New piece of equipment

[haaris_abbasi]

Hi everyone. I am looking to improve my vocal chain. Right now, my current set up consists of a Digi 002 Mixer with either 1 of the following combos on the line in 5 or 6 [thus not going through the preamps on the Digi 002]:

1. UAD Solo 610 + AKG C414 BII XLS mic using Mogami cabling of course.

2. Studio Projects C1 + Either a Solo 610 or the VTB-1 Preamp + the Comp 16 just for a little bit of compression to kill off the spikes [helps fatten the vocal a little bit].

I like the tone of the solo 610 with the AKG, but it doesn't cut through the high end of the mix without heavy EQ in the 4Khz + range, which then causes the vocals to take up a lot of room constantly. The SP-C1 is too sibalant.

In other words, after doing my high pass filter around 120-180 hz, scooping out a little of the mud (around 200-300 hz), followed by compression with about 4-5 db of gain reduction, followed by EQ to brighten up the vocal, other lead instruments get masked. People say I have to thin out the other instruments, but that does not make sense as I place the cuts in the appropriate places (mud on drums + bass with EQ cuts and EQ cuts if there are two leads in synch with different sounds and High pass on the other instrumetns around 200 Hz) and the instrumental sounds nice. Also, when I listen to these professional mixes, every sound sounds warm and fat. Of course they probably use better external hardware, but that's what I want to know. To get the best possible vocal take for a rap artist that has a voice like The Game, what would be better? Should I get another vocal chain completely? Or should I get a set of converters to Go to my Digi 002? Also, what specific ones should I get?

[mdjice]

the 610 paired with the AKG c 414 is definitly a great combo but as you mentioned lacks top end. The two together can sound pretty muddy on some voices and wouldn't be my choice for stacking vocals (PS: I own a c414 ULS and a UA 2-610)
it sounds great on accoustic guitars and sounds good on female vox.