Setting up budget home studio-Advice

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carlsborgexpert

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Apologies if this is in wrong section.

I have £100 in my paypal, and see two items that amount to this, the first is the M-Audio 2496 sound card, and the other is a behringer xenyx 1002 mixer.

I would like to know [as I have very basic understanding of this equipment] if both items are compatible; will the 1002 plug directly into the soundcard? where does the compressor fit into the equation?[im looking at the Presonus Comp 16]

Any guidence appreciated.
 
Hi and welcome.

The routing will depend on what you are trying to acheive. I will look at your two pieces and reply back.
 
It looks like your only option is to use the main outs or tape outs to connect to the first two inputs on the maudio. This small mixer doesn't have inserts or direct outs for each mic channel. But you can still isolate the two mic channels by panning them opposites of each other to capture the two channels simutaniously yet seperately.

I hope that makes since.
 
I had a Comp 16, sold it because I needed the money, and can say that it is unbelievably good for the money. I also have two Summit TLA-100A's, which are expensive compressors, and while the Comp 16 isn't in their class it is clean and sounds great.

The only thing wrong with the Comp 16 is that it's all presets, so you don't learn about compression and limiting... but whoever made the presets did a very good job.

The Behringer mixer I don't know but is probably fine. Any mixer like that has insert ins and outs, and that's where you'd hook up the Comp 16.

The best advice I have is buy everything as cheap as possible (used) because you need to save up for mics as there's no way around great mics, a KM84 new version is about $1000.

The #1 problem I see on this site is people blowing all their money on compressors, reverbs, mixers and other ok stuff and then having no money left for great mics.

For me - I'd skip the mixer and compressor (those are all available in software on Cubase LE) and save for a great mic.

If you have great song, great players and singers, and a great mic, all of this becomes very, very easy.
 
dintymoore said:
I had a Comp 16, sold it because I needed the money, and can say that it is unbelievably good for the money. I also have two Summit TLA-100A's, which are expensive compressors, and while the Comp 16 isn't in their class it is clean and sounds great.

The only thing wrong with the Comp 16 is that it's all presets, so you don't learn about compression and limiting... but whoever made the presets did a very good job.

The Behringer mixer I don't know but is probably fine. Any mixer like that has insert ins and outs, and that's where you'd hook up the Comp 16.

The best advice I have is buy everything as cheap as possible (used) because you need to save up for mics as there's no way around great mics, a KM84 new version is about $1000.

The #1 problem I see on this site is people blowing all their money on compressors, reverbs, mixers and other ok stuff and then having no money left for great mics.

For me - I'd skip the mixer and compressor (those are all available in software on Cubase LE) and save for a great mic.

If you have great song, great players and singers, and a great mic, all of this becomes very, very easy.
Click to expand...
So... you think the mic is important??
 
MOFO Pro said:
So... you think the mic is important??
Click to expand...

Yes, the mic is ultra important!

The mic is right at the first in the recording chain... if the singer and the mic aren't happening, nothing after that (reverb, compression, mixing) will do much. And a great mic won't help bad singing.

But I haven't bought a mic in 20 years, so check out if any of these new cheap mics are any good... they seem too cheap to be any good but they're probably like Kia's and Subaru's - not Mercedes but maybe not that bad.

So the most important things are the song, the singing/playing, and then the mic and then mic pre and on through the rest of the chain.

If the song/singing/playing is phenomenal, you could record it with a $20 cassette deck and still impress people with the results.

Get your sources really good - your singing, your playing, your mics, your guitars, your drums... that's a real solid old time recording concept that still holds true.
 
I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing your process, Dinty, cause if it works for you, it works. But I think you're putting too much importance on the high end mics. You're absolutely right about performance being vital. It's the most vital part of your signal chain.
But the issue is that you have to take the whole signal chain into consideration. Crappy preamps (and/or a lack of knowledge of how to use halfway decent preamps), low end A/D converters, lack of knowledge about gain staging - these are all problems that are going to make the extra money spent on that nice mic a waste until they are solved.
I'm with you that, with the proliferation of computers and computer DAWs, it's a waste to spend money starting out on outboard effects. Learn the basics of what they do, learn how you're gonna implement them (I've seen that sort of question several times recently - "I bought so and so and so and so... Now how do I hook them up?"), then start weighing your options.
But, yeah, high end mic. I think you can get by with some cheap, highly recommended and resellable mics (like the go to sm57) until you've got the signal chain and the skills to take advantage of the nuances that a higher end mic can provide. Especially just starting out, $1000 can be a really daunting number, and if you go ahead and buy that high end mic and run it through an ART Tube MP in your untreated living room, it can be a really discouraging experience.
My 2 cents, probably worth less than that.
 
