Nice Mic Pre's or Decent Board?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Aguilar
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What console are you using? I also agree about the Midas, a very nice board. Wish it had 8 busses and a few other features, it's so close to being a full-on analog recording board.

My comment regarding the Grace versus Neve was simply to illustrate that it plays in that ball park, not the ball park of the project studio mixers like the Mackies, Ghost, etc.

I personally find a great way to go in a project studio is to have a couple channels of high-end preamps, alongside the usual suspects you get in a mixer. Marry that with a great two channel AD converter and I think there's a dramatic improvement.

So the only question in my mind really is the *order* in which you get the gear. If Simmons is mixing in the box and using the board primarily for monitoring, then my opinion would be to upgrade the front end first and the monitoring mixer later.
 
I definately see your point. I don't completely disagree either. It looks to me like you are thinking...."get a couple things incredible going in, and the rest mediocre and then save it during the mix." I don't mean that to sound negative, but one of those facts of life with that type of setup. I personally prefer..."Get things good and solid going in (in this case nothing extremely spectacular) and make the mix easier and more natural. I am not overly familiar with the Grace 201, but I am with the 101. Those little midas preamps (in my opinion) are right on par with the single channel Grace. I currently have a D&R console, but I have used the little Midas in my studio for several different things on different occasions (we have 2 of em). The EQ alone on it is worth the price you pay for the whole thing. To me its just a bonus that you also get nice clean summing, and incredible high gain preamps. I think if a person was going to have to stay with a Mackie or Behringer console, than yes, go with the outboards. To me though, being able to get the Midas is more than enough reason to postpone the outboard purchases. There is something very valuable to me to have gear that you can just use and be secure in that it will sound good right away.

On a side note, the Verona's are shipping. Mine should be here any day now. They have been backordered since the day they started selling them. They are an 8 buss, with sweepable lows and highs also, variable high pass filter, they have an insert button (I wish more inline consoles had that), pad, and phase reverse, and have full 100 mm faders. They obviously cost more than the Venice, but look at the features! We got ours at under $20k and it comes with the full touring case, power supply, little light setup, 48 mono channels, and 8 stereo channels. For about $35k youcould look at the Legend 3000 which adds VCA's and two faders per channel (so you can do FOH and monitors from the same console) and could be used in a similar fashion to an in line desk (tape returns are trickier to route though).
 
xstatic said:
It looks to me like you are thinking...."get a couple things incredible going in, and the rest mediocre and then save it during the mix." I don't mean that to sound negative, but one of those facts of life with that type of setup.
Click to expand...

Actually, that's not what I'm saying. It all depends on how Aguilar is tracking his music. If he's recording a band all at once, then yes, he needs a bunch of reasonably good preamps all at the same time. However, if he is tracking things a track or two at a time, then he could get better results doing it all through a boutique preamp or two fed to a great converter. And avoid any mediocre preamps entirely. The gear and the use of the gear has to be conceived as a unified design, suitable to one's preferences and work habits.

So obviously, if you are tracking a band you want enough preamps to do the job justice. But the other approach can yield outstanding results if it fits the situation. One size does not fit all.

I'll check out the Verona, and I have been tempted on numerous occassions by D&R consoles I've seen going cheap. Their inline boards are just the kind of thing I would love to have. Other than the recall, I'm not happy using digital boards and would love to go back to analog sometime.
 
There was mention of drums in the original post, so thats what I was operating off of. If however it was going to be done track at a time, than I agree with you 100%.

If you need a console (like I do) that operates in a typical studio fashion with tape returns, than the Midas is not the way to go. There are a few workarounds, but the sound is just so good:) Also, If you happen to have twice as many channels as you use simultaneously, the Midas works just fine as well.

Personally, I love my D&R console. Due to its age it requires quite a bit of TLC, and some workarounds, but for what I paid for it, it's been a gem:) Hopefully I am putting together a real large studio soon, possibly starting within the next month. We have been looking very closely at getting another larger, newer, more feature packed D&R. Probably a Cinemix. A lot depends on budget. If the money supports it, we may step right into either an SSL, a Neve, or even an API. Like I said, it all depends on budget. I am having a hard time deciding whether or not I want to stay with the D&R (half or less the price of the others) and just have that much more outboard, or go with the larger desk (budget would still support a good amount of outboard). Its a tough call. Most likely I would go with the larger console if budget permits. If it were just for my personal use I would get the D&R and not get the Pro Tools HD rig in order to stay with Nuendo. However, it will be a commercial facility so having Pro Tools and an SSL will darned near book the studio for me. Careful with the D&R, you may find yourself needing the Grace less and less:P
 
Firstly, many thanks to everyone who has contributed.

