Pre/Comp/EQ combo

S

SlartyBartfast

New member
I'm a home recording newbie with a very tight budget. I'm looking to buy a preamp/compressor/eq combo unit in the $200-300 price range. I've come across the Joemeek 3Q and the ART Pro Channel. Does anyone have any advice and/or suggestions on what to by? Are any others available in this price range that are better?

I'll primarily be recording guitar, piano, and vocals. I'm looking for a clean, full sound.

Would I be better off buying separate units or is the combo route okay?

Thanks!

UPDADE: For those curious, I'm using a supercardioid dynamic mic
 
SlartyBartfast said:
I'm a home recording newbie with a very tight budget. I'm looking to buy a preamp/compressor/eq combo unit in the $200-300 price range. I've come across the Joemeek 3Q and the ART Pro Channel. Does anyone have any advice and/or suggestions on what to by? Are any others available in this price range that are better?

I'll primarily be recording guitar, piano, and vocals. I'm looking for a clean, full sound.

Would I be better off buying separate units or is the combo route okay?

Thanks!

UPDADE: For those curious, I'm using a supercardioid dynamic mic
Click to expand...

I personally dont love the "all in one" type of boxes.
A good quality, dedicated mic pre will give you much better results.
Certain pre's with EQ, like from a console, will be great even without the EQ section engaged, AND give you some EQ. I am talking about a Neve 1073 or 1081 type of scenario, though, not a 300 dollar mic pre...

get the best mic pre you can possibly afford, and then look at the best possible microphone. the rest is icing, but you need the cake first.

Just my opinion....
 
If you can stretch you budget just a little more, the M-Audio Tampa is a pretty good channel strip. The Presonus Eureka is just outside your price range too, although I haven't tried it.
 
It's probably something shy of heresy to disagree with Joel, but I think on a budget that you're working within, an all in one channel like the ART or Meek can be a wise investment. Because of the tonal options you can get with eq and compression - not to mention mic placement and choice - you can learn more about what these things do and how you can use them to your advantage. One nice pre is great to have, too...so I guess it depends on what you want out of your gear.
 
SlartyBartfast said:
I'm a home recording newbie with a very tight budget. I'm looking to buy a preamp/compressor/eq combo unit in the $200-300 price range. I've come across the Joemeek 3Q and the ART Pro Channel. Does anyone have any advice and/or suggestions on what to by? Are any others available in this price range that are better?

I'll primarily be recording guitar, piano, and vocals. I'm looking for a clean, full sound.

Would I be better off buying separate units or is the combo route okay?

Thanks!

UPDADE: For those curious, I'm using a supercardioid dynamic mic
Click to expand...
Go with the ART Pro Channel, which like the Pro VLA, is a better choice. The Three Q has a thin pre sound and harsh EQs. The comp is best for an electric guitar effect, if used sparingly.
 
Well, the general consensus I've seen is that if you're not willing to shell out the cash for pro equipment, you'll have to work with subpar stuff. So, I figure until I have the knowledge and $$ to be able to invest in that kind of stuff, It would be wise to save my money for the time being.

That being said, I'd still like to get a decent sound out of my equipment (if that's possible!!). I'm not planning on putting out professional-quality recordings at this stage, but high-quality demos would be nice. I'd like to keep the signal as clean as possible w/ no distortion, but I'm aware that with my current equipment and budget this may not be possible..

I just started reading this book: "Guerrila Recording Techniques". Are any of you familiar with it? It seems like a great reference for someone like me, however I'm planning on using a PC-based setup which it doesn't really cover.

Some other questions (forgive my ignorance!!):

Is software-based eq/compression able to be used as a replacement of hardware or is it better to mess with the signals before they're actually recorded?

Is it wise to buy an external audio interface instead of using the one provided w/ my soundcard (I have a Soundblaster w/ 5.25 front mic/optical/midi.... inputs)? If so, do you have any suggestions on what to buy? I've heard the latency on usb interfaces can be pretty bad..is this the case w/ new 2.0 devices?

Hope you guys don't mind me bugging you! I'm sure I'll have LOTS more questions as they arise (I'm already holding out on a few!).
 
Good questions - probably the biggest improvement you can make is upgrading your audio interface. If you're willing to go with a discontinued product, Aardvark's 24/96 audio interface can be had on ebay for about $200. It has 4 preamps - nothing too special, but they're clean and quiet, and even has some built-in dsp eq and compression that can be helpful. I'd get that over a Meek or ART preamp at this point, personally.

