KVR Audio

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 1:15 pm

hi there.
i'm planning to buy me a little home studio setup, and want to stay in a sweet spot of bang for bucks.
here is waht i plan to get:

m-audio axiom 49
emu 0404 usb (since i use a laptop)
yamaha hs80m
RODE NT1A / NT1000 (?bang for bucks?)
stone whool damp my room a little
metal plop protector

waht would you/avoid exchange?
for eample should i get dedicated pre amplifier prior to a good mic?
any tips?
should i consider something else, did i miss something?

i'll record a lot of rap, and simple chorus like singings(so no highly nouanced solos and sinings).
also i want to mix my stuff club friendly sometimes, so will i need a subwoofer? i heard there are monitors where a subwoofer is almost not nessesary.

thanks

D3CK

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:12 pm

bump for tonight

ckatrun411 · Post by **ckatrun411** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:20 pm

hmm, perhaps post this in getting started....

meanwhile, what DAW, sequencer do you plan on using... subwoofers are really going to make your mixes bass heavy unless you know what you are doing.

I dont know what a Rode NT1A is....

The axiom has a great rep

kovacs · Post by **kovacs** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:22 pm

ckatrun411 wrote:I dong know what a Rode NT1A is....

It's a kick-ass condenser mic.

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 7:52 pm

my daw is a core 2 duo 2x2Ghz 2GB ram windows (vista or xp, have them both)
i use reaper since it supports dual core
but also own energy xt wich i want to use in the future (i use it to load Short cirquit, as it behaves buggy in reaper).
also i'm a programmer (and synthmaker assambler) so i could need a nice moitoring solution to judge my creations.
at the moment i preatty much limit myself to the plug ins in reaper, nebula3
surge, short cirquit 2 and some freeware (xhip, helix, camel crusher, tube driver (nick crow and tbt)

I'm not a beginner, just wanted some opinions on the mentioned hardware,as i'm no gear expert, as most things i do, i do with my laptop and some logitech speakers. i have not enough experience to judge wether something is good for the money. wll ok, actually i have an idea of theses things, but interested in oppions.

one could move this into beginner secion though, but i have some experience and knowledge, wich makes me intermediate i think. i was even able to do some nice mixes with those speakers
http://www.amazon.de/Logitech-20-USB-No ... B000B5OA78
of course they are totally lacking bass and detail. but i know people making worse mixes with better equipment

.

s4w2th · Post by **s4w2th** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:48 am

subwoofers are really going to make your mixes bass heavy unless you know what you are doing

Have you been to a club that played hiphop lately

you can feel the bass in your chest. Sort of a prerequisite

I'd bump the lappy up to 4gb ram for samples. notebook ram seems cheap lately.

My thoughts on the sub would be to just get something lowend(possible non-studio oriented) that won't burn up. Since most people clubwise aren't concerned with the pristine nature of the sub sound in the mix, just that it's coexhisting with the kicks. But thats another story, save your dough for another componenet i'd say.

ckatrun411 · Post by **ckatrun411** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 6:27 am

s4w2th wrote:[Have you been to a club that played hiphop lately you can feel the bass in your chest. Sort of a prerequisite

If you think subwoofer is the way to go, by all means...

get one...

politcat · Post by **politcat** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 1:33 pm

dasdeck wrote:RODE NT1A / NT1000 (?bang for bucks?)

you might want to compare that with the Studio Projects C1. same price range.

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:27 pm

politcat wrote:you might want to compare that with the Studio Projects C1. same price range.

exactly the kind of respose i wisheehd for ! thanks very much! i'll try it.

ckatrun411 wrote:If you think subwoofer is the way to go, by all means...

get one...

what kind of response is that? i heard subwoofer are good to be able to control bass region. im not shure how good bass image of hs80m is.
i'll compare for myself of course, but may run into gear noob traps.
what do you mean with your statement?

thanks so far, please keep em coming!

D3CK

gelocks · Post by **gelocks** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:32 pm

Hear a couple of tests in a Mic shootout on the pages provided.
I think it was helpful.
I was considering a new mic (cheap) and was going to buy that Rode NT1-a but
I decided against it and went cheaper with a Studio Projects B1

http://transom.org/tools/recording_inte ... tout.html#

http://www.thelisteningsessions.com/session5.htm

As for my 2 cents on Bass heavy mixes, I believe that you would definitely need a subwoofer. If you don't use one your mixes will probably sound muddy... but I guess you wont know until you waste 1 CD

(I'll be doing the same thing in a while when my monitors arrive! lol)

bye

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 3:01 pm

gelocks wrote:Hear a couple of tests in a Mic shootout on the pages provided.
I think it was helpful.
I was considering a new mic (cheap) and was going to buy that Rode NT1-a but
I decided against it and went cheaper with a Studio Projects B1

http://transom.org/tools/recording_inte ... tout.html#

http://www.thelisteningsessions.com/session5.htm

As for my 2 cents on Bass heavy mixes, I believe that you would definitely need a subwoofer. If you don't use one your mixes will probably sound muddy... but I guess you wont know until you waste 1 CD (I'll be doing the same thing in a while when my monitors arrive! lol)

bye

thanks!
i chose sm 57(

) and nt1
i can borrow both, so i can tell wich is better for my voice

thanks for the link

D3CK

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 3:14 pm

I'd also suggest you to take in consideration these mics: SE Electronics S2200A, Z3300A, excellent bang/buck ratio. With Rode, Studio Projects, Studio Electronics - you can't go wrong.

