What next?

[andycerrone]

Compaq Presario SR1500NX
Mackie 1202 VLZ Mixer
Alesis M1 MKII Active monitors
Sony MDR-V150 Headphones
Delta 44 Interface
Studio Projects VTB-1
Presonus Bluetube Tube Preamp
Studio Projects C-1
Sennheiser E609
(3) SM-57's
Shure 560
The Naiant drum kit mics (will be ordering asap)
Alesis 3630 Dual Compressor
Korg DTR-1000 Tuner
Lexicon MPX 100 Dual Channel Effects Processor
Cool Edit Pro 2.0

What would you suggest next, something that I would probably never upgrade from? I was thinking maybe a bigger interface maybe? Suggestions?

 

[TelePaul]

ANOTHER sm 57!! Nah, you've awesome hardware...maybe some plug ins?

 

[andycerrone]

ANOTHER sm 57!! Nah, you've awesome hardware...maybe some plug ins?

I was also thinking of maybe working on my vocal chain a lot. Making it as clear as I can (aside from interface and mixing board), maybe get some sort of pitch correction, some plug ins that I can use for it. Any ideas?

 

[TelePaul]

Antares atotune 5 IF YOU MUST...personally, I think its totally fake unless you want a vocoder effect. How about lexicon reverb?

 

[2lim]

Honestly, Andy, this may sound rude, but here is my take. You have WAY nicer hardware than I do. I have done some small time stuff that has actually made local mainstream radio(college radio doesn't count lol). I am gonna suggest a nice bundle of plug-ins and take a few months of just practicing various techniques and recording. After that time you will know exactly what you want!

My list

Mackie 1202vlz(new today, didnt even have htis for my previous stuff)
Behringer ultragain mic2200 "toob" stereo pre(one channel grenaded, yaay behringer)
Behringer UB802(old mixer, used for headphone mix now)
Edirol MA-10A Powered nearfields
MXL 990
MXL V67
Apex kick mic(d135 maybe?)
SM57
2-SM58 rip offs
Delta 66
N track V2.2

that is IT. I am not saying everyone will be happy with my mixes, but if I can get mixes on the radio with that stuff, then there is SOME credit to my tracking/mixing skills. I would love to have all kinds of things, but finances have not allowed me to buy any ore stuff, so I have been practicing, and to my ears, my mixes are sounding infinitely better from before, with NO upgrade in gear, just experimenting with mic placement, and EQ and such.

Just my 2cents.

If you really must buy something, I would say buy a ribbon. I have been DYING to get a ribbon to play around with lol.


Simon

 

[danny.guitar]

Have you treated your room?

It's hard to answer without knowing what kind of music you produce and what your goals are.

 

[andycerrone]

Antares atotune 5 IF YOU MUST...personally, I think its totally fake unless you want a vocoder effect. How about lexicon reverb?

Well a vocoder effect would be pretty cool, but I figured it'd be good for when you have complete shit singers coming in to record and they're like, "D00D, don't you have that thing they show on MTV that makes your voice perfect?"

As for reverb, right now the digital reverb is holding me over. I'm assuming by lexicon reverb you mean the MX200? Is it really that good that I wouldn't replace it for a long while?

 

[andycerrone]

Have you treated your room?

It's hard to answer without knowing what kind of music you produce and what your goals are.

Right now my room is temporary. In a couple years I'll be moving my stuff somewhere else, so that's something I can't really touch right now.

What I produce is more or less any kind of rock..
here's an idea of it:

http://www.myspace.com/chasingangels

I'd like to eventually have really high quality sounding recordings. Not meanign I'm planning on making enough money to live off of it, but I'd like to have something that sounds somewhat professional (or at least to the untrained ear).

 

[andycerrone]

Honestly, Andy, this may sound rude, but here is my take. You have WAY nicer hardware than I do. I have done some small time stuff that has actually made local mainstream radio(college radio doesn't count lol). I am gonna suggest a nice bundle of plug-ins and take a few months of just practicing various techniques and recording. After that time you will know exactly what you want!

