQ and besides, it takes a long long while to learn how to usefully use an EQ. I doubt you will still be doing the pod/tascam thing when you know how to really work an EQ. This is actually true for compression aswell, but it's much easier to make something worse with EQ than with (moderate use of) a compressor.

I would forget about reverb. If you want to get something better than what's in your POD you'll need to fork out big amount of money that probably won't sound THAT much better to you (yet) anyway.

Perhaps something like the Joemeek ThreeQ is something for you. 200 bucks and you get a preamp (should you ever want to mic your cab), a compressor and a decently useable parametric EQ aswell. Enough to mess with for a long time and still not spend millions on individual pieces of gear.
 
Well there wasn't really a definite answer in there.
What I'm recording is not just "mostly distorted guitars" so then I would profit from a decent compressor I gather.
I would forget about the EQ. You should be able to get rid of your problems without an EQ and besides, it takes a long long while to learn how to usefully use an EQ.
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That doesn't make sense, you are telling me I should be able to fix eq problems without an eq. I'm not talking about correcting huge problems- I'm talking about certain frequencies I can tell that need to be cut or rolled off to leave room for bass guitar and drum tracks. Only a graphic eq can give me that.
I doubt you will still be doing the pod/tascam thing when you know how to really work an EQ.
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I have just as much recording ability via my digital 8-track as I need. Whats lacking however, is my ability to get a good sound prior to that. I need good microphones rather than going direct from my POD.... but didn't address that here becaue its the RACK forum. I wanted advice between several key rack components, not someone commenting on my setup and acting as if I shouldn't bother learning to use EQ or a compressor.
Perhaps something like the Joemeek ThreeQ is something for you. 200 bucks and you get a preamp (should you ever want to mic your cab), a compressor and a decently useable parametric EQ aswell. Enough to mess with for a long time and still not spend millions on individual pieces of gear.
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I hear the JoeMeek is a very specialized preamp. I'm looking for something with tubes to slightly color the signal but still very versatile, so probably more transparent than the joemeek. The price isn't bad though. For almost the same $$$ what about the Nady TMP-3 Preamp/EQ/compressor?
 
Graphic EQ's are for PA systems. They are noisey and relatively useless for what you are doing.

You would be better off getting one of those little Yamaha or Mackie boards that has 2 or 4 mic inputs. Those will have EQ, mic preamps, monitoring options, etc...

If you are recording clean guitar sounds, a compressor is always a good idea. Distorted guitar sounds are compressed to begin with, so they don't need it.

Tube preamps aren't any more likely to give you a warm sound than solid state preamps are. It really is more about quality (price) than what type of design it is. Cheap tube preamps can be just as cold and harsh as cheap solid state.

If you set your pod up right, you should be getting a warm sound out of it, a clean and clear preamp will pass that along to the recording.

Besides, the real thing that is in your way as far as getting a warm sound is the electronics and the converters in your tascam. No matter what you feed them, that will be the weak link.
 
goodbyebluesky said:
That doesn't make sense, you are telling me I should be able to fix eq problems without an eq. I'm not talking about correcting huge problems- I'm talking about certain frequencies I can tell that need to be cut or rolled off to leave room for bass guitar and drum tracks. Only a graphic eq can give me that.
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No offence, but that's just not true. Any full-parametric EQ can fix those problems just as well as a graphical EQ with a lot of bands, neither is cheap though. I just meant that something like mud can be removed but even then will you lose something. I've tried tons of EQ and compression gear and settings and now I belief that 95% of a good tone is already there before it even hits the first line-level device.

I wanted advice between several key rack components, not someone commenting on my setup and acting as if I shouldn't bother learning to use EQ or a compressor.
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You're asking if you should buy an EQ or a compressor. That's like asking wheither you should buy a hammer or a screwdriver. You should first figure out which you really need, and if it turns out you need both then by all means let us know so we can give you all the information on gear you need, but it simply is not smart at all to ask what you should buy, just because it's time to buy something again. The risk of throwing your cash away on some awesome piece of gear you absolutely do not need would be way too high for me.

By no means did I intent to lecture you on what you need to learn, but I'm trying my best to answer a question that doesn't have one true answer in my book.

I hear the JoeMeek is a very specialized preamp. I'm looking for something with tubes to slightly color the signal but still very versatile, so probably more transparent than the joemeek. The price isn't bad though. For almost the same $$$ what about the Nady TMP-3 Preamp/EQ/compressor?
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The Nady is around 200 bucks. Might be what you need. But when you talk of things like tube warmth and transparent gear then you're in a whole different pricerange. Cheap tube gear does not have tube color. That starts happening at high-voltage tubes, of which there are a couple of units at the pricerange of 300-500 dollars for a preamp, but by far most up over the 1k range. Actual tube compressors are so expensive there are only a couple of models that actually use tubes to compress, and they are very expensive. I do not know of a tube EQ.

