Rack advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter killthepixelnow
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killthepixelnow

killthepixelnow

Do it right or dont do it
Hi there, as you can see I'm new here. Well... I'm planning to make a little studio in my bedroom. My idea is to be able tor record vocals, guitar and bass (the last two via DI). Drum section is gonna be programmed in BFD. So I don't have to worry about acoustic environment at all. I've purchased some equipment but I need some advice about (not so expensive) rackmount units.
1. Best Compressor
2. Best Effect processor (mainly reverb and delay)
3. Best Expander
4. Best EQ
Thanks for all.
 
You still have to worry about acoustic environment. You have to worry about bass and standing waves, reflections, outside noise, fans, current flucuations, etc. Just because you are not recording drums doesn't mean your room doesn't matter, it does!
Your other questions need budgetary consideration. Best compressor for $?
Do you have a preamp? You might be better off with a nice channel strip.
We have to know a little more about what you have and what you want to accomplish and how much money you want to spend before we can be of any help
 
Direct inject

Big Kenny, you're right about the environment, but I forgot to menton I'm planning to record guitar and bass directly to the mixer using a decent Direct Box. The only problem will be the voice recording. Well, returning to the threat I was looking on eBay for used racks under 150 bucks (i.e. The Yamaha SPX90) Any suggestions?
 
Your also need to consider your environment for mixing/monitoring purposes as well, and depending on the type of music you play, DI for guitar isn't always the greatest thing. You just can't beat a decent mic, on a decent amp. That is my opinion of course. :D
 
Money money money

Ouch, you got a point man!!! I forgot the monitring stuff. Well, I play death metal and for recording purpouses I've find that direct boxes sound pretty decent but... nothing can compare to a good AKG mic thru a real 4x12 cabinet. Pitty I don't have the money to afford both things :(
 
The biggest mistake I see made (again, my opinion) is people taking what little budget they do have, and blowing it all on something to suit them at that exact second. In reality, you're much better off piecing together a setup with decent quality gear over a period of time, rather than acquiring cheap gear in volumes now. The reason I say this: when I got back into recording around 9 months ago, I too was on a budget. I already had alot of stuff from back in the day, but I went with a PC/Cakewalk setup. I wanted to be able to use alot of the gear I already had so I picked up a cheap Behringer mixer. It's already time to upgrade, as it's the weakest link in my chain right now. I should have gone ahead and picked up the Yamaha 16/4 (not that it's the mack daddy of boards, but it is < Behringer and I like it!) for an extra hundred bucks, but I went with cost effective and am now paying for it, but here I am, now, going to buy the Yamaha 16/4 very soon, having waste the 179.99 on a behringer board I won't ever use again. Hopefully, I have many years ahead of me, so I've dropped it down a few gears and actually put thought into my purchases, as far as longevity and upgradability are involved.


Let's start off with how you plan on recording and go from there. You going with a PC? or stand alone recorder? Type of Music and what equipment do you have right now?
 
That's a good advice man, I'll try to get a decent equipment in a period of time instead of trying to get all in a month, hahaha...

I actually have this gear:
1. Soundcraft mixer. Model Spirit E6.
2. G4 Macintosh. 1Gb RAM 60Gb HD.
3. Behringer Ultra G Direct box
4. AKG 141 M. Monitor headphones.
5. Jackson RR3 with Seymour Ducan hums in neck/bridge

My short term plan:
1. Digidesign MBox 2 with ProTools

My long term plan:
1. DBX rackmount unit for compression/gate
2. Yamaha SPX90 vintage effect processor
2. AKG Dynamic microphone

What do you think?
 
How do you plan on using the rack gear exactly? Are you going to purchase a DAT or a stand alone CDR? If not, I don't exactly see a use for external gear.
 
I will use'em via insert points in the mixer.
 
Guitar > Direct box > Mixer >[Insert point: Compressor > Reverb] > Mixer > to Recording device (ProTools)
 
I guess that's one way of doing it, but most will tell you it's better to compress and effect a track after it's already been captured. You just need to make sure using that setup that what you record is exactly what you want, because you won't be able to take the effects away after is down.
 
Ensoniq DP/4

For about 200 to 300 you can pick up one of these units. I am amazed at the power these boxes have. The DP/4 has 4 effects processors, also called units. There are 4 physical inputs and 4 physical outputs (sorry, no digital i/o). Each unit is capable of processing a mono input signal to a mono or stereo effected output signal, which means you can feed the box with 4 !!!!! individual mono aux send signals from your mixing console and you`ll get up to four stereo effect signals back, either in two stereo pairs or even mixed to one stereo pair. There are also various other ways of using the inputs and outputs, e.g. 4 mono in to 4 mono out, 2 stereo in to 2 stereo out, 2 mono in and 1 stereo in to 4 stereo out and so on. This is a very versatile architecture.

There are 46 algorithms in all, 43 of which are 1-unit algs, meaning you can use 4 of them at a time, either completely independent or chained, even feedbacked into each other.
These algorithms include: various reverbs (including reverse and non-linear)
delay, VCF-Distortion, guitar amp, rotating speaker, panner, chorus, flanger, phazer, pitch shifter, tremolo, compressor, expander, ducker / gate and many more.
2 algs are 2-unit so you can use two of them at a time, which are 2 unit pitch shifter and 3.3 seconds delay.
The vocoder is the only 4-unit preset, taking up all of the DP/4´s processing power.
One great thing about this box: you can literally tweak the hell out of it. Each preset offers at least 10-20 parameters you can edit, and each parameter can be controlled via MIDI in realtime, simultaneously, for all 4 units!!!

The signals fed through the 4 units can be configured in numerous ways, enabling you to create complex and unique effect routings. You can, for instance, route 4 signals through 4 units independently in a parallel mode, mixing them together at the outputs, or you can feed 2 signals through 2 units each in a serial mode, or 1 signal through 2 units in a serial mode and 2 through 2 units in parallel mode and so on. Even more, you can feedback a unit`s output to its own or another unit`s inputs. There are so many possibilites.

Check it out!
 
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