Unsure of which method to take

[deadbeard]

So I've been reading Tweaks Guide non-stop for about a week now and I have an almost decent grasp of what to do should I pick either getting an audio interface/mixer, or getting a sound card and analog mixer. However I would like a direct opinion on my plan for recording (and if this is even remotely a good approach.)

My method for recording music would be to record a rough copy of the song (me and my friends, or my friends bands have created with an emphasis on most song writing being done before hand and recorded with very rough copies. After we get the rough copy I would then mic up the drums as best I could with a sound I like. To make sure I'm not moving mics around a lot, I would most likely mic the drum set ready for a clean sound and simply unplug the mics I'm not using (snare/toms) for the rough. After I get a good copy of the drums I would then piece the song together starting with bass and ending with vocals.

Basically what I'm asking is what would be the best way to get near professional sound using this method, using mostly just bass, guitar drums and vocals but with the ability to add synth. Should I go for an audio interface/mixer route possibly looking into one of those alesis mixers (http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--ALEIO26). Or should I go for the sound card/analog mixer route. I would like to know what kind of equipment I would need besides the mics. From what I gather it would look something like this: (as you can see i'm leaning towards the interface/mixer route)

1 x http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--ALEIO26
3 x http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--BEHDI100
1 x http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--BEHVAMP2

Now all I need is suggestions on the program I would need, I put down on my list

1 x http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--CAKHS

but I'm not sure why.

Also I would need to add a firewire input on my PC and I need a link to one of those firewire PCIs. I'm running windows XP.
I've edited this twice but yes I'm aware I will need speakers, a good acoustic room and some quality pre-amps but I want really just re-assurance that I'm on the right track.

Is this all I need to be able to record the method I'm planning. Is this even practical/a quality way to go about it?

thanks in advance:

Deadbeard

[Verse]

I'll have a crack at answering this one, but be forewarned, I've only really ever achieved demo quality stuff, enough for ppl to listen to a technically correct sounding recording but the quality is still a bit to be desired. Not just the music itself (time people) but also the gear I use.

Anyway, if you can get away with only using 4 mics on your drums here's what i would do for decent quality budget gear.

SM57 for guitars snare and vocals if you need.
http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--SHUSM57LC

SM81 for Drum OHs, anything acoustic string stuff, you'll need two of these, there's cheaper but these are gold.
http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--SHUSM81LC

AKG D112 or Shure Beta 52 for Bass and Kick, depending on style, search mic forums for more info
http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--AKGD112
http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--SHUBETA52A

If you got some cash, get this ... it's a good deal.
http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--SHUDMK5752

Anyway, that will allow you to record just about anything, once you have preamps, you'd only need four pre's for this type of set up, get some scratch tracks happening, then mic up your kit with all four mics, once recorded, then do your guitar/s, bass and lastly vocals. The beautiful thing about recording is you can use the same equipment. Your not going to get Abbey road, but it'll give you some decent results. I'd recommend getting some good ban-for-buck pre's and a small interface as opposed to a big mixer. The Mackie Onyx range is fairly versatile and has 'usable' pre's on it (it's a mixer witha Firewire output).

The DI ports are a decent idea if on the cheap recording as no room treatment, mics or amps are required. You could just get two OHs (recorderman drum recording ... google it) and DI everything else for super cheap, I can't comment on the amp simulations, but I can bet I'd be pretty disappointed with their results being a guitarist myself.

[Qetzacoatl]

Well you're definitely on the right track with getting your songs written before recording or mixing properly so that's a good start

First things first though, just to get the reality check out of the way..

LIke Verse, I'm at decent demo standard, but it always frightens me when people talk about 'pro quality sound'. It is going to take a few years of playing engineer before you understand and have put into practise enough times the techniques that it will take to get a decent quality recording/mix.
I don't want to sound miserable or put you off in any way, just so long as you know that it takes a lot of time and experience to get to a decent sound - even if you spent thousands of dollars on nice preamps, mics, converters etc, your sound won't come together until you have enough experience under your belt, so don't expect miracles - it's taken me 5 years to get to a decent place with writing good original material, and now I'm concentrating on the tech side, I expect it to take at least as long again to get polished results from my mixes - and I think this is an average ballpark figure for someone that has never done it before - so don't get disheartened if you can't get your pro sound after a few weeks!