I think what might be the smartest is to get what stuff that's fairly clean and as cheap as possible, like the DMP-3 for a preamp and the RNC for a compressor. EQ I wouldn't know any cheap ones that are decent except for the JoeMeek (and that's fairly debatable aswell).

If this still isn't the answer your looking for, then I really don't know what to tell you next.
 
Point taken on the graphic vs. parametric eq thing. I realize a para would achieve the same thing just in a different layout than the graphic.

As for tube preamps, I didn't know I was asking too much from a entry-level unit for the tubes to color the sound a bit, so the tube vs solid state thing in my price range.... doesn't matter so much I guess. I hear the presonus bluetube is nice cus you can blend between tube and solid state for a variety of sounds.

Maybe I should look into a preamp with para eq but who offers one with more than just 3 or 4 bands of adjustable eq for less than $200? Thats been the limiting factor in ones I've seen.....

I have a lot to learn.
I'm just a guy who wants to record heavy rock, some acoustic guitar and some points in between and have it sound better than the crap I turned out when I was 16 with a yamaha tape 4-track. I'm getting much better guitar sounds (just need proper mics so they translate well), my drum programming is getting better all the time, and I want something that sounds like a polished home studio demo.
 
Sure thing mate, that's what we all want :)

To be honest, I feel there's not much to chose from when the budget is limited. There are some winners, and alot of losers, and most of the time it's smartest to just go for the winner and forget about things like color or extra features. The low-end presonus gear is not really concidered winner gear. If you really want a preamp + compressor + eq for a small amount of money, then be prepared to want to upgrade again in a year or so. Your ability will grow but your gear will not, so perhaps it's smart to think about how much the learning aspect of messing with new gear is worth to you. From that point of view I would say the nady is a very cool box, because you've got tons of options to mess with and learn from, but eventually you will found out that "your" sound isn't going to come from that box. Then again, maybe it will.

I wouldn't be too afraid of the "spoken labels" that many pieces of gear have, like "colored", "slightly dark", "grainy" etc. because honestly I don't even hear half of that and in any case it's on the far end of what you really hear.

I took a look at the DP-01, and I can see what it's lacking. The EQ must be very unusable with nothing but a low and high band. Since you're not doing any digital signal processing (the signal is not hitting a computer) you have nothing to do to the sound after it comes into the tascam. I would be highly anoyed by that aswell. I'd again advice a joemeek product. They may be somewhat colored but alot better than any low end presonus, nady, behringer, samson etc. gear. Ebay ought to have some cheap early joemeek gear, so perhaps you can pick up 2 channel strips for 300 together. That would give you two simultanious strips of compression, EQ and 2 preamps if you need em. The nady would do about the same but I doubt at the same sonic quality.

On a side note: have you concidered computer recording? That would give you all kinds of processing and FX options completely for free (using freeware plugins) and you can always buy better plugins or rack gear after that.
 
On a side note: have you concidered computer recording? That would give you all kinds of processing and FX options completely for free (using freeware plugins) and you can always buy better plugins or rack gear after that.
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Ugh, I did a cakewalk thing years ago....
I've learned I don't deal so well with computer glitches and problems, so I don't need to add that to the equation when trying to record. I have too much going on now as it is.
I got into my Tascam for under 300 bucks on clearance. The same amount of money would have gotten me into a pretty decent recording software for sure, but it would require me to probably buy a second computer seeing as our is a family computer in the center of the house, not to mention I'm old school and want to grab knobs and relate to HARDWARE, not software.
I took a look at the DP-01, and I can see what it's lacking. The EQ must be very unusable with nothing but a low and high band. Since you're not doing any digital signal processing (the signal is not hitting a computer) you have nothing to do to the sound after it comes into the tascam. I would be highly anoyed by that aswell. I'd again advice a joemeek product.
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Well, why can't I leave the Tascam's EQ controls at 12 o' clock and run a para EQ in my effects loop to shape it after it is recorded? That would be better than what most digital workstations have offer. Its essentially the same thing I would be doing in software form with a computer based system.
 
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Yeah that's exactly what I meant. Leave everything you don't want to use at 12 o clock and get outboard gear to give you the shaping options you want.
 
goodbyebluesky said:
Well, why can't I leave the Tascam's EQ controls at 12 o' clock and run a para EQ in my effects loop to shape it after it is recorded? That would be better than what most digital workstations have offer. Its essentially the same thing I would be doing in software form with a computer based system.
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You would have to be able to mute the track that you are eqing without muting the effects send in order to make that work. Normally an EQ would go in an insert, not an effects send. I don't know if you have inserts or not.
 
For $200 you should be able to find a decent single channel used eq. Or even a new one like the Presonus 1/3 rack space eq, which is $100 I think.