SonicAlbert hit it on the nail with his point on *order* of acquiring gear.

Since I will be recording drums, I do need the most immediate solution to acquiring better sound across 8-10 channels. My thought process prior to starting this thread was as follows:

Acquire a good board that is a solid couple notches above what I have now; something professional sounding, and to a certain extent (but not entirely necessary), professional looking. After all, the sound that I have now is satisfactory, but I do think that I have reached my potential on this gear. If I acquire a set of nice preamps, like the Avalon, then I could use them on either Kick/snare or Overheads when tracking drums, then I could use it as a killer DI for the bass. In addition I could use it on guitars. And finally, I would definitely use it on vocals. This setup would allow pristine preamps across the whole project. But the fact of the matter is that I will still only have a CFX12 mackie mixer and two preamps. This would elminate any possibility of tracking more than one source "live". Further, if the mackie's are really as bad as people make them out to be, then I would have an instantenous jump in sound just by acquiring a large console, like the Ghost with clearly better pre's. At $4000 (or so) I know its not the absolute best, but if I can make the mackie sound the way its sounding now, then I can definitely do well with a Ghost. Then, when my budget allows, I can get a set of high-end pre's according to the sound that I feel I'm missing. As far as the Midas, I don't think that's an option I'm considering. I don't have anywhere to really sit down and listen to the board before I purchase it and it appears to be very limited in its routing capabilities.

Although my mixing is done primarily on Cubase, that is not always the case. But the only reason why it has primarily been the case is simply because I don't have a better alternative, or at minimum a comparable one. Having the Ghost would allow me to consider the possibility of mixing on the console and could open me up to new techniques...

Bottomline: If I get a set of very-nice pre's, all I have is a set of very-nice pre's. If I get a Ghost, I have many nice pre's, full size console, great routing capabilites, potential for on-board mixing, full blown "live" recording... It appears to contribute more favorably to my project studio's infrastructure...
 
To get the most out of your money get the Soundcraft Ghost. I have the Soundcraft M8 which has the Ghost like pres and they sound great. Before that I used a Makie VLZ and once I heard the Soundcraft the Mackie was on Ebay. I'm a sound contractor and I've installed a few Ghost in churches and they add so much deepth and richness to the sound. You can alwasy add out board pres as your budget and needs allow. But you have to have a mixer and the Ghost will be there for a long long time. (Thats why they call it the "GHOST" want go away.) Also at that price you can (if you get drunk ir high) sell it for what you paid for it.

Good luck
 
The ghost is a good sounding solid purchase. As much as I love the Midas (if you ever get to hear one you will know what I mean), it doesn't offer the amenities that the Ghost does. If you do decide to take it out on location though, you would do well to to purchase a good case for it. The Ghost is quite as "roadworthy" as your other Soundcraft consoles. It just wasn't totally designed for portability. However, a 24 channel ghost would be a little less prone to issues than a 32. Also, if you don't need machine control built into your console, you can save a pretty penny by buying the LE version.
 
Aguilar, I don't know if you subscribe to EQ Magazine, but in the current issue there are a couple studios you should take a look at. I love checking out the studios featured in that magazine, it always gives me ideas.

Look at the studio on the last page, "tonysound", and then the featured studio owned by Scarface. A lot of people are putting together studios like this these days. They are relatively smaller, not huge racks of gear but well chosen racks of gear. The analog gear is primarily preamps, compressors, and eq, along with digital fx boxes. Digital mixers or control surfaces are used instead of analog mixers. So the studio is relatively small, efficient, and well integrated into the DAW environment.