I think the route you decide to take depends on how you want to mix, rather than how you want to record - you won't be recording more than 8 tracks at once so a good 8 channel interface will do the trick for recording - you wouldn't need a mixer at all, but if you don't want to mix in the box, and you plan to use or add hardware effects, then getting a mixer is the way forward.
Trouble is, you will get better quality preamps and conversion in an interface than you will in a console for the same price, so if you go the mixer route you will have to shell out a bit more cash.

The recorderman technique is a really good one to know, and you can get a decent sound with only a couple of mics, but you will have very little control over the individual elements, but it's a good start. Most people would agree that a massive part of a good drum sound is the overheads, so a great way to go is to have a pair of overheads, and close-mic the snare and kick on top of that.
You want large diaphragm condensors for the overheads, a 57 on snare and a D112 for kick and that should get you going no problem.

I don't think it's true to say that the DI approach is 'cheap', especially when youøre talking about bass, you can get a fantastic bass recording just from the DI signal, and plenty of people do this on pro recordings with great results, but the best thing, for both bass and guitar, is if you record both the direct signal and the amp at the same time.
This gives you the option to blend the two signals together at mix time for greater control over tone, and also to re-amp the parts if you feel you don't like the amp sound that was originally recorded, but the take was good, for example.

I'll say that on a budget, then you can use one of the overhead mics for vocals as well, just try to make sure you have an extra mic stand so you don't have to keep repositioning one of the overheads
There's a great Neumann clone for cheap money that you can get for your LDCs, it's in this range:
http://kelaudio.com/
I don't have one but I've only ever heard great things about it (the HM-7U).

Back to the mixer - if you decide to go that route, analogue or digital it's your choice, there are pros and cons to each, but a multi-channel interface will be necessary even with a mixer setup, so it makes sense to get the interface first, and then add the mixer later if you feel you want one, and have had time to check out all the options.
Whatever interface you go for, make sure it is scaleable in the sense that you can expand either via adat or by daisy-chaining more devices, selling gear to buy more gear because you outgrew the original gear gets expensive fast!
I would look at getting a nice second hand effects unit like a Lexicon MPX-500 or an MPX-1, they still outperform most plug-in reverbs and effects and sound killer no matter if it's guitar, synths, whatever you are running through them.
Software-wise, there is so much to choose from that the best advice is to get hold of as many demos as you can and see what you like. I'm a cubase man and always recommend it because I think it's an excellent tool, but everyone is different and there's plenty to choose from.
Reaper is a good way to get into the sequencer market for very cheap and lots of people swear by it.

ANother good investment would be a UAD-1 card, as they are going for peanuts now second-hand and you will love the plugs, some of the best out there.

I've mentioned second-hand gear a lot because nearly everyone that buys gear looks after it very well, and you can save yourself literally thousands of dollars very quickly by scoping out the second-hand markets, hunt down some bargains!

Wow, epic post, sorry for rambling on, hope some of it helps

[deadbeard]

oh I understand pro-quality sound takes a while I just want a setup that I can theoretically allow me to get pro sounds (and won't lead me to any dead ends) even if it takes a few years. I want something thats not gonna require me to totally redo my setup to get to the "next level" if you know what I mean, upgrades and additions are always welcome.

Now, so if I wanna for now use the pre-amps on the http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--ALEIO26 that would be fine but if I wanted to add an external pre-amp down the road like the RNP I could just patch it in to the line of say a mic or guitar right?


I don't plan on upgrading my firewire interface for the next few years at least so would that would the Alesis I/O26 be suitable?

[Qetzacoatl]

Ok cool, I'm sorry if I sounded patronising, didn't mean to.

I would actually give the Alesis a big thumbs down for quite a few reasons. Firstly, they make shoddy hardware and their drivers are poor. That should be enough of a warning. But this unit in particular, is not a good option for expansion at all.

First off, it only has adat inputs - that means no opportunity to expand your output capability, which is a lot more important than your input capability in nearly every situation other than recording live bands (with lots of simultaneous recording tracks), you wouldn't need more than 8 mic pres for that really.
You can't daisy chain to another Alesis unit either so no getting round it that way. No output expansion means no extra channels out to a mixer if you decide you want one (and who doesn't ), no extra outs for routing to that outboard collection that will no doubt grow etc. So as far as outputs go, you're stuck with what you have there.

