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6th kyu |
Hey, I'm a new user to the forum and I'm a noob in recording and live sound.
I'm a guitar player and my buddy is a drummer. We're starting to look for band members but we have yet to settle on anybody yet. My drummer plays at a local nearby. In his place he's only allowed to drum, no guitars are allowed in order to cut on noise. He has a special room where only drummers are allowed. I just got my Fractal Audio Axe-Fx. So in order to jam with him at the local, I thought I'd use the amp, cab sims and mic sims of the axe-fx and run them into a preamp, mixer or whatever, send it to headphone amp so I could play quietly in the room. So that got us thinking about getting some real recording gear. We want to make it I guess we could say. We play music in the likes of Dream Theater, Tool Metallica and so on. What we're looking for is a rig that would allow us to make good recordings. Something you could listen on myspace and still get a good quality, not some cheapo stuff. So we're not looking to build a high-end studio, but something decent that could get us to familiarize ourselves with this gear and still make recordings. I'd also like to use this gear live whenever no mixers are provided at the bar or whatever. So I started reading Tweak Headz web site and there's so many setups available that I just don't know where to go. I don't fully understand yet what's in his guide but I'll keep reading. Anyhow, I'd like to know your opinion on what gear would be great to have in our situation. I thought about the Presonus Firestudio with mics and hp4. There's also the Mackie 1640 Onyx that looks nice and all this stuff. However, I don't know the difference of quality of both preamps in the Mackie and the Presonus stuff. Anyway, this post is messy and all but let me know what you think. |
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Hoser Godan  |
That would be a very good start. Just add the firewire card, and go straight into your computer. I think Mackie's Tracktion s/w even comes bundled with it. |
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6th kyu |
is an headphone amp required with this mixer in order to have sound in headphones ? |
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Hoser Godan |
There is a headphone out on the top side and there are any number of options on the back to power a headphone distro box. Or, you can simply power your distro box with a Y cord directly from the headphone out.
HERE's a detailed hi-res pic |
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6th kyu |
does it produce good quality audio or will a presonus hp4 beat it ? |
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Shodan |
Hi Nick,
I'm not certain what you're really wanting to know so allow me to take a step back. Like Baz said, the ONYX is not a bad pre to start with. Like the Presonus FireStudio, each have a single headphone out jack. If you and the drummer want headphone feeds, you really need a headphone distribution amp. You can Y out of the headphone amp to feed two headphones, but there's a number of reasons I wouldn't recommend that. On top of that, you say you might be starting a band which would require more headphone feeds anyway. So, either way you go, you still probably need a headphone distro amp. For tracking, most people aren't all that concerned with real high quality headphone feeds. If you do, that's cool but first you need to be concerned with functionality. For example, in my case I often track in the same room as the instruments. So, one thing I need is a headphone amp that has plenty of clean power. IOW, if you're standing 10 feet from the drummer, will you be able to hear the headphones over the drum bleed in the room? Will you be using closed headphones with good isolation from the sound in the room? How loud will the sources be? These things all need to be considered when you're picking out your headphone amp. Another thing to consider is how many headphones do you need to drive? And another is whether you think you need to provide different mixes to your bandmates. For example, maybe you want to hear you gtr louder in the headphone mix than the drummer and maybe the drummer wants more of him in the mix. At some point, you need to think about what recording platform you'll be using as well. You're doing the right thing by asking questions before you buy. The thing is, it's going to be difficult to point you in the right direction without knowing exactly what you want to be able to do and what your budget is. Personally, I'd much rather work with the ONYX than the Presonus, but that's me. The ONYX has more flexibility and would work much better for me in a live situation (which you also mentioned). Either way, from what you said in the OP, I would think you need some type of headphone distribution amp as well. How many channels do you need? Do you need channel EQ's? Do you need aux sends for external effects or to provide individual mixes to each sets of headphones? Besides thinking of the quality of these pre's, you also need to think about functionality. Sorry I don't have a pat answer for you, but I hope this is helpful as food for thought. Steve |
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6th kyu |
thanks a lot, like I said I'm new to recording and live sound so all I can ask pretty much for the moment is Marshall or Fender hehe. I just settled on my amp so I'm moving on to this level of sound. yes, I will be playing 10 feet in front of the drummer in a fairly small room, so I think I'll need good isolated earphones for that. For the moment we want to add 2 new band members so 4 output would be ideal and with different mixes for each if that's possible. As for the platform I have no idea. I believe Pro Tools is the standard everywhere so we'll probably start with that but I have no idea what would be best for us and for what gear. As for the budget, we don't have a fixed budget, we'll pay for the gear we feel is "best" suited for us, as long as it doesn't amount to 5 million bucks obviously, but if we can manage it to be around 2k maybe that would be good. If it amounts to be a little more it's fine also. thanks for all the questions, that way I'll look into the features of each of those things. Let me know if you find some features are more important to you. |
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Hoser Godan |
Not going to get into the Pro Tools VS. XXXXX debate but I will add, that just because it's the standard doesn't make it the best option for you, or even the best option overall. The primary reason that PT is the "standard," was due to some very smart marketing in the early stages, where they gave the stuff away to a number of studios. If you use this board, you'll need some sort of Digidesign interface to act as a dongle. If you were to go with a Native program, then no special interface is required,so you aren't a slave to Digidesigns hardware, and can use any number of interfaces out there. |
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6th kyu |
correct me if I'm wrong but does Recording Platform stand for Sequencer ? if so I'll skip to that section on Tweak Headz site, I still haven't made it that far in the guide.
