help with mic pre's etc.

[aramism]

hi all



in my first post i stated that i know a lot about music from a music sense but i'm starting my path towards recording and production as i have a keen intrest in it. so anyway where i stand now is that my setup consists of a mediocre (home pc converted) computer with sonar 6. i run all my mics and stuff in my studio into a presonus firepod which runs via firewire into my pc.



so obviously the presonus is decent but i need a good crash course into how it works as far as like mic pres and analog/digital converters or whatever. i was thinking of getting like a mackie onyx board with the firewire card are those better preamps??? i mean obviously i know enough to understand that like vintage boards with high end stuff literally costs like over 10,000 or in that large price range but i was wondering should my next step to higher fidelity be to keep the firepod and get a good analog to digital converter (like an apogee) or get a new set altogether like a mixing board with good mic pre's but then i think i'd have to have a great audio card for my computer and my computer would matter a lot as far as quality goes. could someone please help clarify this situation. thanks.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

hi all



in my first post i stated that i know a lot about music from a music sense but i'm starting my path towards recording and production as i have a keen intrest in it. so anyway where i stand now is that my setup consists of a mediocre (home pc converted) computer with sonar 6. i run all my mics and stuff in my studio into a presonus firepod which runs via firewire into my pc.



so obviously the presonus is decent but i need a good crash course into how it works as far as like mic pres and analog/digital converters or whatever. i was thinking of getting like a mackie onyx board with the firewire card are those better preamps??? i mean obviously i know enough to understand that like vintage boards with high end stuff literally costs like over 10,000 or in that large price range but i was wondering should my next step to higher fidelity be to keep the firepod and get a good analog to digital converter (like an apogee) or get a new set altogether like a mixing board with good mic pre's but then i think i'd have to have a great audio card for my computer and my computer would matter a lot as far as quality goes. could someone please help clarify this situation. thanks.

Don't worry about getting good pre's. They're not gonna matter so much until you get good at recording.

I guarantee Andy could use crappy pre's and still turn out a mix twice as good as most anyone else here even if they were using their choice of high end pre's.

 

[egan.]

Genius pretty much nailed it.
As far as upgrading goes, I would get better/ different mics first. Then I would get a good channel strip. Then I would get converters.

The onyx stuff is much better than the older mackie stuff IMO however it would only be marginally (if at all) better than the presonus stuff. The only reason to make this switch (and it's a valid reason) is to monitor and have eq on a board.

 

[joeymusicguy]

the mackie 800r is way better than a firepod as far as pre's go, but they're not the same unit by anymeans, they have two entirely different purposes

im getting about -120 to -100 db of headroom now, compared to my -60 on the firepod, now that i've switched to an rme fireface 800 and a mackie onyx 800 r

thats double the headroom