What would you buy/what would you buy first?!

T

terribletraffic

New member
Here's my set up

Mics :

Sontronics STC 3x (not that impressed with this) - vocal mic
2x Rode NT55s - these are awesome
5x Sm57s

Mixer:

Fostex 812 - really nice mixer, enjoying it very much. but only 24v phantom power so got an external source of 48v too.

Reel to Reel:

Tascam TSR 8

And then a nice bass amp and guitar amp, and I got given a zoom studio (digital reverb FXs unit - which I dont love...), plus rokit 5s monitors.


I want to buy a pre-amp, a compressor and also an effects unit, so that I can make things sound even better, bigger and more professional.
I do a lot of drumming (6 channels) so I have realised that I am going to struggle to record everything to tape, which is what i really want to do, so perhaps getting another 8 track would be advisable, but obviously I want to buy the other stuff first because, well, they're just a bit more exciting!

If my budget were on the amount of equipment, rather than the expense of the equipment itself, what would everyone go for, in my position?

I've been looking at the UA 6176, and the UA la-610, given that that would be two birds with one stone - preamp and comp.
How do they compare? What else could I think about?

THen i really want the Chorus echo 501/SRE-555 as my effects unit, because they are so cool. I'd use for both guitar/vocals/synth.

I play drums, electric and acoustic guitar, bass and sing, and I make good sounding 60s/70s/80s inspired funky/rocky/ballady/groovey music, but want to be able to be as versatile as possible.

What would you buy? Any suggestions welcome, even if it is a new mic etc.
 
If I was in your position I would look out for a DBX 163 or 163x compressor, these are very cheap and sound excellent on most drum and bass sources.

The Roland Space Echo's are pretty unique items but are ludicrously overpriced and I personally prefer any of their 80s digital reverbs (still made in Japan) such as Roland SDE-1000 and DEP-5. I understand that if you want a more 60s sounding rerecording then it's nice to have a spring reverb in your arsenal.

Regarding the TSR-8, I strongly suggest that you try internally bouncing your 6 drum tracks down to 2 and see how that sounds. I doubt one generation of bouncing would substantially degrade the sound.
 
If you're wanting to get a 6176, maybe do a little more research on these combo offerings from UA. I'm just repeating things I've heard, but I seem to recall the preamp in these not being as good as the solo 610, and the compressor not being as nice as the full rack 1176.

People sure seem to like the Warm Audio 1176 as a cheap alternative. Maybe that and a solo 610 would be a better choice? Might even be cheaper. How are you gonna record 6 channels of drums though?

Anyway, yeah, I'd definitely recommend a 1176 style compressor of an LA2A style compressor for drums. Those are amazing but more for vocals and bass.

another +1 for DBX 160 series as well for cheapo compressors. 160X, 160T, 162, 165 (last two are more expensive)
 
I'll also chime in on the DBX 163X compressor. I have two of them, and I love them to bits. I think I bought both of them Used from Guitar Center: one for $40 and one for $45 or something. Crazy cheap for how good they sound. They typically go for a little more on eBay these days, but the Used section at GC has been really knocking it out of the part lately for recording gear.

Regarding the preamp, if you're at all handy with a soldering iron, I would highly recommend the N72 module and one shot chassis from Seventh Circle Audio. The N72 is a Neve 1272 clone, and the One shot is a single desktop or 1/3rd rack enclosure for it. I've compared it side by side to my friend's Neve 1073 in a blind test, and we couldn't tell them apart with any reliability whatsoever. The best news? It'll only run you about $450. :)
 
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I'm not familiar with most of these, since until recently they were way out of my budget.
I can't really make much suggestion for mic either, since most of my music is electronic - synthesizers, drums machines and bass DI'd rather than mic'd.

However, if you can get an Apex 460 (aka Alctron HST11a) you can make some relatively simple modifications to it (replacing the valve, bypassing or upgrading some of the capacitors) which improve it considerably. It might be worth considering, since they're pretty cheap and cheerful for a real, high-voltage valve microphone.

I use TL Audio stuff off ebay for most of my compression needs. I found it dead useful to have lots of relative cheap compressors in fixed locations, as opposed to than having one amazing one and having to constantly mess around with the routing.

The Space Echo is something I'd like to have but can't justify the cost of. You might consider a Watkins Copicat as a cheaper substitute, there are quite a lot of them in the UK since that's where they were made. The IC400 has varispeed which allows you to alter the delay times - most of the other models use fixed-speed AC motors, though you can get three different delay times by activating different playback heads (they can be combined for multi-tap echo). The Copicat is also easier to change the tape loop on, but it can be noisy and the Roland will probably destroy it in terms of sound quality.

If I was really made of money, I'd see if I could get a Binson echorec since they have fewer issues with the tape wearing out.

What the RE space echo probably won't do is stereo reverb. That can be important on 8-track since you can use a stereo reverb on a mono signal to create fake stereo during the mix without having to gang two tracks together.
For a spring reverb, consider the Vesta Kaza (Kozo?) RV3, which sounds kind of like a plate reverb - it won't go 'boing' unless you seriously overdrive it, though I wouldn't stamp in its presence since it may pick that up. Mine is now sitting under a desk on a bubble-wrap cushion to keep it isolated.

For a while I replaced it with a TC Electronic M2000, since I was hoping to get a better plate reverb sound. However, side-by-side I actually preferred the spring, and then the M2000's power supply blew up, so that was that. I haven't yet got around to recapping it because it's a real pain on that machine.

As for the drum thing, you can either do an internal bounce as mentioned, mix it to a second 8-track if you don't want to lose the original, or bite the bullet and look at getting a 16-track machine. For a while I used to run a pair of TSR-8s in sync, but it made the mixdown rather annoying.
I managed to get a steal on an MSR-24 and that was very liberating. FWIW I still use the original TSR-8 for recording vocals and bass and dub them to the 24-track afterwards - doing it that way saves wear on the more expensive machine.
 
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