These monitors: KRK V6 MKII, BlueSky Media Desk or Pro Desk. Bluesky's a bit expensive but definitely worth it, especially if you make bass heavy music. If money is questionable - KRK's [k]rock for dance music are very good. You definitely do *not want* Yamaha's HS80, man. Only if you heard them and you liked them very much. I know I didn't. Especially not for dance music, for Rock it may be a good solution.

A bit of advice on purchasing monitors: The best way to find *your* monitors is to have a listen to as much of them as you can, with the reference material you like best and then decide. To create good mixes, you have to like the sound of your monitors, so you can aim for the sound you like while mixing - it's much easier than adapting your ears to your monitors eh?

.

The only problem I see could be a USB audio card, be it E-mu or whatever. I'd always go for PCMCIA or even FireWire card rather than USB. Take a look at RME PCMCIA solution [Multiface], you can even use it with a regular PC later, so it's a future=proof solution. OTOH, USB card might work as advertised, but USB is never a safe bet IME.

Axiom 49 is great! Thumb up!

Cheers!

monopoli · Post by **monopoli** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 3:50 pm

gelocks wrote: As for my 2 cents on Bass heavy mixes, I believe that you would definitely need a subwoofer. If you don't use one your mixes will probably sound muddy... but I guess you wont know until you waste 1 CD (I'll be doing the same thing in a while when my monitors arrive! lol)

I don't see how this would make sense. I knew a guy once who had a band and their demos always sounded very thin. Then I was at his place one day and heard the sound coming out of the speakers that his brother had built for him and they were extremely bassheavy and so his demos sounded kinda more normal on them.
Moral of the story; I'd get a good pair of monitorspeakers that don't exagerate certain frequencies, a pair of good headphones for listening to details and something like Harbal to check your mixes against mixes that you like. That will probably get you better results than cranking up the subwoofer and trick yourself into believing your mix is the dopest shit ever.

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:08 pm

DuX wrote:I'd also suggest you to take in consideration these mics: SE Electronics S2200A, Z3300A, excellent bang/buck ratio. With Rode, Studio Projects, Studio Electronics - you can't go wrong.

These monitors: KRK V6 MKII, BlueSky Media Desk or Pro Desk. Bluesky's a bit expensive but definitely worth it, especially if you make bass heavy music. If money is questionable - KRK's [k]rock for dance music are very good. You definitely do *not want* Yamaha's HS80, man. Only if you heard them and you liked them very much. I know I didn't. Especially not for dance music, for Rock it may be a good solution.

A bit of advice on purchasing monitors: The best way to find *your* monitors is to have a listen to as much of them as you can, with the reference material you like best and then decide. To create good mixes, you have to like the sound of your monitors, so you can aim for the sound you like while mixing - it's much easier than adapting your ears to your monitors eh? .

The only problem I see could be a USB audio card, be it E-mu or whatever. I'd always go for PCMCIA or even FireWire card rather than USB. Take a look at RME PCMCIA solution [Multiface], you can even use it with a regular PC later, so it's a future=proof solution. OTOH, USB card might work as advertised, but USB is never a safe bet IME.

Axiom 49 is great! Thumb up!

Cheers!

1. i'll check the mics you mantioned, thanks.

2. you suggest krk monitors. mhhhm. i heard they are beautyfieing the sound. i want something clear and unspectacular, so when my mix sounds spectacular although my speakers for them self dont, i'm on the right track. i heard ns10 at a "friend" of mine, and i heard the "nasal" sound the hs80m are supposed to suffer from too (i heard hs80m at a shop, with my own music, i quit liked them, also the it seems thy dont sound as open as the tannoy i worked with, the mix on the tannoy left me with many unrecognised dynamic problems thought. also reading your suggestion , you suggest to get nice sounding monitors, i guess i want clean sounding ones. i have anice hifi to judge the sound, and nice akg headphone wich are brutally detailed (some music totally breaks into peaces through them) nevertheless, i'll try the krk (i wanted to test them at the local store too, but they where out of stock).

3. can you elaborate? i have an UAFX4 Edirol usb soundcard, and it works just fine, also it has some problems with the preamp, wich may be related to usb bus power (wich emu do not have) and the sound is mediocre.
i use asio4all for best performance thought.

@monopoli:

i think one must calibrate the subwoofers, so they are not too loud. i thought subwoofers are there to "stablelize" the bass image.

nevertheless, thanks for the input!

D3CK

dasdeck · Post by **dasdeck** » Sat Dec 15, 2007 5:29 pm

btw.:
athought i want to be able to produce some kind of modern sound, i relly like old (or not so old) G/P-funk sound, and.
tracks/mixess i think have good sound are for example:

juvenile - bounce back
david banner - touch it

i'll add refernces to this list when something comes to mind

thanks

D3CK

bang for bucks home studio combination?