You would definitely want to upgrade the mic pres on that unit but this presents another stumbling block because the analogue ins are on combi sockets, meaning that you can't bypass the preamp circuitry even if you get a nice seperate preamp. This is not good. You want to be able to go straight into the converters without the signal going anywhere near the alesis preamps and that isn't possibe.
You could get a nice preamp that has s/pdif out and go in that way, and of course you could get an adat converter to go in too, in fact I just shot my argument in the foot there because a Behringer ADA8000 would be a step up from the alesis preamps believe it or not and it's cheap as chips.

I just have heard so much bad news about Alesis gear and I had a unit myself, the AI3 adat converter that was terribly built and the power suply failed on me after 2 weeks, sent it back, got another one, same problem.
This is not good. I actually went with the ADA8000 and people knock a lot of behringer gear but this is a solid unit, it sounds great anbd it's well built, built far better than the alesis in fact and with better features too.

Anyway, I would say that if you wanted something that was going to last you a few years and was expandable/upgradeable in a meaningful way, then the alesis unit is not the way to go.
What's your budget? You need to squeeze every last penny out of whatever means you have if you want to make a good initial investment, and remember the cheaper you buy intitially, the less you will get back in the end when you need to sell it on.
I would say look at stuff that has 8 good quality analogue in/out and decent adat expansion options - I reckon you should look at something a bit more like the Tascam 1884.
Set your budget, then stretch it as far as humanly possible, it will pay off in the end.

[deadbeard]

Thanks for the advice, also I have no problem with you telling me the gear I'm thinking about buying is crap.=P

My budgets probably around a thousand, but anywhere where I can cut costs is acceptable. I have no problem buying expensive units to save me money in the long run.

Also since the ADA8000 has an ADAT out how would I get that to my computer? Would I need some other sort of firewire interface like this: http://www.zzounds.com/a--3745/item--MDOFWSOLO

I'm not sure what an ADAT cable looks like but from the little research I did. it looks like an optical cable, and if so a fiber optical PCI interface would do the trick? I'm guessing there is a lot of different names for the cable I'm thinking about?

[Qetzacoatl]

Well the ADA8000 was just an example of a unit that you can use in the future to expand your system, so yes whatever core solution you go with would need adat ports to take advantage of that (or any other adat converter unit).
Adat is the way to go because if the initial setup you have has adat, even if it doesn't have great preamps or converters, you can bypass everything and go in through a much better set of converters/preamps and then straight to digital. The adat coverters can cost anywhere from 250 bucks to a few thousand so you have a mass of options when you want to upgrade.
Yes the cable is an optical cable, the connector type is called toslink - they can carry 8 channels of adat, a stereo s/pdif signal, or if the hardware allows, you can up the sample rate from the adat maximum of 48K but halving the number of available channels, so 8 at 44.1/48, 4 at 88.2/96, or 2 at 176.4/192.

What you want to look for is a unit that will offer a nice selection of analogue ins and outs (including enough preamps) at decent quality to get you going, as well as midi in/out, wordclock and coaxial s/pdif, and with any luck a pair of adat ports (so 16 channels of extra in/out when you add adat converters).

To really effectively plan ahead you obviously need to have a clear idea of what route you're going to go down, but if you get a core system with the features I've mentioned then you'll be able to integrate either an anlogue or a digital mixer in the future a lot easier.

There aren't actually that many of these kinds of units on the market, but bear in mind this approach is if you are definitely going to expand with a good number of multiple ins and outs, so is hanging on the assumption that you are going to be acquiring a number of outboard units and/or a mixer.
If you're not going to want to do that then you can get by on a hell of a lot less, but if you go for the limited option first, then want to expand, you'll have to sell off what you've got and buy again which is a waste of money.
Things to look at are the motu 2408, the M-audio profire 2626, the RME FF800 or multiface with hammerfall card, or you can just go straight for a digital mixer with a dedicated digital card like the RME hdsp 9652 or RayDat, which can also be expanded with analogue ins and outs.
None of them are gonna come cheap. Best are motu and rme because you can expand to a ludicrous degree by daisy-chaining units as well as adding external converter boxes, or adding more pci cards.