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Hoser Godan |
Your recording platform is your DAW of choice. i.e. Protools, Cubase, Samplitude etc.
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6th kyu |
as for now we'll liekly go for a PC platform. However, are all platforms somewhat similar in that they kinda do the same things ... although some have specific effects or whatever ... or can they be really different from one another ? Because we were to switch to Mac later on, would we have to start from scratch all over again or would there only be fairly easy adjustments to make ? |
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6th kyu |
also, is there a piece of gear that I should start with and then build the rest from this ?
and is there much of a difference between the Onyx 1640 and 20 ? |
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1st kyu |
Back to the headphone mix - most non-ProTools interfaces have a zero-latency monitoring feature. This would be a software mixer allowing you to set levels on each input channel and send different mixes to different outputs - which would require a multi-channel headphone amp with the capability to accept different inputs for each channel - and multichannel outputs on the audio interface.
In PT, input monitoring goes through the recording software, which means you would have latency to deal with - not a good thing if you're trying to sync with the drummer, and everything coming through the headphones is a hair late. It's possible that the new PTLE firewire interfaces have a similar zero-latency monitoring feature as Motu and Presonus, but you would want to verify that before making a decision. But even then, PTLE interfaces limit you to - what is it - 18 inputs? If you got, oh, let's say, a Motu 2408 (which comes with a PCI or PCIe card) you could have 24 inputs/outputs with one 2408 box connected, or 96 I/O with 4 boxes connected to the one PCI card. You may think you'll never need more than 18 inputs, but if you continue recording live bands, the time will come when 18 inputs will severely limit your options and compromise your workflow. Most pro studios have more than 18 inputs, which means buying into a PTLE system is buying into a dead end, assuming you're not going to stay a bedroom-hobbyist forever. There are several other major limitations that come with PTLE, including a problem with delay compensation of some plugins, a 32 track limit (unless you pay an extra $500 for a software add-on) no OMF or AAF functionality (meaning it's harder to swap projects between other software brands) and no capability to do a faster-than-realtime bounce mix. These bounce mixes are handy for rendering quick rough mixes - rather than sit there and mix in realtime, you can run off a song in 30 seconds - great for multiple vocal or guitar takes. You wouldn't want to do that for the final mix, although many people do. The Mac/PC question boils down to your interface. Will it work well on both platforms? Most do, but it's worth checking into. Plus, the whole Vista thing has been a royal pain for some PC users. Some stick with XP, some buy all new stuff that actually works with Vista, others give up and switch to Mac. ***** Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will wipe out an entire species. |
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6th kyu |
what about live mix ? What's required to change the mix for each headphone set ? |
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Nidan |
Forget about the separate headphone mix!!!Its something you will have to live with until you figure the rest out. If you want to buy an RME interface and blunder through Total Mix fine but one step at a time. Reaper .. ports through pc and Mac
and its free to download and use to your hearts content until you decide to pay. every facet of DAW recording is used in REAPER allowing you to move on to any other recording software minimizing any learning curve because all the functions are the same they just have different names. Do it download it!! http://www.reaper.fm/ spend some time with it. Is it capable of separate headphone mixes...yes, it will function with a soundblaster even. Do your homework!!!! |
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Hoser Godan |
What my fellow British Columbian said
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1st kyu |
In Motu's Cuemix software, there is a mixer window for interface outputs 1-2, which could be going to your drummer's headphones. You adjust levels on those 8 input channels, plus you have the mix from the actual recording software blending with it (it you're recording to existing tracks or a click/loop.) Then you have a separate mixer window for channels 3-4, which could be going to your headphones. This way, each player can have their mix the way they want it. This is crucially important to getting good takes. A player needs to hear his/her instrument at the right level in the mix. If it's the wrong level, they're going to be banging harder on their instrument in order to hear themselves, or holding back, playing tentatively. How do you get good tracks in a situation like that? It amazes me that so many studios only have one or two separate headphone mixes for tracking bands. Totally rinkydink. You might want to check into the latest Motu interface. It includes affects in the Cuemix software, meaning you can put EQ, compression, and reverb/delay on selected input channels, and you can opt to not record the affects to disk. (It's always a good idea to not record affects, unless it's the guitar player using his pedals. Even then, it's helpful to not record any major reverb/delay on the guitar, so that later, in the mix, you can spread out the track by panning a delay to one side and the guitar to the other.) To my knowledge, Motu is the only company offering the affects-on-input feature in a new interface. All the rest require you to run the tracks through the software, ala PTLE, if you want to hear affects while recording. The drawback to Motu is, their recording software is Mac only, but their interface software is cross-platform - meaning you can run a Motu interface on a Mac or PC and it will be fully functional (theoretically.) I suppose, getting Reaper for your DAW could be an option, since, apparently it's cross-platform compatible. PTLE is also cross-platform compatible, but as we all know by now, it is a marginally functional software package, compared to all the other major DAWs out there. I think Cubase might also run on both platforms, but that's not my DAW, so I couldn't tell you for sure. ***** Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will wipe out an entire species. |
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6th kyu |
cool thanks, I'll start with that program and see from there what I want or need. |
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Nidan |
Just looking at the MOTU products and the firewire interfaces certainly look interesting
and priced very reasonable. With the cuemix different monitoring mixes are possible. What a performer needs to hear and what they want to hear are often far apart. But alas listening is a lost art. |
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6th kyu |
what do you think a player should hear ? |
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