£5000 to spend on recordng equip...

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Lou
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Post by Lou » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:45 pm

Ok, so i'm applying to The Arts Council of England and the Princes Trust for £5000 to setup my own mobile audio recording business.

I plan on recording gigs, doind demos for bands and other assorted recording. I'll be doing this in conjunction with my degree in Creative Music Technology.

Now Assuming £2400 was spent on computer equipment (macbook pro, external large hdd, 8/16 channel soundcard) what mics would peeps recomend?

I've had 1st hand experience with the usual mics, Rode NT2, sm57 akg c100 etc.

I wonder what to go for though, i'll be getting some advice form my tutor at college too, but if you had about £1000-1600 to buy mics for recording average bands (drums, bass guitar vox) what would you go for?

I've got my eyes on a mixer, but i'll have to dig it out of Sound on Sound.

Thanks
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teenagekick
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Post by teenagekick » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:56 pm

where u based? u think you do a few demo tracks for a orange brother's band? maybe little on the budget side? :P

you going to need a full drum kit mic set i guess. SM58's are vocal mic's, SM57 are THE instrument recording mic.
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teenagekick
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Post by teenagekick » Tue Jun 06, 2006 4:57 pm

usb/fire wire mixer perhaps?
hi, i'm ross. i'm 16 and i live in north london. i have rocker 30 combo and a Gordon Smith Gypsy 2 in black.

finally a sig i can be proud of!!

Lou
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Post by Lou » Tue Jun 06, 2006 5:15 pm

Was thinking a firewire mixer.

I'm currently based in Hull, moving to scarborough. Just finished studying 'performing muscian' on an access to msuic course. Going to start my degree in sept. sm58's tend to be a live-only vocal mike, although i have read of it being used for recordings (the Mars Volta)
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dirtythief
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Post by dirtythief » Tue Jun 06, 2006 5:32 pm

this is what i use live:

vocals- sm58
guitars- sennheiser e609's
bass- either DI or shure 52 (beta or pg)
kick- shure beta91 with beta52 (either is fine by themself)
snare- sm57
toms- sennheiser 604's
OH/hihat- any nice condensor (i usually don't need OH's in the club i work at so i got no advice)
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mistyfog
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Post by mistyfog » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:32 pm

This site will tell you all
www.tweakheadz.com go to the guide section
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spoonie g
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Post by spoonie g » Tue Jun 06, 2006 7:33 pm

rode's are excellent, i think the akg c1000 is a bit brittle and there are better ones out there for the price. sm57 is good all-round, sennheiser e609 is another good one similar to the 57. The mars volta mainly used a very expensive shure (i forget exactly which one).

HOWEVER; if your mic pre's aren't sufficient, your choice of mics will not matter as much. So, be on aware of that. With $1600, you're kind of limited, but it is a factor.

MarcusBlacksmith
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Post by MarcusBlacksmith » Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:56 pm

A Rode NT1 large diaphram condensor will work nicely for a lot of 'general purpose' stuff. It's best for vocals, IMO...a dynamic mic such as the SM58 just doesn't cut it for anything that isn't straight up rock vocals. You can also use it for ambient micing guitar amps, micing acoustic guitars, micing

You should also get a stereo pair to work with. Rode have a stereo pair of small diaphram condensors...you'll use them for anything that needs a stereo field to sound good. Backup vocals, acoustic guitar, piano (upright...a grand is another story), ambient micing, etc etc etc.

The SM57s for close-micing amps have already been mentioned.

A drum micing kit can go a long way. You can usually get away with SM57s for tom and snare micing, but you REALLY need a large diaphram dynamic to capture the kick drum properly. You can get an AKG kit which includes their reknowned large-diaphram dynamic mic as the kick mic.

As for pre-amps...well with your mic budget you need to spend as little as possible while STILL getting fairly good quality. I suggest a Behringer 2-channel valve mic pre-amp. The Tube Ultragrain Mic200 Pro, I think it's called. It's surprisingly good, and actually gets a lot of use in professional studios (generally the only Behringer thing, but hey).
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Bentfinger
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Post by Bentfinger » Wed Jun 07, 2006 6:52 am

Audix has a pretty good drum mic kit for not much cash. But if money is not an issue, you have heard the truth from these other guys. Good free magazine full of recording info, and tips. Tapeop magazine. Go to their site and sign up...
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www.reverbnation.com/fragilex

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spoonie g
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Post by spoonie g » Wed Jun 07, 2006 1:09 pm

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Bentfinger</i>
<br />Audix has a pretty good drum mic kit for not much cash. But if money is not an issue, you have heard the truth from these other guys. Good free magazine full of recording info, and tips. Tapeop magazine. Go to their site and sign up...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

Yeah, the audix D6 is almost becoming the industry standard for bass drum mics. I've seen many a sound guy switching to those.

extemporary
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Post by extemporary » Wed Jun 07, 2006 2:21 pm

check out a marantz for field recordings

Lou
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Post by Lou » Wed Jun 07, 2006 11:41 pm

My list so far:

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Mixer:

Mackie 1604-VLZ PRO

£699.00 inc vat
http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop ... ct_id/1607

Computer:

13â€
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Luke
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Post by Luke » Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:00 am

The AKG c1000 is a harsh, raspy mic.:x Haven't tried the newer version because the original sucked so bad.

For a small diaphram condenser check out the Shure sm81.

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Post by bclaire » Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:16 am

I see a big problem with a pro studio and a laptop as the computer. You really ought to have a desktop running two monitors and mainly the fact that it will have a hard drive spinning at 7200 rpm not 5400 which is what laptops are.

If it was me, I'd go for the desktop- maybe even swap out the hard drive right off the bat with a 10,000rpm drive like this one:

http://dealmac.com/deals/Western-Digita ... almacdaily

OK, now thinking this through when you say mobile studio you don't mean permanently mounting in a vehcile like a bus or minivan are you? That's what I was thinking.... if you have to have a laptop, biggest screen possible and maybe swap drive for a 7200 laptop drive. I have one in my Mac laptop and it was a HUGE difference between that and the stock 4200 drive in performance of the machine.

Billy

MarcusBlacksmith
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Post by MarcusBlacksmith » Thu Jun 08, 2006 2:59 am

I have to agree with Billy here, but I'd go further.

Hard Disk read/write speed and throughput play a MUCH larger role in multi-track recording than anywhere else.

The minimum industry standard for music-level recording computers would be a pair of 10,000rpm hard disks configured as RAID 0.

RAID 0 is a way of pairing hard-disks so that write, read and throughput are effectively doubled. You can make simultaneous large writes (such as 8 tracks, in stereo, 100MB each) without much latency.

A laptop hard-disk is going to get you drop-outs (when the computer can't handle the data being thrown at it) left-right-and-centre.

You can buy dedicated HDD recorder boxes (with 8 or so hard disks as a RAID array), but those are expensive. Since you like Macs, you should be able to get a Power G5 tower or a new Intel Mac tower (due out soon) that'll handle a small RAID array for you.

I have to say though, a PC would be both more powerful and cheaper for the same purpose.
She led me out to the Bikini Atoll, right to the edge of the exclusion zone, and pointed to a dandelion growing in the ashes, like a joke for the living.

'ey, Gringo. This ain't no fancypants Italian Cartel. Viva La Mehico and the Rockerverb Cartel!

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