Choose your poison

[Bristol Posse]

Don't want to bust the bubble cos we all want "Pro Sound " but it's probably unrealistic on a 1k budget (pros wouldn't spend 100s of thousands on set up if it could be done for a grand)
Also you're focusing everything on your input chain and from what I'm looking at so far nothing on your monitoring chain.
Core sounds are key but if you can't accurately hear what your mixing then it's never going to sound "Pro". In addition to the monitors there is also room treatment to consider to eliminate standing waves etc so you can really hear what your monitors are playing without all the interference/reflections from the room so you can get a decent mix that will translate well to any playback system (not just sound decent in the room you mixed it in on the speakers you mixed on)

Aside from the gear there is also the years of experience to consider. Mic Placement. Mic choice (a variety of mics to give different colors to the track), Pre amp choice (see mic choice) , room choice, critical listening, knowing when to just ditch/mute a track cos it does nothing for the song, really knowing how to use EQ or compression or a limiter, truly understanding the difference between mixing and mastering, etc, etc, etc are all arts unto themselves and have a huge impact on the finished sound. The pros are the pros for a reason

Shoot for the moon but realize that a decent demo song is still a worthwhile (and tricky) accomplishment for a home recording setup.

I'm sure some of the actual pros here will chime in with more soon

[deadbeard]

I don't mean to sound rude (this mostly being aimed at Bristol) but telling me how long its gonna take me to get a pro sound isn't really helping me achieve that goal. I know you guys don't have to help. I've read most of tweaks articles I understand I need decent monitors a good room and the works although I'm a newb at this I know what it likes to be someone who knows what they're talking about, and I don't think "bursting my bubble" is something someone like that should do. I'm a fully competent human being and I don't appreciate the discouragement (intentional or not). =P

Now that I've gotten that aside, I would like some re-assurance of what I'm gonna buy and I wanna make sure I know its going to work.

The m-Audio profire looks like a unit along the lines of my price range but if I wanted to then add the behringer ADA8000 I'd need to simply connect the ADAT outs from the back of the ADA8000 to the optical ins on the profire and it'd be like having additional outputs?

Thanks by the way for all the help you guys have given me.

[Qetzacoatl]

No worries dude, I thnk the basics about room acoustics etc are ignored by so many people that hammering it in becomes a priority! No harm done

You're exactly right about the adat converter - look at adat ports as being 8 extra channels of normal in and out, just without the physical analogue connections. Take my soundcard as the perfect example - it has 3 pairs of adat ports (3 in connectors handling 8 channels each, and 3 out connectors handling 8 channels each), and no analogue connections whatsoever! With only this card installed in my computer, when I fire up cubase, the computer can 'see' 24 channels of input and 24 channels of output.
But if I don't have any other adat equipment, those signals can't physically go anywhere.
So with a converter like the ADA8000, what happens is you take one optical cable from soundcard adat out A for example, and this goes into the adat in of the ADA8000, which then takes that digital signal and converts it into 8 channels of analogue audio, and splits it out to the 8 physical connectors on the unit. And there you go, now your signals are available as individual analogue channels coming out of the computer.
It's exactly the same in reverse. On the front of the ADA8000, you have 8 analogue inputs (you can choose between preamp or line in for each one). I have a hardware synth with 8 outputs, so each of these plugs into one of the 8 inputs on the ADA, is converted to a digital adat signal, which comes out the ADA8000 adat out, and into the soundcard adat in.
Now in cubase I have those 8 individual synth channels available to me, just as if I had plugged the synth directly into the soundcard itself.

In essence it allows audio interface manufacturers to offer far more in/out channels than they could physically fit on the unit if they were all analogue channels. It's the same conceptually as those interfaces that have a pci card and a breakout box, like some of the Emu cards. The pci card handles the channels digitally and the breakout box gives you the physical connections.

[Blue Bear Sound]

I don't mean to sound rude (this mostly being aimed at Bristol) but telling me how long its gonna take me to get a pro sound isn't really helping me achieve that goal. I know you guys don't have to help. I've read most of tweaks articles I understand I need decent monitors a good room and the works although I'm a newb at this I know what it likes to be someone who knows what they're talking about, and I don't think "bursting my bubble" is something someone like that should do. I'm a fully competent human being and I don't appreciate the discouragement (intentional or not).

