Help me come up with a simple yet high end mobile rig!

[Matthew Murray]

Those of you hear who know me know that I'm in the process of selling off our big and well-stocked studio, including all of our fancy boutique gear. And that made me sad.

But now i'm looking forward. I need to put together a mobile rig. Something I can take to the rehearsal studio for demoing a full band, but something I can also keep at home to cut "demos" that might end up being "finals". So the goal was to have a rig that has at least two channels that are top-tier ... so that I can cut vocals/guitars/bass/keys and whatever else in overdub land.

When recording drums, well, I'll acknowledge that I can't afford to have 8-12 fantastic pres and mics to do it right. At the same time, if when demoing, something sounds fantastic, I want the option to try to work with it towards a final too. And then again, who said a 4-mic drum setup isn't "doing it right"?

The goal here is to simplify. I'm going to work in the box. Was thinking it would be nice to have one great vocal compressor for tracking, but other than that, nothing on the way in.

So the two slightly different approaches I've come up so far is this:

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Option A

• Apogee Ensemble
• DRS-Q4
• Bock 251
• UAD2 Mobile
• Crane Song Trakker

This option basically gives me 8 channels of mid-range apogee conversion, 4 channels of Apogee preamps (clean, apparently good), two channels of Phoenix DRS-2 Preamps (fantastic), two channels of Phoenix Q4 EQ, a beautiful money microphone for vocals and rooms and pretty much anything... and one solid outboard compressor, for vocal tracking and other things. The big question is -- is the conversion good enough, or can I do better? And do I need more channels overall if I'm going to do drum tracking? I was thinking, in this scenario, that I would do simple drum mic techniques, like recorderman.

Option B

• Apogee Ensemble
• DRS-Q4
• Bock 251
• UAD2 Mobile
• Universal Audio 2192
• Mercury AM16 Dual Preamp

This option basically gives me 8 channels of mid-range apogee conversion, plus two channels of really great high-end conversion. I would keep my Phoenix Q4 hooked up to the UA's conversion at all times. Then I'd have 4 channels of Apogee pres on top of that, and two channels of high end mercury pres, which should be nice additions for drums. Leaves me with a couple more channels for some drum room mics, while still keeping two of the apogee's line ins for DI'd instruments during bed tracking.

The benefit of this option too is that I can use the 2192's amazing clock to clock the ensemble, which would hopefully raise the quality in all of it's conversion as well...

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To be honest, downgrading from the big studio is really confusing, and I can't seem to prioritize. If anybody wants to add/change these ideas, or create entirely new ideas (i don't know about all the options out there, I'm sure), I would *adore* some input. The only two pieces I'm fully sure about are the DRS-Q4 (because i already own it) and the Bock 251 (quite convinced it's the mic for my voice).

Thanks all. Apologies for the long letter, I can never seem to explain these scenarios with short ones.

Hope you can help this spoiled brat tone down his rig and still keep the quality up.

Matthew

[jnorman]

matt - you may want to post this over on the remote possibilities forum. several pros there who have the info you want.

[Matthew Murray]

Isn't that more for live/remote?

This is more about a standard recording rig. I guess I shouldn't have called it a "mobile rig" .. I just meant that it would be in a portable rack case. e.

[surflounge]

Option C:
Metric Halo

[Matthew Murray]

I looked at Metric Halo, but considering it has similar specs to the Apogee (I don't want to use any of their DSP stuff, I'd rather stick to UAD for that stuff) ... I know and trust Apogee conversion a lot more than Metric Halo, though I've heard it's good, don't get me wrong.

I'm more looking for input on which pres to get to fill things out, and how to expand channels without breaking the bank. Is the 2192 idea worth it, for example...