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twopointseventwo · 4th July 2009

I record very simple music.

Most of the time it is a popish/alternative/singer songwriter type song with only vocals and piano (synthogy Ivory).

I suppose the thing I like about keeping things simple is that it is much easier for me to get better sounding mixes. I've tried incorporating larger instrumentations before and it becomes much more difficult to get something that sounds nice. I would rather do something simple and have it sound spectacular than do something more complex and have it sound mediocre. I suppose someone might accuse me of being lazy and not pushing myself to learn to mix better, but these simple mixes suit me fine. All I'm really after is getting a very nice sounding yet simple demos.

As far as converters go, I have an Emu 1212m PCI card with balanced inputs and outputs sitting in my closet. It is supposed to have the same converters used on higher end protools setups- although I'm not sure how these claims translate into practical quality. The only problem is that my desktop computer is very lacking in processing power, much less than my laptop. I might look into ordering a more powerful processor and make my desktop my new DAW so I can use the 1212m card with it.

I'm thinking I might have caught in to some hype with the BBE... oh well, live and learn.

My monitoring is... well... probably not great.

I use Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 speakers, which have gotten great praise from music enthusiasts but probably fall short for studio applications.

The room I record in is also the room I mix in. It has a few 24"x24"x2" acoustic panels in it, but not much other than that.

It's probably not an ideal situation for mixing and monitoring. I think I might have let myself get away with this setup because my mixes are so simple that they don't require as much attention, but maybe I'm just fooling myself.

I do appreciate the help though! I am still kind of new to a lot of this. I've slowly grown from a radio shack dynamic mic and radio shack mixer to the setup I have now and can tell I've probably made some bad choices along the way.

4th July 2009	#8
twopointseventwo Gear interested Joined: Jul 2009 Posts: 3 Thread Starter	I record very simple music. Most of the time it is a popish/alternative/singer songwriter type song with only vocals and piano (synthogy Ivory). I suppose the thing I like about keeping things simple is that it is much easier for me to get better sounding mixes. I've tried incorporating larger instrumentations before and it becomes much more difficult to get something that sounds nice. I would rather do something simple and have it sound spectacular than do something more complex and have it sound mediocre. I suppose someone might accuse me of being lazy and not pushing myself to learn to mix better, but these simple mixes suit me fine. All I'm really after is getting a very nice sounding yet simple demos. As far as converters go, I have an Emu 1212m PCI card with balanced inputs and outputs sitting in my closet. It is supposed to have the same converters used on higher end protools setups- although I'm not sure how these claims translate into practical quality. The only problem is that my desktop computer is very lacking in processing power, much less than my laptop. I might look into ordering a more powerful processor and make my desktop my new DAW so I can use the 1212m card with it. I'm thinking I might have caught in to some hype with the BBE... oh well, live and learn. My monitoring is... well... probably not great. I use Klipsch Pro Media 2.1 speakers, which have gotten great praise from music enthusiasts but probably fall short for studio applications. The room I record in is also the room I mix in. It has a few 24"x24"x2" acoustic panels in it, but not much other than that. It's probably not an ideal situation for mixing and monitoring. I think I might have let myself get away with this setup because my mixes are so simple that they don't require as much attention, but maybe I'm just fooling myself. I do appreciate the help though! I am still kind of new to a lot of this. I've slowly grown from a radio shack dynamic mic and radio shack mixer to the setup I have now and can tell I've probably made some bad choices along the way.