serious Mic pre selection - enough with the low end's high end stuff

[musimedia]

Focusrite is a descent company with renowned products. They are offering the 8 channel ISA 828 for +/- 2500$. that works out to roughly 300$ a channel. not bad if you are serious about recording.

But again, that would be 8 pres that sound the same..is that a good thing or a bad thing ? I mainly use the pres in my MOTU 896 and it's true that things lack depth and clarity if all is tracked thru them pres. It shows up quite easily in the mixing process. I am with the 'less is more' people and find I'm always trying to de-dull tracks done on the MOTU pres, adding more processing that I would like to. to be honest, I'm not rich and can't really afford the outboard gear I would rather use in place of plugins, and some plugins are great at what they do but introduce 'impurities' in the original sound.

I must say that I preferred the sound of the pres in the Yamaha Promix going in SPDIF to a m-audio 2496. But I haven't used that in years tho I still own both. heck, a Samson MPL1502 mixer to the line in of a SBLive had more headroom than the MOTU ! (sad...sad.)

for the time being, my newly re-built studio is only used to produce my first English album (I'm French...) as a way of burning-in the new rooms and getting to know the new gear I will introduce. It won't be allot of new gear, mainly 1 or 2 flavours of preamps and possibly a summing mixer to get out of the box for the final mix. (I might just rent that one)

I'm looking for something with ADAT so I can add preamps to the MOTU 896 and still use the built-in pres if that is what the song calls for.

I will , once the tracks are done, replace electronic drum triggered samples with acoustic drums. So 10-12 channels would be used for that, again possible because of the ADAT input.

as far as tracking goes, Most situations will call for a mono OR stereo setup. two channels of premium preamps is what I really need. Four would be great but is not a must. 8 would be amazing if the price tag is right.

So again, the pres are to be used for Vocals, Acoustic guitar and guitar cabs. Bass is mostly done by DI and I have a nice active DI that for some reason , by it's cheap design, attenuates just the right freqs in the low/mid-low end to make it always sit just right in the mix for my style of song/playing.

When the time comes to record acoustic drums, If the sound I'm after is not possible in my own studio, I can hire at a nearby studio that uses SSL and other respected gear, and that would still be cheaper than aquirering the gear / sound treatment needed for it to happen.

I am open to your suggestion for choosing preamps that will give me sound, not bells and whistles.

what would you comment/suggest on for :

• single channel
• two channel
• four channel
• eight channel

I'm not sure about channel strips, because I would rather not print EQ/comp/de-essing/etc.. to tape, leaving that to the mixing stage.

I do agree that it is very subjective, and that is what I'm after, your opinion, experiences, thoughts, tips, etc... Time for me to leave the semi-pro league and get a little closer to the pro level, since this studio will open for business sometime in the next year.

FWIW, I have been recording for 15 years, started with the infamous Tascam portastudio, then to a Pentium and SAW studio, all the way to real mixing and tracking rooms with mostly respected gear. I have been mixing projects ever since and have tracked beautiful sounding material with less then ideal conditions at times. I have produced film score, jingles, radio spots, bands, solo artists.... I now feel it's time to stop playing (not stop having fun!) and take this to the next level. Stop recording demos and start producing albums.

thanks for all you time in advance.

Michel
@Musimedia

[Snatchman]

Hi. I guess you may do good going the lunchbox route. ( some love or hate it)..This way, you can sorta avoid what you are trying to avoid with the Focusrite. ( same flavor pres). With the lunchbox, you can pick and choose which flavor of pres you need/want. Whatever kind of multi-channeled pre/converter Adat out unit you get, you'll still have the same flavored pre. Which could be a bad or good thing depending on how you work. Of course you can get variations of sound out of most transformer based pres by saturating the transfomer. ( that's why I'm a big fan of input/output knobs on the pre.) Anyway, good luck whichever route you take....

[musimedia]

Thanks !

The lunchbox thing sounds great, in the way that I can populate it as budget alows. But the initial cost of the lunchbox itself (400-500$) and two API 512 modules (600-700) for exemple sets me back to 1700-2000$ for only two channels. And no digital connections so I am only replacing mic pres and not increasing total input count.

that being said, Two channels of API 512 would suffice for a good while !!!

Any thoughts on the API A2D ?

[Lynn Fuston]

After using a variety of great preamps for years, I decided last year that I needed one 8-channel unit that I could use when I needed all one preamp on a session, like strings or such. I got the Millennia HV-3D and have been very pleased with it. I wouldn't have any hesitation about suggesting an 8-channel preamp to use for lots of things. Sometimes it's preferable.

Just used it on Brass this week with R-122s, C&T Studio Vocalist and 4047s. It sounded great. The R84s on trumpet still went through the Flamingo though. Killer combo.

[tcause]

Interesting... at the core of your post is the issue of the performance of the 828... I was never happy with my 828... I used to have it coupled with a 01v96... If your conversion/digital chain is not up to scratch, you just won't get to hear your pre's properly... you cannot make an mbox sound good.

So... first... ditch the 828 and get something that steps you up on the digital front and gives you a solid base... Lynx Aurora 8/16 with firewire... or Metric Halo if you are on a mac... 003 if you want digi...

When it comes to pre's there are no wrong choices... but if you can afford 8 pre's in whatever combination so be it... but 2 channels of flexible (multi optioned) high quality pre will generally stand you in better stead than 8 channels of lower quality and a single flavour.

The number of guys out there who get great results with a pair of origins...

My first choice - desert island pre is a cranesong flamingo.... amazing array of different types of goodness.

[musimedia]

tcause,

Thanks, that is the kind of constructive advice I'm after. I have heard good things about Lynx ... as far as the mic pres...I'm still not convinced in anything yet. Seems to be 500$ or 2000$ per channel in that case.

I would like to get two identical pres at first to get a descent stereo setup.

If i go the 500$ route... I'm going to upgrade again at some point...so it means more money down the road.... if I go the 2000$ route....well... I can't afford that right now as I have just remodeled the whole basement into a descent facility ! LOL... at least I have the rooms now. and I guess I did a good job because it reveals the flaws in my chain.

for the time being, I have 4 different preamp options, not the best, but i know their strong/weak points.. and that is a good thing to me, since I know what to use when decision time arrives.

preamps:
8 MOTU 896 ...
2 ART TPS II
2 yamaha promix (8 in total but 2 over SPDIF or Analog)
5 SAMSON MPL preamps (analog/direct out)

I know the Samson don't seem like much, but I recorded the most impressive drum tracks using only these 5 preamps, for some reason they sound like crap with anything else, but come to life with drums.

I intend to keep them all, after all they are pais for and ARE good options in a given situation.

I have to admit that the biggest problem is probably the one you have talked about and that is the digital conversion. There seems to be a clock issue ,and some digital grain if I may call it that, in the AD part of the rig.

Maybe I'm thinking mic pre and should first consider a better converter option. I remember working with the M-Audio 2496 (or SBLive! ) for quite some time and never had the conversion issues I get with the MOTU and I thought the MOTU would be a great step ahead for that little 100$ M-audio....

wow, sorry for the looooong post. I'm really eager to get the results I know I am capable of with the right tools...

cheers!