Calm down...... Bristol was just giving you a reality check... we get tons of people coming on here blustering about because they've just bought a Dell, found some pirated software, calling themselves a "sound engineer" but then asking why they don't sound "pro"............

I'm not suggesting that this is what you're doing, but Bristol was just making sure you knew that there was far more to it than slapping down a whack of cash and hitting record...... and he's right - $1K is a very small amount of money in the grand scheme of audio production costs. The tools that are available for that amount immediately put you outside of the "pro" camp as far as quality goes......... at that kind of price point, the gear tends to get in the way of the sound, making it more difficult to get the end result you're looking for.

[Bristol Posse]

I'm not trying to discourage you.
You asked the question will this list of entry level gear get me near pro quality results and my answer is IMO no it won't. (in much the same way that you'll never win the Monaco grand Prix in a Honda Accord no matter how hard you practice because it's just not up to the task). I'm sorry that's not the answer you were looking for.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't record your music. I use M-audio Profire myself. (I got it a few weeks ago after breaking the last AI ) It's adequate to get my music from the real world onto my DAW but after a year of recording my stuff I now have the experience to realize that this level of gear is not going to net the same result (or anything close to )what Brian Eno and U2 will get in a multi million dollar studio with a team of professionals, no matter how hard I try (and no matter how much the universe loves an underdog)

Even with less thn pro gear,I still enjoy immensely the journey from a song idea to a finished WAV file. The writing process, rehearsing tweaking, and squeezing everything I can get out of the gear I have, etc. My friends think they sound great (at least that's what they say ), My wife still loves it when I record a song I wrote for her. My kids still ask if they can listen to the songs I wrote for them while they're falling asleep in bed and I'm still proud of every song I do. But they're a long way from pro/near pro quality audio

If you absolutely have to have pro quality then the cheapest way to get it is to rent studio time and an engineer and send the resulting mixdowns to a professional mastering engineer to put together in an album.

[deadbeard]

No its not that its not the answer I'm looking for I just think constant reinforcement of the idea that it takes time isn't necessary I've learned countless times before that everything takes time. For instance in this topic alone 3 people have given me a reality check, I haven't seen a unicorn in a while so I think I'm pretty much well versed in reality.
Forgive me if I've sounded offensive but I just love coming to forums asking for help only to have people tell me it takes time, I may be be new to audio production but I'm fully aware that effort and time is the two most basic ingredients in any project.

Honestly though you guys (despite how I sound) have been a real help and I think I'm fairly equipped with knowledge to make my first purchase.

I'll be visiting the forums from time to time, so I'll talk to you all soon.

-deadbeard

[Verse]

Professional sound comes from a combination of multiple things;

1) Decent music - foremost and arguable the most important
2) Talented musicians - to play that music
3) Decent instruments - that have ability to produce nice tone

At this point your average listener can forgo quite allot of production value IF you have all of these bases covered. Many-a-times I've shown (what I'm going to call) demo's of our music that was recorded on a video camera, had the audio stripped and some slight EQ put on (a master mono track lets remember) and have gotten results I like to hear. Anyway, moving on.

4) Good acoustics in room room - Where the 1K goes
5) Decent engineering gear - Mics, pre's, boards/interfaces etc ... This is where OPs crossroad decisions are at
6) Talented Studio Mixing - This takes time, patients and experience and is worth it's own weight in gold
7) Talented Mastering Engineer & gear - see above

This board doesn't like to put too much weight on room treatment, but lets be honest, you'll get better results with crap gear in a good room then with good gear in a crap room. The reason I mentioned DI ports as a cheaper alternative is because they don't take the room into account thus are cheaper.

Personally I prefer the record using DI as clean as possible, get all takes and recordings from other instruments happening, send that back to a re-amp and ... re-amp with all effects and mix.

My home stuff is a miced combo amp using sm57, straight into a audio interface (using onboard pre) which is great for writing and showing off my stuff. I would happily put that on a myspace if I was looking for a band ... on an album, not a chance. It all comes down to what you want, what your expectations are, how much blood, sweat, tears and money your willing to put into it and how much you want to do yourself.

