Should I Get A Mixer??

D

Dav3Danc15

New member
Hi. I just started to build my own home recording studio but i'm on a budget. I have a Profire 2626 as my audio interface. I know this is not the best that's why I'm here. I have a tube mic (ART m-Four) and I feel like I need to get a mic preamp. for the record, it already sounds good without a preamp but i wanna get a mic preamp anyway and plus, to make my studio look professional. So I've been seeing this Presonus StudioLive 16.0.2 alot and I was thinking if it would be a better upgrade. They say it has a built-in top notch mic preamp. Any Suggestions? (for a mic preamp , my option was the ART pro mpaII) my budget range is below 1200. Please help
 
Dude - see that thread up above called "Mixers and Home Recording"? Go and read it. Then read everything else in the useful sticky threads up there.

The only reason you know that your mic already sounds good is because it's plugged into a preamp - of which your interface has 8, I believe.

What you need right now is not a mixer, or a separate preamp, or any more gear, but a whole lot more knowledge, and a bit less worrying about what your "studio" looks like... You don't seem to have much of an understanding of what you already own.

IMHO, of course. Others may beg to differ:D
 
lol thanks guys. You're right I gotta do more research. But again that's why I'm here. I need to ask questions and get answers
 
stevieb said:
I agree with you, Arm, but geech, go easy on the noob, okay?
Click to expand...

I wasn't being harsh... perhaps I should use more smileys... :)

But seriously, the OP has some things he needs to learn in order to ask better questions, the post is a bunch of confusion - and if my steering him to the existing reference material achieves that end, and saves his spending, what, $1200 on gear he doesn't need, then I've done him a favour...

Here OP:

The general wisdom is that there are many, many things to get sorted first before you go buying special preamps - what you should buy is the wrong question - you need to understand how mics work, how preamps work, what an interface does, what a mixer does, what a converter does, and which devices have what components before you spend another dollar.

All that information is available in the stickies above. Read them and a large light bulb will start illuminating above your head, and you'll go "aha!"... and then you'll come back and ask different questions, and everyone here will be only too glad to help you... as we always are...

:D <-- smiley to show Armistice is not being a cranky pants...
 
Armistice is 100000% right, and it wasn't harsh at all. There was nothing harsh about it. I guess some people confuse honesty and good advice with being harsh. On the other hand, I guess some things never change, once an over-sensitive baby, always an over-sensitive baby.

Not reffering to anyone in particular....just sayin'. :D
 
So what question should I ask if I wanna get mic preamp below $500? and the reason I'm considering the $1200 mixer mentioned above is because I need them in/outs and OTHER things built in this device for recording live and in the studio and not just the Mic preamp that it has. Because this is what I was thinking. I'm planning to get mixer in the future anyway, but if this mixer has a better preamp than ART mpaII then it would be worth it and would save me a lot of time and money.

I, by the way, know how these hardwares work I just don't know a lot about these two particular products. I also know that these products aren't the only good ones out there. I just wanna know about these two specific hardwares.

I didn't think i'd get people confused when I asked that. I didn't know how to ask questions in these kind of forums because it was my first ever post in any forum websites. I'm sorry
 
I've compared the two preamps you're talking about directly in a controlled way. While they are different, you're not going to experience a difference in the overall quality of your recordings using one vs. the other. For perspective, you'll experience a much bigger difference in the sound by moving the mic two inches in any direction.
 
Sorry but I am new to things and would like to ask a clarifying question.

If you have the Profire 2626 with 26 Input/26 Output, 8 Preamps, 24-Bit/192kHz.

I am wondering why the preamp?
Do you have more then the eight preamped inputs?
Do you have instrument mics?

I am asking because I am looking at doing some recording and looking into getting an interface (USB) and I am trying to get an understanding of where you are at and compare it to my situation.

Could you give a components breakdown of everything you currently have including the computer? I think this may give people a good start to help from.

Thanks
Aaron
 
The Studio Live 16.0.2 is a Firewire device.