This is basically the concept behind my studio as well, although the featured studios in EQ this month are a bit more refined, especially since they are in nice acoustically designed rooms. I use a couple cascaded Tascam DM-24 mixers, tied to a couple MOTU 2408mkII's, along with Digital Performer. The mixers become an extension of the software, and DP becomes basically a big digital patchbay and multitrack recorder. As I mentioned in a previous post, I miss some aspects of having an analog board, but overall it's now very hard for me to tear myself away from this kind of setup.

It's very efficient, practical, and ties together all my gear into one recallable environment. It also sounds good. I've also assembled a nice collection of analog compressors, a good analog eq, and some great digital fx boxes. Thanks to the way I have things patched, I can route any signal in DP (or the DM-24's) as a buss or aux send to any outboard processor, like a plugin. I just use a pull down menu in DP to send it to the analog gear, same as I would assign a plugin.

So there's a lot of different ways to do things. You've probably already done this, but I'd highly suggest you buy EQ, Mix, Keyboard, EQ, for a few months (and subscribe to TapeOp). Study the studios you see in those mags, and find the ideas that appeal to you. Then you can start to put together your own place. That's approach I've taken and I'm really pretty happy with my studio, although I do still fuss over the details.
 
great advice!....do you have any pics of your studio to post?
 
The most recent photos I have are from last October:

http://www.misterpotts.com/studio10102003.html

As you will see, the furniture is homemade, and the room is not a professionally designed studio. So compared to the studios I mentioned seeing in EQ, mine is not as refined. It certainly looks homemade! The gear is good though, and I can do a lot of different types of projects with great quality.

The "mastering" rack is pretty much the same as in the photos.

I changed some of the fx/signal processors in the racks above and below the mixers. For example, I now have four DBX 903 compressors in the 900 rack, instead of two 903's and two 904 gates. I just wasn't using the gates. The Aphex 622 gate and Digitech RDS are also gone now, as is the Kurzweil Rumour (replaced with a Kurzweil KSP8). The REV5 and TC M2000 are also gone, rendered unnecessary by the KSP8. Finally, I have an Ensoniq DP/4 now as well, great box. I suppose I should take new pictures one of these days.

The other area where I've done a lot of work is in my sound modules/sampling. That's a lot different than the pictures, but perhaps that's a subject for another day!
 
I've never used the UA 610, so I can't really comment from firsthand experience. However, that's a tube pre, and from what I've read seems to be a color piece. Great River makes pres with different designs, so lumping them all into one group isn't quite accurate. GR makes pres that are designed to be very clean, and also Neve type pres with "iron". In general, pres on project studio boards are not going to be up to the level of boutique external pres. Also, the design on mixer pres tends to be toward the neutral, since they will be used in all sorts of different styles of music.

I think a lot of people mix up the difference between the tube sound and the iron sound. You'll sometimes see posts from people looking for a big sound, and they are talking about all sorts of tube gear. In my experience, it's the iron that gives a bigger sound, while good tube gives a rounder sound, one that is very pleasing to the ear.
 
Interesting comparisons. Each of the 3 mic preamps you listed are VERY different. The Great River has a beautiful silky top end and nice tight lows. To me the Great River is a very good "first" preamp that will stay with your rack no matter matter what else you get. The UA 610 is quite a different beast. To me its a little more specialized and not the greatest "first" preamp unless you have a really good sounding console. The UA seems a little more edgy and aggresive to me. I love it on guitars, some vox, and on drums. The highs don't seem quite as "pretty" to me as the GR, and the lows seem quite a bit more aggresive to me. This can be a really good thing, or it can also be hard to manage depending on waht sound you are after and what source material you are recording. The Universal Audio seems like a great "second" pre to have if you already have a Great River, but I would get the Great River first. If you had both the UA and the GR, I can't see ever using the Soundcraft pre's unless you had to. Not that the Soundcraft pre's are bad, just no where near the Great River or the Universal Audio as far as "magic" goes.
 
SonicAlbert

Ironically, your setup is somewhat similar to an alternative that has recently been brought to my attention. A friend of mine suggested that instead of ghetting the ghost I should get a Motu 896HD because that will make a much bigger impact on my sound (pointing out that the layla's signal to noise ration is barely acceptable). He suggested that I should sell my Layla and purchase a DM24/MOTU HD896 combo; he believes that will take me much farther than trying to incorporate an analog board into a system that is for all intents and purpuses digital...

it sounds very persuasive...
 