An option is to get the tracking done yourself and get a pro mixer to do their bit, plenty of people do that and is probably the most productive cost effective way to create and distribute music. Buy gear you'll use live and record with, record your jams for inspiration and when your ready, track, pay for proper mixing / mastering and there ya go. Just another thought, of course the decisions are totally up to you.

[Qetzacoatl]

@Bristol Posse - don't drink the Kool-aid. A year just isn't enough time to have learned to get the most from the gear you have, it is always tempting to think that the next greatest bit of gear is going to deliver that resulyt that only a few more years of experience is going to give you.

You could have a pro-engineer come to your place and use your gear and he will still get a result that you would consider pro.
Would it sound as good as if he mixed it in Abbey Road? That depends entirely on the material and the performance, which is where Verse is right on the money. It's all relative. You can get a polished result with what you have, but you have to know how to achieve it, and that only comes with time and experience, not gear.
Nearly all modern converters are clean enough to 'not get in the way of the sound', they are the least of your worries at this point.

This is the most important point:
You won't notice a shade of difference in an upgrade if your monitoring chain isn't capable of reproducing those nuances, and the only way you can guarantee this is with flat speakers with an extended range and a room that has been properly acoustically treated.
There's a good saying on this - "If you can't take the room out of your mix, you can't take the mix out the room".

If you are compromised at the listening position then you can not guarantee that what you are hearing is what is actually coming out of the speakers, especially with the critical low-mid band.
Same with first refelctions off the side walls for high end.
I'm surprised that Verse said this forum isn't big on room treatment, I'm sure that can't be true?

[Verse]

I'll refine my statement.

This forum isn't big on pushing the room treatment argument, it acknowledges the need for it but doesn't like to have the basis of our responses based on needing room treatment.

[Qetzacoatl]

There could always be other pressing issues, but when going after a good sound, I think everything hinges on good room acoustics and good monitoring - without those, everything is pretty much a moving target.

I am a complete hypocrite because everytime I have money that is earmarked for broadband absorbers, I spend it on other gear. Very bad.

I can get ok results, but I won't be able to turn a corner in terms of mix translation until I've got that treatment. It's a fundamentally important step.

[Verse]

Another thing I'd like to mention as a work-around which won't actually teach you much but will get around the lack-of-monitors problem.

Have a reference piece of music you are familiar with that's similar EQ wise to what your trying to achieve, listen to it with your monitoring gear there and then, just before you start to mix. Then mix. Once you've finished, listen to it again, and adjust your EQ on your mix accordingly.

Once satisfied, export you mix to .wav and burn to CD, then take that CD to as many different stereo's you can get your hands on, preferable ones you are familiar with, listen to it in your car, ipod, home theater, mates stereo etc... what you want to do is listen to your reference CD, then yours and take notes on what you think you should do to your mix, On each medium (stereo), mixing is all about making music sound great on multiple mediums. Keep in mind your recording are going to be much lower in volume compared to the mastered mix from your reference CD, hopefully if not then you've totally stuffed up the recording stage and your album will sound as trashy as the new Metallica album production wise.

[Verse]

I'll refine my statement.

This forum isn't big on pushing the room treatment argument, it acknowledges the need for it but doesn't like to have the basis of our responses based on needing room treatment.

All I'm saying is that I've been PM'd several times by different top contributors saying not to press room treatment as much as I used to, state it and move on

[Bristol Posse]

@Bristol Posse - don't drink the Kool-aid. A year just isn't enough time to have learned to get the most from the gear you have, it is always tempting to think that the next greatest bit of gear is going to deliver that resulyt that only a few more years of experience is going to give you.

Agreed.
A year and 18 songs later it is enough time to begin to notice some serious limitations with entry level gear however.
that's fine with me I'm not looking to produce a commercial CD and I have no dreams of making it big on the music scene, being discovered or whatever.
Each song ends up sounding a little better than the last and I'm fine with that

My comments were based on the original question of wether a total budget of a grand could get you near pro quality sound I still think the answer is probably not

Nearly all modern converters are clean enough to 'not get in the way of the sound', they are the least of your worries at this point.