Apologies if you already knew this but FW is, most folks agree I think, fading out. You will be hard put to find it on a laptop theses days and maybe not on desktop PCs, tho' you can always fit a PCI/PCIe card to the latter.

If you REALLY need a mixer I would look at products by Allen & Heath and Soundcraft.

Dave.
 
If you have the Profire 2626 with 26 Input/26 Output, 8 Preamps, 24-Bit/192kHz.

I am wondering why the preamp?
Click to expand...

It's only because I wanna have a better preamp. I'm not saying that the preamp built-in in the profire is not good, I just want to have a much better sounding preamp.

Do you have more then the eight preamped inputs?
Click to expand...

I will be recording drums in the near future that's why i went with profire 2626

Do you have instrument mics?
Click to expand...

I do and they are not that good. but right now i only use my ART M-four tube mic to record acoustic guitar.

Could you give a components breakdown of everything you currently have including the computer? I think this may give people a good start to help from
Click to expand...

I have Profire 2626 as my main Interface then I also have Eleven rack for my guitar (i'm still trying to figure out to to make this eleven rack as a slave of my profire). I have a ART M-four tube mic (which i think is a good mic if you're just starting). I just recently bought windows 8 and that one is a pain in the ass. I'm still waiting for new drivers to be released so I can use my hardwares. I built my own PC, I'm using i7 proccessor with 6 cores and I have two ssds. I also have Yamaha HS8 studio monitors. and right now I'm trying to figure out what Mic preamp I should get
 
I posted in your other thread, regarding this same topic. Spend your money wisely. Then sell it, cuz it didn't do what you thought it would. :)
 
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There is NOTHING special about the Presonus pre amps anyway. If you need the mixing features of the Studiolive and can tolerate its limitations it's okay. However, there's some wise advice up above.

Sixteen preamps for $1600 won't be in the same league as one for $1200 but a $1200 preamp is largely wasted unless you have mica of equal quality. Frankly, 99% of the time, spending the money on room acoustics makes a far more dramatic improvement to your recordings.
 
I have the StudioLive, and I also have a number of nicer preamps including the Avalon 737. There is a difference, obviously, between the built in preamp of which there are 24 in a $3k board and a dedicated, $2,500 preamp, but not as big a difference as you might think. If I'm mic'ing up a drum set, I don't make sure "something" is running through the Avalon. It just isn't going to matter that much.

Everybody who is just starting to acquire gear thinks it's all about mics and preamps. Guys who are a little further along know that it's all about room treatment, monitoring, compressors, and EQ. Pretty much in that order.
 
I'll go ahead and post my quote from the other thread here:


"Well, that really depends upon the quality of your other gear.

Each step of the chain, reacts to the others. If I were to give hypothetical opinionated fraction of improvement regarding price/rewards of each step of the chain, I would give maybe 2% for each $1000.00 in improvement over a $100 link of the chain. Mic, preamp, converters, effects.

I would give a 40% improvement at the same price for quality of gear being recorded, room treatment, and monitors.

This is just my opinion based upon my experience. Not fact by any means.

It is really tough to ask that type of question, as it is only your judgement that matters to you. Some guy might think the MPA is amazing. Does not mean it will be for yourself. The toughest part about upgrading and buying gear at the home level of budget, is that we do not know until we try. And how well it helps the chain is dependent on every other piece of gear in it."
 
I remember when I was on the newer, better, more expensive treadmill (did I ever get off? :D) of recording gear purchasing that I was CONSTANTLY disappointed that the purchase of a bigger, faster, punchier, prettier, shinier Gromulator XXX Pro tube device didn't make much more than a gnat's arse difference to my recorded sound....

There's also the idea that, at noobie level, you may not know what constitutes an improvement anyway, or be able to hear it. I shure as shit (see what I did there? :facepalm:) couldn't...
 
I'm shure you did! Sometimes humour makes you feel like a neu mann but other times it leaves you wishing you'd rode into town for A kg of fresh fruit.
 
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