What should I do?

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Nutdotnet

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why not get one of the cheaper M-audio cards, the blue tube and some monitors? I'm sure you could pull that off for about 500 bucks.
 
You think?

What is a "cheaper" M-Audio Card?

I though their lowest model was the Delta 44
 
The cheapest M-Audio card is the Audiophile 2496, which has a "list price" of 229. But if you look around you can find it much cheaper.
 
Well I just purchased the Omni Studio I was talking about earlier, BUT, I think I am going to return it. It is going to take about $150 or so to get my bass guitar and my new acoustic properly set up and I am on a real tight budget, besides, being a newbie and all I should start small, learn as much as I can and then go up from there.
 
Suggestions on Monitors: From what I've heard on this bbs the Yorksville YSM1 Passive monitors are really good (I don't remember the exact price but I think it was around $250 pair, if I remember correctly). I've heard it said that these blow alot of expesive monitor setups out of the water. But being passive monitors you'll need to get a power amp for them, but even with a $100 power amp it'll still be cheaper than a semi-decent pair of active monitors. Maby someone can recommend a good amp for you.

Suggestions on Pre Amp: I've heard a lot of complaints about the Blue Tube, if you do a search for it you'll probably find several posts on it, (I've ran into quite a few of them myself). I would suggest getting the Art Tube MP pre amp, I haven't heard to many complaints on this one (and it's $50 cheaper than the blue tube).

Hope this helps

-tkr
 
You can get the YSM-1s at wheaton music for $180 a pair.
 
You are doing the right thing, I think. Stick with the SBLive. It's OK, if you are content with stereo inputs.
Good monitors really make a difference, and a decent stereo preamp is alsways a bonus!
 
I stick with the Omni-Delta setup and here's why.

You will notice a difference between the A/D on the Delta and the SBLIve. No matter how good a preamp you put in front of the SBLive, you will never get a great sound out of it. Don't get me wrong, I have one in my setup for Soundfonts/midi, but I never record into it. Plus I've heard some really good things about the mic preamps on the Omni. I would say they are at least as good if not better than the Presonus stuff. As far as monitors go, I agree they are important, but as long as you are familiar with the frequency response of the speakers you have and can adjust for that frequency response, you should be fine for now. The reason most studios have/had Yamaha NS10s wasn't because they sounded good (they don't). Engineers are familiar with how they sound and no how to mix on them. Learn how to mix on a cheap pair of speakers and then move up. The front end of you signal chain is more important and will get you better results faster.
As far as the bass and acoustic setups, that price seems pretty high. I can usually get my axes setup in the $25 - $40 range. Everybody knows somebody who can do this stuff, shop around. Try to barter some recording time for a free setup from your local guitar god/tech. Good luck
 
JuSumPilgrim said:
You can get the alesis RA150 for around $200. If you go less than that your running into questionable quality and noise level issues.

Click to expand...

For monitoring out of your soundblaster (or other audio card), generally you don't need balanced inputs and the Alesis RA-100 does a fairly clean job at amplifying with unbalanced inputs. We have one and we are pleased with it. Also, there is no fan.

I hate fans.
I really hate fans.
Fans are annoying.

That aside, if you need balanced audio inputs on your monitoring amplifier, I would recommend at least considering the new Carvin HT150. Yes, Carvin. For $229 they have a 150W monitoring amp that has balanced inputs, and is a very small 1U package - we just bought a slew of them for 5.1 surround mixing and are very pleased with them as well. We didn't purchase additional Alesis RA-100's because they don't have balanced inputs - where as our console has balanced outputs.

I also hate making wierd custom cables.
And still hate fans.

Hope that helps!
 
Just a word about the NS10s. I recently spoke to a very competent engineer who swears by them. He advised me to buy a few pair bec they will be worth their weight in gold in a few years as a result of being discontinued. His take on the popularity of the NS10s is that they are the easiest speakers to learn. Once youve learned them they translate like no other speaker. It seems that for all they are bashed bec they sound like shite, their bias is pretty straightforward. They dont hide where they are skewed as opposed to other speakers which have much more subtle and destructive notches and bumps in weird places which take considerably more time to figure out. It also seems to me that they are hyped in the range where essential parts of the music take place... like vocals and guitar (and snare drums hahaha)...and so you hear them very clearly and up front in your mix and can edit accordingly...as opposed to the reveals for instance where the vocals always seem to be set back. I have only mixed on the NS10s a couple of times and that was years ago in '95. I hated the overall sound of the speaker and would leave every session holding my ears in my hands after 6 hours of listening to the THWACK of my piccolo snare..... I may yet pick up a pair.
 
Monitors are the most important thing in a studio !!!!!!!

If you have good monitors, you can nail the sound you want to get with average equipments,
but if you don't have good monitors, even if you have the best equipments in the universe, you nail nothing because you can't hear them in the first place.
 
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