What am I missing?

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mhuber24

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Hi everyone. I am new to posting on this forum, but often come here for advice. I have been trying for a long to get a home studio that allows me to be able to record and produce professional quality cds. I am mainly just recording myself. I play acoustic guitar and sing. I have a very nice Larrivee acoustic guitar, and also a good room for recording, so those are not problems.

The mics that I currently have:

-Shure SM7a
-AKG Perception 200
-Shure SM58

My audio interface is the m-audio fast track ultra. And my daw is cubase 5.

What more do I need for gear?
I am willing to spend as much as it takes (to a certain point) to get studio quality sound.
What mics would you recommend me getting?
Is my audio interface acceptable?
Do I need a pre-amp?
Do I need to get hardware effects, or will vsts be just as good?
What vst plugins do I need outside of the ones that come with cubase?

Thanks in advance. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
 
Haha nice. ^^



You said you have a good room for recording.. does that mean it's been treated acoustically? Search around for Bass traps. You can DIY or buy some from places like RealTraps or GIK. I made my own with stuff from ATSAcoustics

You'll also need some monitor speakers.

Really, the only way to get professional sounding results is to practice practice practice! :cool:
 
mhuber24 said:
I have a very nice Larrivee acoustic guitar, and also a good room for recording, so those are not problems.
Click to expand...

Your gear seems fine. What problems are you having? Could it be simply needing more experience recording and mixing?

--Ethan
 
mhuber24 said:
Hi everyone. I am new to posting on this forum, but often come here for advice. I have been trying for a long to get a home studio that allows me to be able to record and produce professional quality cds. I am mainly just recording myself. I play acoustic guitar and sing. I have a very nice Larrivee acoustic guitar, and also a good room for recording, so those are not problems.

The mics that I currently have:

-Shure SM7a
-AKG Perception 200
-Shure SM58

My audio interface is the m-audio fast track ultra. And my daw is cubase 5.

What more do I need for gear?
I am willing to spend as much as it takes (to a certain point) to get studio quality sound.
What mics would you recommend me getting?
Is my audio interface acceptable?
Do I need a pre-amp?
Do I need to get hardware effects, or will vsts be just as good?
What vst plugins do I need outside of the ones that come with cubase?

Thanks in advance. Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Click to expand...

when something limits you then think about changing it...if nothing is limiting you then carry on..

You ask such an open ended question all you will likely receive is peoples own choices, and not necessary what you need....


How much recording have you done, have you exhausted the options you have?


Id say most important here is having a good set of monitors and acoustically treating your room should be a first, get them out of the equation if your looking for "studio" quality...that would be a start
 
nhuber,

I'll admit I'm making some educated assumptions here, but here they are. Considering you're looking to record mainly vocals and acoustic guitar, and that you have taken the care and the budget to spend a *minimum* of ~$1500 (new street price) for the guitar, you're not going to want to skimp on the front end of your signal chain; i.e. the business end of the recording.

While the advice about the room acoustics is good and correct, let's take it at face value that what you say about your room sounding OK is true. Add to that the fact that you're probably going to be using relatively close miking on both the guitar and the vocal, and we can assume that bass taps are not going to be your issue.

Of course, only you can determine that; if you suspect your room is limiting your recordings at all, then indeed you should take care of that.

But frankly, even if you had the perfect room, your current gear is most likely limiting you. For your instrument and intentions, I could not recommend the SM58 for either the vocal or the guitar (though you should still try it, because one never knows). Far more likely, you'd want to use the AKG and the Shure, probably on guit and vocal, respectively. The problem is, you have a real mismatch between the SM7 and the mAudio; the mAudio simply doesn't have the gain to support the SM7 very well. Sure, things can be adjusted in post, but frankly I'd advise avoiding having to do anything more than absolutely necessary in post for your situation. And also, frankly, I just don't consider entry-level mAudio as delivering the kind of performance your situation calls for. (IMHO/YMMV and all that, of course.)

That leaves you with the AKG, which is a decent mic, but that leaves you with only a single mic for guitar and vocal, where a minimum of two, and possibly three, are in order.

This is why I recommended the addition of another condenser of high quality without having to pay highway robbery price. The Mojave is just one mic that fits that bill. Then you'll want at least one channel of preamp that can not only properly handle the SM7, but deliver the quality worthy of both the AKG and the Mojave.

Of course monitors for quality mixing are a wise idea, but without front-loading the quality on the front end of your signal chain, they will be a waste of money; even with the best monitors in the world, if you don't capture a pristine recording, you'll never get a pristine recording out of the back end. Add to that, the amount of post processing you'll want to do to that guitar should be minimal; set the right levels and maybe - *maybe*, only if you need it - a small amount of quality compression, and that should be all you want to do to that sweet guitar. This mitigates the otherwise normally extreme need for mega-quality monitoring in mixing on your part.

So, just one considered opinion, other will disagree - some with respectful reasons, others not - so take it with due consideration and not as chiseled in stone. But I just wanted to explain what was otherwise an completely unexplained earlier post on my part.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
nhuber,

I'll admit I'm making some educated assumptions here, but here they are. Considering you're looking to record mainly vocals and acoustic guitar, and that you have taken the care and the budget to spend a *minimum* of ~$1500 (new street price) for the guitar, you're not going to want to skimp on the front end of your signal chain; i.e. the business end of the recording.

