Think Big
First, you need good material to record. Got it? Alright. Next, you need good equipment to plug into that 4 track to get your ideas down. Start with a Shure SM57 or two. Got the SM57? Alright. Next, look into a good condensor mic. These will produce much better quality. Look into a small diaphragm one such as an AKG C1000 or
a RODE NT3, or even an Octava MC012 (buy from The Sound Room only) or a large diaphragm such as a RODE NT1, or
an Audio Tecnica AT4033. You wanna look for mics that provide general usage, so you don't have to go out and buy 4 different mics when all you needed was one. Got the condensor? Great. Now you might want to look into some outboard equipment, such as effects processors, or better yet, a good mic preamp. The most popular would be the ART Tube MP ($99, single channel), or
the Presonus Blue Tube ($149, dual channel). This will yield much better quality, and that famous "warm tube" sound quality everyone raves about. How about a compressor, to even those vocals and other things out? The RNC (www.fmraudio.com, buy it from
http://www.mercenary.com) is
the champion of cost-vs-performance compressors. It's the best one hands down for the price. Got a good preamp and compressor? Wanna add some crazy ass reverb or delay to your vocal tracks? How about a nice effects processor?
The Lexicon MPX100 seems to be the reigning king of 'low' budget effects processors. Everyone loves it. $200 will get you enough delays, reverbs, flangers, phasers, etc. to keep you knee deep in crazy noise. So you got the mics, you got the outboard units...now what? Oh, yeah...don't forget all the little extras. You know, the mic stands, the cables...the XLR to 1/4" transformers (since the 414 has no XLR inputs...does it?). OK, you have all that...seems to me like you're ready to record. Get yourself some isopropanol head cleaner, and the Tascam rubber cleaner...as well as the Tascam head demagnetizer (seen it for $40 something at elderly.com ...that's prolly the cheapest you'll find it) to keep that unit clean and healthy for those long hours of recording. Now you'll need the tapes obviously...clean 'er up, throw a tape in, plug all your stuff in (after you warn the neighbors, of course), and get recordin. And you thought this venture was going to be cheap...
Oh wait a minute...that's not enough for you is it...you wanna make CDs! Well sir...'invest' (read: 'have your friend burn you a copy' [WARNING: piracy is bad]) in a good piece of software such as Cool Edit or Sound Forge. I personally use Cool Edit and it works just great. To burn the actual CD, use something like Adaptec EZ CD Creator...you don't really need anything special. Oh, and don't forget to pay me 10% of all your income since I'm such a helpful guy...heh!
Have fun.
