Studio Upgrade

[MakaveliThaDon]

High everyone. I have the following equipment and want to get that final high end upgrade to my equipment as far as the vocal chain goes or instrument rack suggestions.


Core 2 Duo with Windows XP running Protools 7.3 and Music Production Toolkit.

Ivory [sounds very classical, but not in front of your face type pianos. I still have to learn to tweak the parameters properly].

Hypersonic 2 [Good synths, but acoustic instruments REEEALLLY do suck [minus a few patches]]

Arp 2600

Sampletank and Sonic Synth 2

Reason [which I rewire to from FL Studio]

FL Studio [which I use for its MIDI capability and drum sequencing].

Proteus 2500

A ton of refills[too many to name].

East West Quantam Leap Gold [REAALLY expensive for me, but was worth every dime, dollar, check, etc..]

A ton of sampled drum machines [a real 808, 909, Boss, as well as the standard net drum sounds that most of you have heard].

A single UAD 1 DSP card [Im not sure which plugins to get from the several available.... it can run my money real short in a quick time. I've tried the demos & they ALL sound realllllly good unlike the Bomb Factory plastic plugins ]

My recording chain consists of:

AKG C414 BII -> UAD Solo 610-> Digi 002

or

Studio Projects C1 -> Studio Projects VTB-1 -> Presonus Comp 16 -> Digi 002

I was told to get a better A/D or some type of word clock, but Im not sure. I thought of getting the BLA upgrade, but was not sure if perhaps buying their standalone A/D converter was a better choice. Please help a brother out. In the end, I would probably want:

1. One killer Hardware/Software ROMPLER or RACK with REALLY clean sounds that would sound excellent in a pop mix (Proteus has some, but not really all). I would look more for pop strings type solution. EW QL Gold is really good for serious tracks, but not for a pop/upscale track.

2. Something to improve the vocal chain to give it that finesse touch.

3. UAD plugin suggestions (I know... a TON of people have talked about this, but really... what would everyone here suggest as starters? 1176? Neve?)

Thanks

 

[pipelineaudio]

Unless you are real good at fixing computers, and even then, unless you are only planning on using one core of your new dualcore to its maximum power, I would stay way way away from the UAD-1

 

[Ripthorn]

Word clocks and A/D converters are very important to ensure accurate syncing and minimal jitter, this is true. You also might want to put all of your gear on power conditioners (if you are getting to this point, i.e. trying to get that "last little bit"). Of course, extra finesse on a vocal chain depends highly on the vocal you are recording. Some might suggest a sony c800 (something like $6000) but that might sound like crap on the vocals you want to record. Same goes for virtually every mic and every preamp out there. I think the best thing you can do is do your own tests of the mics or preamps you are looking into (if you are looking into mics and preamps, of course). You can usually rent them from pro audio companies to try them out and then decide. It may seem like spending money for nothing, but dropping some money to try mics out might save you from buying a really expensive item that sucks for your situation.

I can't speak to the UAD-1, no experience with it, sorry. As for pop strings, I think Sonic Reality has a pretty good set of strings for Sampletank. Then again, what your opinion of really good pop strings is may differ from my opinion, but I feel that the set I got was really quite good, especially for the money. Also, standalone A/D's are almost always better, because they don't have to do anything but the conversion. If you are looking into word clocks, there is one called Big Ben that is supposed to work great. Hope this helps.