And there's a great free plug-in compressor called blockfish available from digital fish phones. It's not subtle, it's not for everything, but it's free and it's fun.
 
If you are using a consumer level (soundblaster) soundcard, then by all means get a good interface first. A lot will have decent preamps in them, about the same quality as the two you mentioned, and EQ and compressor plugins will be good enough until (if) you upgrade. You can have a 2000 dollar channel strip and it'll sound like crap if you record it through a soundblaster.
 
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Thanks for the input! Makes sense, I never took the time to think about the fact that Soundblaster prides itself in sound output, not input..

I'd like to be able to hook the interface into both my laptop and desktop, so I think USB/Firewire would be the best choice. Any good interfaces you can think of? Is this a wise decision, or should I stick with PCI?

I may be able to go a little past $300 if this is the only upgrade necessary.
 
I second the M-Audio Tampa, good clean gain and excellent opto compressor....no EQ section but that's where mic placement comes into play. Not that you want to EQ aything on the way in anyway...you're trying to capture the natural source usualy.
 
SlartyBartfast said:
Thanks for the input! Makes sense, I never took the time to think about the fact that Soundblaster prides itself in sound output, not input..

I'd like to be able to hook the interface into both my laptop and desktop, so I think USB/Firewire would be the best choice. Any good interfaces you can think of? Is this a wise decision, or should I stick with PCI?

I may be able to go a little past $300 if this is the only upgrade necessary.
Click to expand...

SOO many options in the inteface category. What are you planning on recording, or more importantly how many channels at a time do you need to record? I have used USB interfaces with no issues, but I've heard others that experience major latency and time/pitch variation issues. Firewire is much nicer anyway, and it looks like most of the newer boxes are going that route.
 
I'm going to be recording a variety of musical styles, the instrumentation mostly being vocals, acoustic guitar, and piano. I've got a strong voice, so dynamics processing is a pretty big issue, as most other experience I have have with my (gasp) Soundblaster has resulted in horrible clipping.

I fingerpick, fingerstrum(is that a word??) most of the guitar parts, so I'll need to do some boosting for that.

Firewire seems to be the best choice: the big names seem to be MBox and Firebox. I'm leaning towards Firebox for a couple reasons. I've heard MBox requires Pro Tools and I'd rather not be forced to use one piece of software. Also, Prosonus has a bunch of reasonably priced comps/eqs that I would assume work well together. Plus they can fit together in a nice little rackmount. :-)

What do you think about their hardware? How is M-Audio's firewire line?
 
SlartyBartfast said:
I'm going to be recording a variety of musical styles, the instrumentation mostly being vocals, acoustic guitar, and piano. I've got a strong voice, so dynamics processing is a pretty big issue, as most other experience I have have with my (gasp) Soundblaster has resulted in horrible clipping.

I fingerpick, fingerstrum(is that a word??) most of the guitar parts, so I'll need to do some boosting for that.

Firewire seems to be the best choice: the big names seem to be MBox and Firebox. I'm leaning towards Firebox for a couple reasons. I've heard MBox requires Pro Tools and I'd rather not be forced to use one piece of software. Also, Prosonus has a bunch of reasonably priced comps/eqs that I would assume work well together. Plus they can fit together in a nice little rackmount. :-)

What do you think about their hardware? How is M-Audio's firewire line?
Click to expand...
Couple of things, the Mbox (and Mbox2) is actually USB. It works fine for what it is, I have one although I upgraded to the Digi002R.

Also, Mbox does not "require" you to use Protools, it's the other way around. If you want to use protools, you have to use mbox or one of the other interfaces from Digidesign. The Mbox will work fine for other programs, but a large part of the price is for the bundled protools software, so if you don't want to use protools it's a waste.

As far as needing dynamics processing for your voice... If you're using 24bit recording, it doesn't hurt to turn down the gain and give yourself a BIG buffer between your max "mic check" signal and clipping. You can turn up later and add compression to bring the dynamics back under control using software. That and a little mic technique, and you shouldn't *need* a hardware compressor.

I've not personally owned any presonus stuff, but from the reviews around here it seems pretty good. I don't have a M-Audio interface, but I do own their Octane preamp and have tried a few other things from them and they all seem to have very good bang for buck.