My list

Mackie 1202vlz(new today, didnt even have htis for my previous stuff)
Behringer ultragain mic2200 "toob" stereo pre(one channel grenaded, yaay behringer)
Behringer UB802(old mixer, used for headphone mix now)
Edirol MA-10A Powered nearfields
MXL 990
MXL V67
Apex kick mic(d135 maybe?)
SM57
2-SM58 rip offs
Delta 66
N track V2.2

that is IT. I am not saying everyone will be happy with my mixes, but if I can get mixes on the radio with that stuff, then there is SOME credit to my tracking/mixing skills. I would love to have all kinds of things, but finances have not allowed me to buy any ore stuff, so I have been practicing, and to my ears, my mixes are sounding infinitely better from before, with NO upgrade in gear, just experimenting with mic placement, and EQ and such.

Just my 2cents.

If you really must buy something, I would say buy a ribbon. I have been DYING to get a ribbon to play around with lol.


Simon

What plug ins woudl you suggest/could I hear any of your recordings?

 

[SRR]

Shiny Box ribbon 46 with the new spider mount would be a drastic change from a SP C1, and pretty darn cheap. Most of what I have posted on our site with my wife singing is with a shiny box 23. Your VTB-1 will have enough gain for it too. Another direction could be a cheap tube mic, like the MXL V69 again I have one, and like it very much, but for my wifes voice the ribbon works out better, but I ain't selling the V69 anytime soon. If you want to go plugins get a UAD-1, and get it used from someone reputable on ebay, that is where I got mine, and for a cheaper then new....much cheaper then new I got some state of the art plugs, some of which that you would have to buy separately. $300-$400 should get you a UAD-1 on ebay. Of course after you buy one you are gonna want to get another one if you have a lot of tracks to mix. But if your track count is 10-15 one UAD-1 will work, if you are careful in what you use on which tracks. Your lexicon verb is probably better or close to being better then the dream verb of the UAD-1, atleast my Lex MX200 finds more use on verb then dream verb on my UAD-1. But I hear the plate verb on the UAD-1 can be very good, which I don't have. Oh and Andy, buy those moreme's already!

 

[andycerrone]

Shiny Box ribbon 46 with the new spider mount would be a drastic change from a SP C1, and pretty darn cheap. Most of what I have posted on our site with my wife singing is with a shiny box 23. Your VTB-1 will have enough gain for it too. Another direction could be a cheap tube mic, like the MXL V69 again I have one, and like it very much, but for my wifes voice the ribbon works out better, but I ain't selling the V69 anytime soon. If you want to go plugins get a UAD-1, and get it used from someone reputable on ebay, that is where I got mine, and for a cheaper then new....much cheaper then new I got some state of the art plugs, some of which that you would have to buy separately. $300-$400 should get you a UAD-1 on ebay. Of course after you buy one you are gonna want to get another one if you have a lot of tracks to mix. But if your track count is 10-15 one UAD-1 will work, if you are careful in what you use on which tracks. Your lexicon verb is probably better or close to being better then the dream verb of the UAD-1, atleast my Lex MX200 finds more use on verb then dream verb on my UAD-1. But I hear the plate verb on the UAD-1 can be very good, which I don't have. Oh and Andy, buy those moreme's already!

Haha, thanks man. The moreme's are getting bought hopefully this weekend when I can move some funds into my debit account (along with some cash for the Naiant mics). I've been thinking about a ribbon, I've never used one in my life, as a producer or the person recording, so I know almost nothing about them other than what I've read (which really isn't much). With plugs, I honestly don't know what I would look for, I usually use around 15 tracks total. What exactly is the UAD-1?

 

[andycerrone]

Oh, and I just listened to "JTTW" since it is extremely close to the arrangement of gear I have (plus the ribbon, of course), and I'm amazed by how clear the vocals sound. Definitely a step up, I'd say. Your wife has a great voice, too. I'll have to take a peak at how much they're going for on ebay.

 

[andycerrone]

Ok, I found them. There's two of them, is the extra 200 bucks for a Lundahl output transformer?

 

[SRR]

http://www.shinybox.com/ShinyBox46.php?osCsid=0092a3a278f91cb1ca0a3430c6575275

Looks like an extra $150 for the Lundahl. I only have a stock 23 (they are only $165, and he isn't gonna carry them any more). So I can't comment one way or the other on upgraded transformers. I do know that there is talk that with some of the stock transformers you won't notice that much of a difference but some stock transformers compared to the upgraded ones there is a big difference. So I guess the upgraded transformer option gives you that sense of security where a stock transformer might always have you guessing just how good your mic could really be.