Used eq's for around $200 would include the DBX 242, Meek VC5, Orban 622B (if you got lucky), Rane PE-15, ART Tube Eq, or Symetrix.

It is also very possible to find compressors in that price range, but will be difficult to find a good compressor *and* a good parametric eq for $200.
 
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what about the Nady TMP-3?
Preamp/compressor with a 3-band eq, high and low shelving filters and sweepable mids. Would that do the job eq-wise and give me a worthy entry level preamp and compression?
Its 189 bucks. Seems like it does what the joemeek does but won't color my recording as much. (I reading that the joemeek is a "specialty" preamp with a sound all its own)
 
You are correct about the joemeek, but I don't think the nady will color less just because it doesn't say anywhere that it colors. For instance, I have a cheap behringer mic100 preamps. It was 40 bucks. It is advertised to have "tube warmth" seeing as how there is a tube in there. Now the real part:
- Tube gets low voltage, thus does next to nothing good for the signal.
- The actual amplifying component is an opamp (not the tube but a little chip) that has a high noise floor and not a very even frequency response (more dips and peaks in the frequency response and an overall boost of the highs).
- The design is only so-so, resulting in more noise and increasing response problems when turning up the gain.

Now the joemeek:
- Colored, because of choice of design, not because of bad parts or anything like that.
- Low noise because of good design and quality components (opamps).
- Even frequency response, except for the dips and peaks that are there to give the unit it's color (but are not there by accident).

So all in all, if the nady is like my behringer (which I think it is), you are just as likely to get "color" from the nady than you are from the joemeek, simply because it is cheaper, however, the nady color will not sound pleasant, while the joemeek just might. You do get more controls but with a better unit, you might not need those controls at all. I'd rather have one great preamp and no eq than a cheapy pre with 4 bands of EQ that also degrade my signal.

Hope that helps you a little further :)
 
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Well, if the Nady is any indication of your budget range, then I would instead try and round up a used Symetrix 528 off ebay.

Provided it's in good condition, it will probably be far more reliable than anything by Nady or Behringer, and it should sound noticeably better as well.

Best bet right now is to use mic choice and placement to get the kind of sound you want, and worry about all the "color" stuff for a later time. It's difficult to explain the reasoning behind it all, but Halion touches on some of it in his post.
 
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I know how much of a paradox it seems sometimes, especially with all the cheap gear getting advertised with big words like clarity, warmth, vintage, punch, hi fidelity, blue LEDs, Pro-Utra-Super-Mojo-3000XS-P-MaX-Sonifier etc., when it doesn't mean a thing 90% of the time. One of the worlds most popular compressors, the 1176 has nothing more than that one number for a name. No tube madness, no shiny knobs (less than most units actually), no "preset" knobs etc. yet is remains a classic and is used in every major studio today.

It's a very complex thing. Like my behringer pre, it has too much treble, is noisy and has very slow transient response. However, when plugging my bass into it:
- the treble bit is unimportant because I don't want that in my sound anyway, so I turn it down later.
- the noise thing happens mostly in the higher range, which is either turned down or buried in the mix.
- the slow transient response makes for a fairly mellow tone actually. So all in all I can get a decent to very nice bass tone out of this cheap box. However, when trying to record something like acoustical guitar, I'm screwed because:
- low volume means I gotta turn the gain up, which results in lots of noise.
- uneven frequency response makes the sound harsh and brittle, while the noise clutters up the highs even more.
- slow transient response screwes most of the attack (pluck of the strings) up making the sound dull.
Just an example of how (un)usefull one unit can be. No EQ can compensate for extra treble added by the cheap unit, and no compressor is gonna bring a none-exist transient back.

I'd say let your ears decide, and if you don't have the option to listen to gear, buy what people advice on these boards. Small chance it's not what you want/need, but the chance of buying something you think you want/need because of how it is advertised has a much bigger chance of you wasting money.
 
goodbyebluesky said:
Point taken on the graphic vs. parametric eq thing. I realize a para would achieve the same thing just in a different layout than the graphic.
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Actually, it's not just a different layout of the same thing. With a graphic, you are stuck with pre-determined band centers and bandwidths. With a good quality 31 band graphic this may be acceptable, but will almost always involve some compromise. With a parametric you can dial in the band centers and widths to do exactly what you need to do.

-RD
 
goodbyebluesky said:
Its 189 bucks. Seems like it does what the joemeek does but won't color my recording as much. (I reading that the joemeek is a "specialty" preamp with a sound all its own)
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The newest Joe Meek ThreeQ is the best value in a channel in your price range by far. The compressor is where the color comes in, so if you don't use it, you'll have quite a clean little preamp (do a search in this forum if you don't believe me). It's very similar to the preamp in the more expensive Joe Meek and Toft Audio units. I really like the EQ as well.

Get the Joe Meek. Thank me later. I've never heard a positive thing about a Nady pre or channel strip.
 
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