General Purpose

[MickeyBee]

Hi everybody. I need a tip/advice

I wont call myself a producer or mixer/techguy in this forum but im
very into this ,and im a gearslut for sure

A little background info :

I hope some of you has been down this road too.
1. -Stop fiddeling with the knobs , lets record the tracks. We´ll
fix it in the mix.
2. Yeah yeah , its muddy , cheap radio and razorsharp at the same time, We´ll fix it in the mastering.
3. Lets squeese the hell out of every possible db up to zero and
you wont hear the bad production .

Thats the way to mask inexperience ( read : ME )

Soo, i´ve decided to learn tracking a litte (lot) more

The question/tip . Ive got a Joemeek Studiochannel VC1Q
preamp/compressor that i run everything through
(note: i dont do live drums) but i guess its not made for bass
electric guitars and so.

What general purpose preamp/comp can you suggest ?
I´t would be nice to have more than one option, now when
it´s time to learn and understand the difference.

Oh yeah, i only got one mic for everything, but reading this forum
i know what to go for next...

/ Thanx in advance, Mickey from Sweden

[e-cue]

Avalon 737 is a great mutli purpose unit. I bought 4. The pre in it isn't the cleanest (tubey) compared to most solid state units, but I have used this unit on everything with great results.

[MickeyBee]

Four of em..allright !
But my budgets not in that leauge.
Though i want to invest in something to trust even if the market
gets flooded with new hyped "supergear".
So i should buy the sp versions then....
-----Browsing the net-------
-I cant say they get any cheaper second hand.

Well, off to loot the net on more Avalon info then.

Thanks.

[e-cue]

Here's a tip on getting a cheap Avalon: Find one with the noisey effed up pots. A lot of people sell these & think that they are screwed (which they kinda are in that sence). Hangle them down (a buddy got one down to $1,200!!!) then send it off to Avalon to get the pots replaced.

[Drumsound]

Originally posted by e-cue
Avalon 737 is a great mutli purpose unit. I bought 4. The pre in it isn't the cleanest (tubey) compared to most solid state units, but I have used this unit on everything with great results.

Bring those with you when you come play with the Neotek!

[Jay Kahrs]

What can you afford to spend in USD? I'd hate to throw out some suggestions and then find that you can't afford half of them.

[MickeyBee]

Ahh, more inputs !
2.000$ is the limit right now.
Im rebuilding from the bottom and it seems to be very few things from the past left.
Mabye 2 different units 1.000$ each ?
..remember no drums, lotsa vocals, guitars and bass.

When im writing this i can also ask another question.
One among many i dont understand.
If a hardware gear have onboard A/D converters , is it they who
makes the quality ?
I mean, if the soundcard has the same bitdepth will the digital signal just "pass through" it´s input or can a digital signal get
"degraded" by a weaker link in the chain ?
Hope i made some sense .

[Jay Kahrs]

I'll second or third the Avalon comment. It's expensive but for a mono channel that has everything it's kind of tough to beat. Other things to consider... Vintech 1272 preamp, OSA preamp, Great River, Buzz Audio preamp. For compressors you can't go too wrong with a Distressor, 1176 or Purple MC76, FMR RNC, Aphex Expressors, or a Crane Song Trakker. For a combo unit look into a Manley/Langevin DVC or the Drawmer 1969.

I'm not too sure that I totally understand your second question.

[Jules]

I think Jays suggestion of somehow getting a Distressor in there is a GOOD ONE!

[Ol' Betsey]

Hi MickeyBee,

I think I understand Question 2. Let me try...

Are you talking about outboard converters vs. converters on your soundcard? If so it depends on which is better. It also depends if your soundcard has digital inputs (S/pdif/AES) as some older cards don't. I believe most, if not all, soundcards sold today generally have at least S/pdif.

If you had a Neve pre with say Apogee converters then you would probably use the Apogee converters and then use the Digital Inputs on your soundcard, bypassing your sounndcards converters, into your computer.

If you had a nice peice of outboard (pre, compressor, eq) that had it's own converters but believed that your soundcards converters were better then you would probably go in AND out ANALOG on the outboard and use your soundcard to convert the signal.

AND if I've got that totally wrong and you were just asking if a signal being passed between one peice of equipment to another digitally loses quality I would say, in theory, no. It's just supposed to be moving the numbers around and not the SOUND.

We're now probably (hopefully) going to get people saying that sending a signal through various equipment, even digitally, is going to affect (as in degrade) the sound. I hope so because I've often wondered this myself...

OK Gearslutzs (maybe I'm just rephrasing MikeyBee's question here but...) does the sound get affected when being shunted around digitally? Even via, say, a digital patchbay?

R.

[Jules]

Basically digital signal WILL just pass through SPDIF & AES connections.

So using an outboard units own converter will establish the digital quality, a sound card accepting the signal SPDIF or AES will have NO IMPACT AT ALL on the sound created by the original converters, even if it travels via a digital patch bay..

The finer points of this subject involve an understanding of word clock..

[MickeyBee]

Thanks again for all the answers.

I´ll check every option. I was looking at a Distressor too infact.
...or a Trakker.

>Ol' Betsey

You answerd my question. The soundcards s/pdif does not alter
anything if you use better converters on outboard gear.

[recorderman]

Hi MickeyBee,

if you've got $2000US to spend check out Brent Averill's site..you could get a pair of real API's or real Neve's. Either way...they'll sound amazing. Of course that means noe compressor...in which case you could get a singlew channel of the above and a compressor. E-cue's Avalon suggestion is good..you get EQ. I wouldn't worry about that too much though..real good pre's will force you to work the position and source a little more, and people tend to use EQ too quick. Untill you can get a good sound without EQ you shouldn't use it imo.yuktyy