What equipment do I need to start a simple high quality recording setup?

lukedlb

Would these mics come in handy? akg C516 and an akg P2. 
https://www.akg.com/Microphones/Condenser%20Microphones/C516ML.html
https://www.akg.com/Microphones/Dynamic%20Microphones/3100H00150.html

The guy selling me a Leslie has offered me them for 150£. They’re part of his kit for micing the tweeter and woofer. 

robinbowes

lukedlb said:

Would these mics come in handy? akg C516 and an akg P2. 
https://www.akg.com/Microphones/Condenser%20Microphones/C516ML.html
https://www.akg.com/Microphones/Dynamic%20Microphones/3100H00150.html

The guy selling me a Leslie has offered me them for 150£. They’re part of his kit for micing the tweeter and woofer. 

They're a bit specialised, and not particularly cheap (C516 is 88.20 new on Amazon, P2 is £74.11). I'd pass.

I'd get an SM57 (they're very versatile) and see how you go. Maybe get one or two (for stereo) small-diaphragm condenser mics if funds stretch to it.

I can make you cables . (A 5m XLR with Neutrik plugs and VanDamme cable is around £19 + delivery).

R.

lukedlb

robinbowes said:

lukedlb said:

Would these mics come in handy? akg C516 and an akg P2. 
https://www.akg.com/Microphones/Condenser%20Microphones/C516ML.html
https://www.akg.com/Microphones/Dynamic%20Microphones/3100H00150.html

The guy selling me a Leslie has offered me them for 150£. They’re part of his kit for micing the tweeter and woofer. 

They're a bit specialised, and not particularly cheap (C516 is 88.20 new on Amazon, P2 is £74.11). I'd pass.

I'd get an SM57 (they're very versatile) and see how you go. Maybe get one or two (for stereo) small-diaphragm condenser mics if funds stretch to it.

I can make you cables . (A 5m XLR with Neutrik plugs and VanDamme cable is around £19 + delivery).

R.

After researching those Leslie mics, I agree with you and will consider something at a later date if needs be; the sm57 looks the smart way to go. I confused the sm58 vocal mic I have at home with an sm57. Ill pick one of those up. Thank you for the offer of the cable; luckily, I still have mine from back in the day. 

lukedlb

thegummy said:

TheBigDipper said:

Jalapeno said:

On Mac Garageband comes free - use that to start with as your mate already has it.

I'd agree with that. There's lots of love on here for Reaper, and rightly so, but many of our Reaper users do not have a Mac, so cannot install GarageBand or Logic. 

GB is easy to use for basic multitrack recording and delivers good results without a steep learning curve. There are lots of usable software instruments, plugins and drummers inside it for free. 

Audacity takes more effort to understand, I feel. 

Quality will come from your audio interface, mics and YOU. 

I've been using a PreSonus iTwo audio interface for a few years and I'm still happy with it. Low budget and with a MIDI interface, too.  I do a lot of demo recording and live stereo recording with GB on my iPad and it supports  that through a Lightening cable as well as USB to my Mac. 

As much as I absolutely love Reaper, the Garageband recommendation seems very sensible to me.

Reaper is cheap but it's not as cheap as free.

I've heard Garageband is pretty decent in its own right, especially when you specify a simple recording setup.

Just as a thought - it might be a good thing to work with the stock effects and just use those to mix the audio with. The fancy expensive plugins are great and sound great and if you try them you'll probably want more but the stock effects on any DAW are still good - much much better sound quality than any amateur home studio of the pre-computer days - so you'd probably be very pleased with the sound those give you.

I wonder why GarageBand isn’t included on my Mac. I’ll see if I can download a copy. It makes sense using software at least one of us is familiar with; next stop, Reaper. 

lukedlb

Is there no love for Arturia Audiofuse? They come up for £250 used and certainly look the part. 

andy_k

Sm57 and SM58 are basically the same thing with different dust caps, Rode make another good cheap mic,the M3 which is a self powered condenser, which offers a bit of an upgrade to the 57 / 58, which are both industry standards for live vocals, and guitar amps.
The Rode M3, and the matched pair of M5 should set you back about £200 for the 3, along with your Sm58, that would cover a lot of stuff.
Mics can get very expensive, and you are probably looking at a couple of hundred each for the next step up in quality.
A matched pair of 414s will cost you 2 grand, and the Rode Nt, which are what the M5 are based on, are about twice the price of the M5.