 

[andycerrone]

http://www.shinybox.com/ShinyBox46.php?osCsid=0092a3a278f91cb1ca0a3430c6575275

Looks like an extra $150 for the Lundahl. I only have a stock 23 (they are only $165, and he isn't gonna carry them any more). So I can't comment one way or the other on upgraded transformers. I do know that there is talk that with some of the stock transformers you won't notice that much of a difference but some stock transformers compared to the upgraded ones there is a big difference. So I guess the upgraded transformer option gives you that sense of security where a stock transformer might always have you guessing just how good your mic could really be.

I think I'll put that on my wish list...

 

[SRR]

http://www.uaudio.com/products/digital/projectpak/index.html

http://www.uaudio.com/products/digital/index.html

 

[andycerrone]

http://www.uaudio.com/products/digital/projectpak/index.html

http://www.uaudio.com/products/digital/index.html

I forgot to ask, on that track, was all the piano work done direct in to a digital piano? I'm assuming the drums isn't acoustic, too, right??

 

[SRR]

The 1176LN and LA-2A are some of the best software compressors around for the money. If I was buying used I would make sure I had both of those included. Which I should explain, when you sell a UAD-1 card used, you are also selling the plugins that you bought with it, or bought later. If you are selling two UAD-1 cards, you are selling one with all the plugs you bought, and one card with just the basic plugs that come with the project pack. So anyways, if you buy a card used, check what plugins it comes with, against the list for the project pack, to figure out how many extra plugs you are getting. Once you buy any card you can always buy the plugs that you want that you didn't get with the card. Neve plugs are $250 each I think. Where the LA-2A and 1176LN are $150 each. So figure out what a used one comes with, then add up how much they spent on extra plugs, add what ever the current pricing on a new one would be, etc...

Also if you bought a second UAD-1 you don't have to rebuy plugins for that card, you get full usership of what ever plugs you payed for across the two cards.

And with the card doing the processing on the plugin it frees up your computer to do more non-UAD-1 plugins.

Oh and buy reaper, its only $40!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SRR]

I forgot to ask, on that track, was all the piano work done direct in to a digital piano? I'm assuming the drums isn't acoustic, too, right??

All my wifes songs except for the one posted for short bus peeeps are sung to a backing CD trax. So my task is made easy and hard, easy cause I have no musicians to mix, hard cause I can't mix musicians the way I want, and the backing vocals if we used them sometimes are to loud or to soft and their ain't a thing I can do about it. With Christian music its easy to buy backing trax cause all across America in churches there are guest vocalists/special music/main music/what have you sung to trax bought in the local Christian book stores everyday. For recording it and producing a CD licensing is a pain cause you have to pay both the original artist fees and fees to the people who recorded the trax you are using. So making a CD is expensive. Much more then you wanted to know...

 

[andycerrone]

The 1176LN and LA-2A are some of the best software compressors around for the money. If I was buying used I would make sure I had both of those included. Which I should explain, when you sell a UAD-1 card used, you are also selling the plugins that you bought with it, or bought later. If you are selling two UAD-1 cards, you are selling one with all the plugs you bought, and one card with just the basic plugs that come with the project pack. So anyways, if you buy a card used, check what plugins it comes with, against the list for the project pack, to figure out how many extra plugs you are getting. Once you buy any card you can always buy the plugs that you want that you didn't get with the card. Neve plugs are $250 each I think. Where the LA-2A and 1176LN are $150 each. So figure out what a used one comes with, then add up how much they spent on extra plugs, add what ever the current pricing on a new one would be, etc...

Also if you bought a second UAD-1 you don't have to rebuy plugins for that card, you get full usership of what ever plugs you payed for across the two cards.

And with the card doing the processing on the plugin it frees up your computer to do more non-UAD-1 plugins.

Oh and buy reaper, its only $40!!!!!!!!!!!

I've never done plug ins, for the record. I always thought it was a cd-installation type of thing; guess not. I'm assuming now that means it's something like a soundcard that you physically install to your computer? Probably in the same place as a soundcard? Now why would I buy 2, wouldn't the original one with the added effects also have the old effects on it still?