P.S. There's a guy in the Free Ads forum down below this one selling a Presonus pre and comp for pretty cheap if you're interested.
 
one thing that is missing here is that you shouldn't be looking to HAVE to use EQ (or compression for that matter).

great results can be achieved through proper mic selection and placement and nothing more. we tend to forget that these days (or not even bother), and newbies tend to not have a clue how to do this properly. and more often than not, we rely on EQ (and to a different extent compression) to compensate for our lack of knowledge.

IMO, eq should either be used to fix something that you couldn't otherwise achieve through mic selection and placement, or for an effect.

i've got several channel strips with compressors and eqs on em.....and 99% of the time i leave them disengaged......so i agree with Joel (and Lemontree).

and also, another +1 on the M-Audio Tampa here. that's a unique sounding box there.


cheers,
wade
 
Sounds like good advice. As a newbie, I'm only going off of recommendations from books/articles on what you need to buy. What I've been unclear on is what is necessary to use pre vs. post tracking. I just figured the fidelity would be better if I controlled the sound waves before they were converted to digital, but I really have no experience; just building up a recorder's vocabulary at the moment.

I've been doing equal amounts of research on mic placement, so hopefully once I actually lay down some stuff my research will be rewarded.
 
I think you've gotten pretty good advice - get a better interface first. At your price point many will have serviceable pres included that you can later bypass as you get better equipment. Keep in mind that unlike good outboard equipment and mics, most of the digital electronic stuff won't be worth nearly as much 3 years from now. I'd be inclined to save and buy good equipment that you will keep and use in the future. As such, after upgrading your interface, I'd buy separates rather than channel strips. At the lower price point, that will let you upgrade with "keepable" equipment one function at a time, rather than buying an inexpensive multifunction unit that you ultimately will want to/need to replace entirely -- at which point you are starting all over again. It is kind of an incremental process, but it seems to me at least to be the most "economic" one. There are exceptions, of course, but to me those lie mostly with the expensive and very good channel strips that one would likely always keep -- like an AMEK, Millennia or a Pendulum Quartet - but now we are talking about boxes that go for a thousand $ or more (much more in some cases) each.

Not counting mics (which make the biggest difference in your sound for dollar spent), once you get a better interface and spend some time using it, I'd probably upgrade your preamps next, followed by a decent compressor. A separate EQ is farther down the list IMHO.
 
mjau said:
It's probably something shy of heresy to disagree with Joel, but I think on a budget that you're working within, an all in one channel like the ART or Meek can be a wise investment. Because of the tonal options you can get with eq and compression - not to mention mic placement and choice - you can learn more about what these things do and how you can use them to your advantage. One nice pre is great to have, too...so I guess it depends on what you want out of your gear.
Click to expand...

It is NEVER heresy to disagree with anyone, especially with a quite good, and very valid opposing point of view, based on actual personal experience!

That being said,
The all in one boxes seem to simply spread the money very thin IMO, so you are totally wrong. ;) ...

Seriously though, if you spend 300 dollars on a mic pre/compressor/eq, you are (in theory all things being equal on some planet) getting a 100 dollar mic pre, a 100 dollar eq and a 100 dollar compressor.... If you buy a 300 dollar mic pre you are getting a 300 dollar mic pre. Obviously I am grossly oversimplifying to illustrate the point, but there is some logic in there...

You can get a really, really good mic pre or you can get a few mediocre items in a single box with a single power supply and wonder why your stuff isnt really sounding great. If you ave a good mic pre, in time you can add a nice compressor to your arsenal and not outgrow the mic pre so quickly...

Buying something nice really makes your life easier as you learn the ropes. You wind up with recordings you are proud of, without so much dicking around... You also learn on something that would be applicable to later on when you have more gear to mess with, like what you really thought that pre rocked for.

Anyway, lots of good posts in this thread... Get a good converter if you can BTW, because the recording is only as good as the capture device in the end. the best mic pre in the world going to minidisc is still a minidisc recording....
 
SlartyBartfast said:
I just figured the fidelity would be better if I controlled the sound waves before they were converted to digital, but I really have no experience; just building up a recorder's vocabulary at the moment.
Click to expand...

Controlling sound waves by finding the best mic position yes. Processing can be added later (and removed if need be, as opposed to being stuck with it if done BEFORE recording). The caveat here is that a compressor before recording can keep your dynamic range tamed a little and therefore prevent clipping. Unfortunately, you can't uncompress later if you decide you squashed it too much later.
 
Find yourself a used Focusrite VoiceMasterPro in the 300-400 range (check ebay).. It has bells and whistles for weeks.. and sounds pretty damn good when used right. I can show you a clip of something I recorded with it if youd like.
 
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