andy_k

Another thought, in your original post, you ask 'what equipment to set up a simple high quality setup?' and I have been on the same quest.
A big part of this is being versatile, and working to limitations, in my case budget. I wanted to record my band, at gigs and rehearsals and got a Zoom R16 for the job, I know it isnt the best quality peice of gear, but for the £200 it cost me it has been very useful, 8 mic inputs-2 with phantom power, 2 built in stereo condensers, works off batteries, records at high quality and sample rates- for its price, ALSO works as an 8 input interface, and control surface.
Our drummer has a cheap set of drum mics, but I used my matched pair to get used to them for recording live, all other inputs were used for 2 guitars-via Sm57s, vocals via SM58, and bass Di. It works a charm, its not the best gear out there-but you would have to spend a lot more than £200 to get much of an improvement in gear, standard for a while has been the Behringer X18 I think, which is about double the cost.
Say for example you meet a drummer and want to get some ideas down, thats not easy if you only have a 2 input interface, so I think it helps to have options available, as early as possible, at a reasonable price--if only for the experience you will gain from doing as much recording, in as many ways as possible.

Branshen

lukedlb said:

Is there no love for Arturia Audiofuse? They come up for £250 used and certainly look the part. 

I've never used one. Nor do I know anyone that uses one. It could well be fine, but I'd stick to something that's well known to be reliable. 

Jez6345789

A couple of tips with the old Mac these were officially max 2 gig of memory but should push out at 8gb in the real world today. Well worth doing upgrade in my mind.

also I spent some time over Christmas resurrecting my old MBP early 2008 non unibody. There is a guy who has worked tirelessly to make an easy install of Later Apple Operating systems on to old unsupported Macs.

that era probably does not support any browsers anymore and lots of software is starting grumble. I used the Dosdude patcher to put High Sierra or Mojave onto the machine as a clean install and it was like getting a new machine everything seemed to get a performance bump even the graphics and screen rendering looked way better. Well worth the time I even donated to his tip jar well worth 20 dollars to get a 12 year old dead end Mac singing like a well oiled machine

 

Stuckfast

Branshen said:

lukedlb said:

Is there no love for Arturia Audiofuse? They come up for £250 used and certainly look the part. 

I've never used one. Nor do I know anyone that uses one. It could well be fine, but I'd stick to something that's well known to be reliable. 

I have one, it works fine, and has a lot of features for the money. Nice preamps and general sound quality too, but not sure I'd recommend it to someone new to the world of recording, as it's a little bit complicated and not always totally intuitive to use.

lukedlb

What with the arrival of a new baby Tornado T115  (a new Italian Leslie made by the master of hammond and leslie restoration in Italy) and the coronavirus (Bologna is deserted even at rush hour) and the schools closed so kids at home for another week, I've been somewhat distracted. Back on game:

I've cleaned up the mac (I just need to figure out how to keep photos stored on an external disc as 90GB is taking up space) by transferring all non-essentials to external discs. Once I've got my translation work done, I'll get the mac updated with some extra RAM, a clean re-install, and substitute the broken dvd-drive for an extra ssd drive.

There is also a tempting option of getting an iMac. However, I think there will always be a tempting option at any future date so best to wait until this mac is on its last legs. Yes, the ports don't give many options (I assume Universal Audio Apollo is out of the question).

@stuckfast has reminded me that I have a tendency to go with the best when just fine is fine enough. I love the look and options offered by UA Apollo or Audiofuse though they provide more than I probably need.

@andy_k also reminded me that I'm doing this to record and not necessarily mix or compose. Perhaps a zoom r16 or Behringer or the like would provide a more permanent and comfortable recording interface (it will always be ready to record). I assume the raw tracks will be easily transferable on a memory card or the like to my Mac and the DAW.

What is the recording quality of such a portable recording suite vs recording directly to a mac?

If good money was spent on a mid-quality mic and a pre amp, would it be wasted plugging into a zoom?

The Zoom L8 looks interesting. I like its application for creating podcasts and it would allow me to set up a mini studio for voice over work.