While the advice about the room acoustics is good and correct, let's take it at face value that what you say about your room sounding OK is true. Add to that the fact that you're probably going to be using relatively close miking on both the guitar and the vocal, and we can assume that bass taps are not going to be your issue.

Of course, only you can determine that; if you suspect your room is limiting your recordings at all, then indeed you should take care of that.

But frankly, even if you had the perfect room, your current gear is most likely limiting you. For your instrument and intentions, I could not recommend the SM58 for either the vocal or the guitar (though you should still try it, because one never knows). Far more likely, you'd want to use the AKG and the Shure, probably on guit and vocal, respectively. The problem is, you have a real mismatch between the SM7 and the mAudio; the mAudio simply doesn't have the gain to support the SM7 very well. Sure, things can be adjusted in post, but frankly I'd advise avoiding having to do anything more than absolutely necessary in post for your situation. And also, frankly, I just don't consider entry-level mAudio as delivering the kind of performance your situation calls for. (IMHO/YMMV and all that, of course.)

That leaves you with the AKG, which is a decent mic, but that leaves you with only a single mic for guitar and vocal, where a minimum of two, and possibly three, are in order.

This is why I recommended the addition of another condenser of high quality without having to pay highway robbery price. The Mojave is just one mic that fits that bill. Then you'll want at least one channel of preamp that can not only properly handle the SM7, but deliver the quality worthy of both the AKG and the Mojave.

Of course monitors for quality mixing are a wise idea, but without front-loading the quality on the front end of your signal chain, they will be a waste of money; even with the best monitors in the world, if you don't capture a pristine recording, you'll never get a pristine recording out of the back end. Add to that, the amount of post processing you'll want to do to that guitar should be minimal; set the right levels and maybe - *maybe*, only if you need it - a small amount of quality compression, and that should be all you want to do to that sweet guitar. This mitigates the otherwise normally extreme need for mega-quality monitoring in mixing on your part.

So, just one considered opinion, other will disagree - some with respectful reasons, others not - so take it with due consideration and not as chiseled in stone. But I just wanted to explain what was otherwise an completely unexplained earlier post on my part.

G.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the great reply! I know I have very entry level gear, and wanted to learn about what I need to get.
The guitar, or playing ability is not the problem. Here is my guitar:
http://www.larrivee.com/instruments/acoustics/05/D05.php

I am lucky enough to be able to record in a room that was professionally treated, so that also is not at all a problem.

Like you said, I generally record vocals with the SM7 and guitar with the akg. I have to turn the little pre on the m-audio almost all the way up to get a usable signal from the SM7. I will definitely purchase a high end pre-amp.

Do you think I can keep the m-audio as an interface, or will this hold me back?

Would you recommend a stereo pair of small diaphram condensors? I was thinking about these, I don't know if you have any expirience. http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rode-Microphones-Matched-Pair-of-NT5-Microphones?sku=271590&src=3WFRWXX&ZYXSEM=0&CAWELAID=26020952

Thanks again.
 
mhuber24 said:
Here is my guitar:
http://www.larrivee.com/instruments/acoustics/05/D05.php
Click to expand...
Very sweet! I'm sure my guitarist will be envious ;).
mhuber24 said:
Do you think I can keep the m-audio as an interface, or will this hold me back?
Click to expand...
IMHO, that's one of those things where improvements can be made, but with a diminishing return on investment. Or to put it another way, in order to improve your A/D interface in any kind of worthwhile way, you'd have to spend pretty long money, and even then the improvements will probably be of a more subtle nature. I'd probably recommend holding off for right now; you might just be perfectly happy with a gold channel pre and mic(s). You can always upgrade the interface later if you want to. And you *can* get a pro-quality recording without a boutique converter.
mhuber24 said:
Would you recommend a stereo pair of small diaphram condensors? I was thinking about these, I don't know if you have any expirience. http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Rode-Microphones-Matched-Pair-of-NT5-Microphones?sku=271590&src=3WFRWXX&ZYXSEM=0&CAWELAID=26020952
Click to expand...
I don't have any experience with the NT5s, but I do with the NT4, which is an X/Y pair of SDCs integrated in one package. I don't know if the 4 and the 5 are using the exact same capsules or not, but I can say that I have used the NT4 on a baby grand to very nice results, and that if the NT5 sounded like the NT4, that they'd be a very nice pair indeed. But that's an "if" you'd have to research (unless someone else can chime in here on that for us ;) ).

G.
 
mhuber24 said:
What am I missing?
Click to expand...

God...the answer is so obvious, how no one didn't already give it…
...is mindboggling!
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:D
 
For your acoustic GTR mic, take a look at the AT 4051B, It's a great SDC for that sort of thing. Just haven't seen it mentioned...

Rodes aren't bad either. NT4's and NT5's will both do the grinding. I personally prefer the 4051B, but I mainly record acoustic mono.

Pick your poison with a good LDC for vocals, upgrade your converters, and really don't skimp on a solid Preamp.
 
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