Hello all!
Our studio had an opportunity to get an investment of roughly the equivalent of 15000 dollars worth. So, I have some gear lined out I want to buy and I am sorta sitting on the fence with some other. I thought that perhaps some people would have opinions on the shit I am going for and how does it all look to them…
I guess good idea is first to list the gear I have now so I can paint a picture of where I am going with these purchases.
I have a custom made Finnish console made to Finland State owned radio specs back in the eighties to be used as a mobile recording console. It has 24 good channels, 4 semi good and 4 not working channels, with Valley People preamp chips and Valley People three band parametric equalizers. It has Lundahl transformers thrown everywhere in the console - inputs, sum amplifiers, basically everything is going through Lundahls all the time. So I use it for preamps and summing. The eq-s are nice aswell. No automation whatsoever though.
Mics.
U87 (the old silver one, with capsule change made approx 5 years ago)
TLM103
AKG 414 TL II
AKG C4000B (stays mostly in the box now)
DPA 4041 Large diaphragm omni condenser
Shoeps CMC5 with omni and cardioid capsules, stereo pair
AKG C451EB with omni and cardioid capsules, 2 pairs
Sennheiser MD441, 3 pcs
Shure SM57, 2 pcs + 1 SM58
EV ND868
AKG D112
Gefell PM70 handheld condenser microphone (back from the DDR days, still has a very good sound, but is 12V powered, so in some sense kinda pain in the ass)
Comps: - RNC, 4 Valley People Gain Brains, Drawmer M500
Monitors: Event 20/20Bas (only good for impressing dumb clients), JBL 4208 - better for mixing but I still can't trust them.
PC, Samplitude, TC Powercore, RME HDSP 9652 and ADI Pro 8 converters.
I work ITB, with occasional external summing, planning to do more of it.
So. What I want to get.
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Drawmer 1968 Vacuum Tube compressor. - This would be used both at tracking and as a master buss compressor as it is pretty much the only "big money" stereo compressor we can afford right now. Don't think we have many options besides it.
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Distressor. - Now there are many mods to it, which one is the most versatile?
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Royer R121-
pair of DPA 4003 small diaphragm 130V omnis. I am not wild about this idea - they are good mics, but they eat up quarter of the budget with a pop, but my partner insists on them and he negotiated the budget, so that's there. What’s the general opinion on them?
My guess right now would be to get the DPA-s and put the Shoeps pair on sale - they are good mics but a bit overpriced for what they do IMO. And get a matched pair of Josephsons instead. Does that sound like a good or a dumb idea?
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RME Fireface - we are using RME converters and interface card and partner is planning to do allot of remote work so we kinda need a firewire option
Now the things I am on the fence with:
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Soundelux U195. I need a good "main vocal mic" (Otek pointed that out the minute that he saw my list and I know it aswell) but I cannot afford a "real" one right now. So I am kinda on the fence with cheap Soundelux vs cheap Brauner (the Phantom C) I do allot of rock, mostly male vocals, some female (female are mostly classical/musical types), I can get the job done but something that instantly pops out as "wow" would be nice. What is the general opinion of pro's and cons of Soundelux vs Brauner? Also, I actually don't like 'cardioid' at all with most vocals, I don't like what cardioid does to high end. Anything multipattern out there that really rocks and doesn't cost an arm and a leg?
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ElectroVoice RE20 or
Shure SM7. I have never used SM7, though I like RE20 very much... This is not an easy pic. What's people's opinion on both of them?
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ADAM SA2A monitors. I definitely want ADAMs, tho I kinda don't know the active vs passive thing... Active would be a safer choice, but would passive be also a viable one provided that I do not have a totally shit amp?
- A good second hand guitar amp, probably a Marshall JMP or JCM800. Don’t have one yet and this is half criminal…
Shit that got dropped off the list:
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TC M3000 as my partner thought that we need DPA mics more...
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Millenia 8 channel mic preamp - I managed to get this one dropped as getting a microphone with no sound coupled with a preamp with no sound is like, well, perhaps not the smartest of the ideas out there...
So, if anyone wants to comment this list, feel free, shoot!