I was kind of ribbing him with my initial comment... but I tend to agree with him, just not so passionately...

Treatment, microphone, preamp are your most important factors in a quality recording... they're the most bang for the buck for improving performance... everything else is small incremental improvements. It takes a sharp ear to discern between a $200 and $2000 converter... a crappy room, mic, or preamp are fairly noticeable to even the novice ear.

I just think that capturing the performance is where the hardware money needs to be spent, you'll never see a plugin that will emulate these components better, or at all. (Sure there are mic and preamp modelers available (right Darin?) but they can only model as well as the signal it's receiving)
 
The OP hasn't came back and said what he is trying to do. IT is really hard to give him any advise in the first place.
 
One of the great things about digital recording on a workstation is the flexibility it offers in post production on recorded tracks. You can try all sorts of different effects and methods on the dry recorded tracks... If you don't like it, you just don't use it, you've still got original... you don't have to print until the final mix. But there's no redoing the tracking... you live with that, so it better be right... room, mic, preamp...
 
Hi there, sorry not been back on here in a bit, working my arse off.

Anyways, thank you for all feed back it is much appreciated. I had a couple of people tell me to drop the 2496 in favour of using the laptop i already got with a usb soundcard..this opened up the option of buying a behringer xenyx 1204 or something which comes with a free usb interface...i know it will be budget but should work to good demo standard - thoughts on this please?

As for the mic, i recently recorded at a friends budget studio and they had a SE 2200a, the sound was great, better i thought than that of the rode nt mics, so i bought one of them... I was keen to get a dope mic, but not a 3 grand mic, im a rapper not leona lewis, so the se is fine..

Just acquired a free behringer mdx 1400 autocom pro compressor to throw into the mix and a load of Waves plug ins...think i must be getting somewhere now, just need to finalise the desk choice.

I forgot to mention, im working in an untereated room at the mo, til i get my outhouse converted - any ideas?

thanks again.
 
carlsborgexpert said:
....this opened up the option of buying a behringer xenyx 1204 or something which comes with a free usb interface...i know it will be budget but should work to good demo standard - thoughts on this please?
Click to expand...

If your're just doing vocals, you don't need a mixer. Check out this link for interfaces. It's all you need to get a signal into your DAW.

http://www.sweetwater.com/c695--USB_Audio_Interfaces/low2high

Just acquired .... a load of Waves plug ins.
Click to expand...

Better not be stealing. There's no love here for theft.

peace.
 
nice one. thanks for clearing that up.

i was told it would benefit us having a mixer as it would solve alot of monitoring tasks [headphones in the booth and playback etc], provide the phantom power for the mic, and provide the free interface and preamps...

also figured it might help us to learn abit about mixing down the tunes too..

Is post compression on cubase as easy as just using settings on the compressor?
 
carlsborgexpert said:
Is post compression on cubase as easy as just using settings on the compressor?
Click to expand...
Nope...

Untreated room... Pick up some sort of reflection filter to wrap around the back of the mic... then set the mic up in front of a closet with a bunch of cloths hanging in it behind you... cheapest effective vocal booth know to man...
 
Thats a good idea, just got to find an affordable reflection filter now,, theyre well expensive, but worth the cost i suppose.

thanks.
 
If you have a closet full of clothes, you don't need a refection filter. The clothes do the same thing, for FREE!!

Joel
 
joel77 said:
If you have a closet full of clothes, you don't need a refection filter. The clothes do the same thing, for FREE!!

Joel
Click to expand...
I beg to differ... the clothes just dampen reflections off the back wall the the filter can't address, but really doesn't provide a complete solution... it's better than nothing but falls way short of the filter...

You can build a filter for fairly cheap, it's not pretty, but you're not recording video...
 
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