Agreed but not all recording call for cleanish transparentish pres. Sometimes you want to add a little colour. An entry level AI doesn't give you that flexibility that you would get with a cabinet full of Pres to chose from and your not going to get that on a budget of a grand

I'm not a kool aid drinker on either side of the fence. yes you absolutley can get a decent mix on low end gear with great control all through the process but I also know some sound guys in LA and I guarantee you that while they would get a much better, much more polished result than I do on my gear it wouldn't be "pro quality" because they quite freely admit that.

[Qetzacoatl]

I guess my point is, that you could put you or I into their LA studio and we still wouldn't be able to get their pro sound because it's more the person at the controls than anything else.
If you can get a great live sound when playing, and you've got the engineering chops, then yes, a great mic and a suitable preamp for the material will get you that last 10%, as will high-end converters and monitors.
But it's only the last 10%, the first 90% is purely down to you (with all the usual caveats about treatment, instrument quality, playing ability etc).

Verse, I can't believe that with the room treatment, it's insane. I would ignore those PMs as it is a crucial issue. No you don't need room treatment in order to write and record music, or learn to produce, but as soon as you get even a little bit serious about mixing and production then you can't afford to have the typical room nulls of up to 20dB all over the bass anbd lower mid range. No-one can get an accurate result that will translate well under those circumstances, and translation is the name of the game.

[Verse]

Verse, I can't believe that with the room treatment, it's insane. I would ignore those PMs as it is a crucial issue. No you don't need room treatment in order to write and record music, or learn to produce, but as soon as you get even a little bit serious about mixing and production then you can't afford to have the typical room nulls of up to 20dB all over the bass anbd lower mid range. No-one can get an accurate result that will translate well under those circumstances, and translation is the name of the game.

Nods, I guess what the general consensus is that the board doesn't want to discourage newbies from trying just because they haven't brought 1K worth of BB absorbers which is all it takes really. This forum is directed at Home Studio users, not professional recording studios. Though Pro studio's hang out, that isn't the design plan Tweak had in mind. So by all means put the point across, but don't be like:

"I can't seem to get my guitar to stop sounding thin" (OP)
"get some room treatment you n00b" (basher)

I get your point, hell ... I agree, treatment is important, as I mentioned earlier, you'll do better with crap gear in a good room than the other way around. My point is don't pressure the ... point.

[Qetzacoatl]

There's definitely going to be situtatons where it's not strictly relevant sure, so just using it as a standard reply won't work, but its importance can't be overstated.
As for expense, there are untold threads up oin the internet about making your own and it is as simple as getting hold of some slabs of fibreglass of the right density, covering them with fabric and mounting them in wooden frames.
You don't even have to make the frames, although they look cool and make for easier mounting/stacking.
You can fully treat a room for about $300 or less, and that's with twelve 4'x2' broadband absorbers and 3 smaller traps for early reflections left, right and above.

Doesn't have to be expensive. Does take a bit of an effort however but the payoff is massive.

Edit: and I'll pressure whatever I [darn] well please

[Blue Bear Sound]

You can fully treat a room for about $300 or less, and that's with twelve 4'x2' broadband absorbers and 3 smaller traps for early reflections left, right and above.

You forgot bass trapping - absolutely critical in most hobbyist's rooms.... (and no, broadband doesn't get anywhere near low enough to act as a bass trap...)

[Qetzacoatl]

If you get rockwool of a high enough density, and layer it thick enough, you can even out the bass a hell of a lot, well enough for it not to remain a major problem in any case.
That budget will get you two 4'x2' (6-8" deep) stacked on top of each other in each corner, 2 at the front wall, 2 at the back wall, a cloud, and one on either side of the listening position.
The rockwool comes as slabs in the dsesired dimensions so all you need to do to build a top rate trap is to cover them in fabric and mount them.
If you want to do it properly then build wooden frames.

I've seen before and after charts of room responses with self-built acoustic treatment, and those horrendous peaks and nulls typical of a smallish square room are all leveled out, the further you want to extend into the bass range, the thicker you build the corner traps and the larger the space you leave between trap and wall.

You will be able to get a mix to translate properly at a fraction of the cost, and the two largest retailers (Real Traps and GIK) even encourage people to do this as an effective means of treatment.
Of course not everyone can be bothered and fair enough, the two companies still do good business I'm sure.