Any thoughts on this option and any recommendations for hardware?

andy_k

I havent been using my R16 much lately, most of my time is spent mixing in Reaper, I'd recommend having a look online for the manual--it explains all the functions very clearly, usually recording at 16 bit 44khz, but also records at 24 bit--obviously affects file sizes, and when this device was new, everything was aimed at final recordings being 16bit 44k-for CD quality.
These days, most people work at 24bit 48khz, which just gives more headroom when mixing, and most MP3 bounces I do are 320k, which is considered equal to CD quality. Pro studios are using 96k and upwards-but our consumer hardware is not really up to the task.
I know Zoom released an updated version-which has its pros and cons-con 1 being it is around twice the price, but the original R16, and R24 were, and still are highly rated for bang for buck-and can be got for around £200 if you are lucky.
The manual is freely available, and would answer all you questions.
cheers
andy k 

lukedlb

andy_k said:

I havent been using my R16 much lately, most of my time is spent mixing in Reaper, I'd recommend having a look online for the manual--it explains all the functions very clearly, usually recording at 16 bit 44khz, but also records at 24 bit--obviously affects file sizes, and when this device was new, everything was aimed at final recordings being 16bit 44k-for CD quality.
These days, most people work at 24bit 48khz, which just gives more headroom when mixing, and most MP3 bounces I do are 320k, which is considered equal to CD quality. Pro studios are using 96k and upwards-but our consumer hardware is not really up to the task.
I know Zoom released an updated version-which has its pros and cons-con 1 being it is around twice the price, but the original R16, and R24 were, and still are highly rated for bang for buck-and can be got for around £200 if you are lucky.
The manual is freely available, and would answer all you questions.
cheers
andy k 

Thanks Andy. I was actually just listening to your band recording from a few years back, when you first got it. There is an R16 on the forum for that price. There are some used Zoom L12s for sale over here (not the 8s unfortunately) for 300quid. Looks like I have some manual reading to do.

andy_k

zoinks, dont go by my band as an example of how good the R16 sounds, it might count as an example of durability though.
8 mic inputs is enough for getting ideas down, I think the L12 adds more inputs and loses some of the features from the R16, but they are all really easy to get into, like I said-bang for buck.

lukedlb

As I can easily get drawn into exciting interesting solutions like the Zoom L12 or updating the specs on my mac, I should remember that those funds could easily be saved or better invested elsewhere. 400 euros on an L12 or 200 euros on spec updates could be better invested in a new Mac for the home and the powerbook could become a dedicated recorder with a presonus firestudio interface. I am overthinking again and adding options that are not currently needed.

The maximum inputs at any time will be Stereo (organ or piano) or a double mic'd amp. So, @robinbowes offer of the firestudio should work (do you have a 600-800 firewire cable?). If there's no problem using it with Garageband or Reaper, this could well be the way to go. 
The sm58 is a regular 1/4" jack. Is XLR better? Vandamme certainly sounds a good solution.
I have a single mic stand so that should do for now.
I'll need to get decent headphones and then I'll be up and running.

Stuckfast

The Zoom L series have *much* better preamps and analogue circuitry than the R16.

robinbowes

lukedlb said:

The maximum inputs at any time will be Stereo (organ or piano) or a double mic'd amp. So, @robinbowes offer of the firestudio should work (do you have a 600-800 firewire cable?). If there's no problem using it with Garageband or Reaper, this could well be the way to go. 
The sm58 is a regular 1/4" jack. Is XLR better? Vandamme certainly sounds a good solution.
I have a single mic stand so that should do for now.
I'll need to get decent headphones and then I'll be up and running.

Good timing - it looks like the SSL 2+ is available, so I ordered one.

If it is a TS (mono) jack, then an XLR will be better as it will be a balanced connection (lower noise). If it's a TRS jack, then it should work OK, assuming it's good quality cable and well-built.

FYI, the Firestudio has just two mic/instrument inputs on the front, but has 6 line inputs on the back.

R.

Snap

I would consider Cakewalk by Bandlab as your DAW. Its completely free, well supported and unbelievably high spec. I've just installed it, and I can't quite believe what kit is included in it. I prefer it to Reaper.

Then I'd consider getting a Native instruments Komplete Audio 6 Mk II interface - not only a brilliant bit of kit, but it comes bundled with a shedload of good software, including Komplete Essentials. 

lukedlb

I have my ath m70 headphones and the presonus is in the hands of Hermes. I should get started next week. 

Thanks @Snap I’ll try it when I upgrade mentally from the work flow of garage. 

Snap

Garageband is alright, but you will enjoy the extra ability a fully fledged DAW brings. Garageband IMO is a sort of learning the basics program, though it is a lot more sophisticated than it used to be.