Accept that in my opinion the Ghost preamps will absolutely smoke the MOTU or the Tascam DM24 preamps in terms of warmth and musicality. This, in my opinion, would more than make up for anything lacking in your converter department. The recording chain starts with the musician, then the mic, then the preamp, then the engineer, then the converter. Wherever your weak link is is where your sound starts to degrade. The closer to the beginning of the chain, the worse off.
 
Aguilar,

The thing to remember about the DM-24 and digital mixers in general is that they can be basically used as giant audio interfaces/soundcards. The DM-24 has an optional firewire card that will do 24 channels in and out of your computer. Or, you could do what I've done, which is interface the DM-24 with your DAW via TDIF (or lightpipe). With something like the MOTU 2408 PCI-324/424 (mk 1, 2, or 3) you can get 24 channels in and out of your DAW as well.

So then why buy the 896HD? It's a nice piece, no question, but you are already getting tons of converters and preamps in the DM-24. I personally would put the money saved by not buying the 896HD toward a couple channels of outboard preamps.

If you end up with the DM-24 or similar digital mixer, what I would suggest doing is use that for the bulk of your preamps and converters. Then, and this is very important, you get yourself a couple channels of a boutique preamp. Like the Grace 201, Great River, Vintech, Millenia, any number of the wonderful preamps out there. Ultimately, you'd also add 2-8 channels of really nice external conversion as well, like Apogee, Benchmark, Mytek, Lavry, for example. The DM-24 has plenty of digital I/O as well, so it can take the digital output those converters would provide.

A setup like this covers you really well. You get the hardware mixing totally integrated with your DAW, all the nice recall and automation features, but you also have a nice outboard analog front end. This is what a lot of people are doing these days. Not that that makes it right, or the best, but just that it is a practical way to merge digital and analog technologies to get the most from both.

Another digital mixer to consider would be the Yamaha O1V96. Is that what it's called? Something like that. I like my DM-24's, but I thought the Yamaha looked pretty good too. Just make sure you carefully examine the I/O available on each board, so that you get what you need.
 
Good Point Sonic Albert. That is something I totally missed. The redundancy of a DM24 and an HD896. It would definately be a good idea to make sure your A/D only happens once. If you have resolved to go the Digital mixer route, thats cool. I will try and not bring up the analog one again. SA is right about adding some outboard, and ASAP getting at least 2 really nice channels of AD/DA. The DM24 is certainly not useless, but I would just avoid the pre's and EQ's as much as possible in order to use the outboard pre's. The DM24 as far as a budget digital mixer goes, actually does sound pretty decent as is very functional:) If you want one with much better preamps and EQ's, (also better comps and FX) take a look at the Yamaha DM series.
 
Don't stop talking about analog mixers!

It's really about finding what works for oneself given the parameters, money, and personal preferences. I personally would like to have a digitally controlled analog mixer, but those are outrageously expensive and simply beyond my means right now.

I use analog submixers with my DM-24's, so it's not like I have anything against analog mixers, I actually love them. Just that in the budget range the digital mixers really do offer a lot, and integrate so nicely with DAW's. In particular, I find the recall to be very addicting! The ability to get a mix/routing to a certian point, then save it, move on to something else and come back later to find the mix exactly where I left it, is just wonderful.
 
I just figured that it sounded like the debate over which route to go was solved. So rather than constantly reccomending an analog console, it would be more productive to make sure that the best possible digtal path was followed:)

I am not an analog console Guru, but I have worked on plenty of them and prefer them to work on. I love my digital gear, but I hope it will always be centered around a nice large analog console:) Like it is now;)
 
Gentlemen,

It's really a difficult situation. On the one hand, having my system fully integrated (digitally) so that all my equipment is talking to each other in the same language would be ideal. But on the other hand, my heart is with the analog board. I just found out from the MOTU guy that the HD896 is 120db s/n ratio; 10db more than my layla. I might instead updgrade to the MOTU and get the soundcraft. I think this is the route that I will be most at peace with...

BTW - I posted a thread in teh computer recording section on the difference that 10db in headroom can have at 110db...but nobody has replied...care to take a look and opine?
 
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