Studio Equipment Question For Matt

circleofone

circleofone

www.circleofone.net
Jun 25, 2005
33
0
6
Texas
Matt,

I just bought a Boss BR-8 digital recording studio so I can do alot of my tracking at home , rather than making a million trips to the studio for my next project. Can you recommend a reasonably priced recording mic and set of studio monitors ( I am a poor boy..haha). I noticed that there are "active" and "passive" monitors. Which are the best for a home studio set up? Thanks for your help. I have played music all of my life...just never been on the recording/engineering side of it, so I could use some advice.

Later,

Toby
 
Well, the best mics for your situation depend on what you're planning to record. But I can recommend two very affordable mics that will give you a LOT of flexibility:

SHURE SM-57

sm57.jpg


The best all-around dynamic mic of all time...
I've used some expensive mics, but I always came back to the SM57 for recording guitars. Also good for drums, some vocals, you name it.

STUDIO PROJECTS B1

b1_picture_422.jpg


A great first condenser mic. A lot of the cheaper condensers are really hyped in the high end, which can sound pretty nasty, but this one is relatively flat, super cheap, and sounds good. Should work great for you for vocals and acoustic guitar, etc.

As for monitors, I would go with active if I were you. Passive just means they don't have a power amp built in so you'd have to buy a separate power amp. I really don't know what to recommend, because I haven't heard most of them. But I know you can get some M-Audio monitors for pretty cheap and they supposedly sound good. Also some of the KRK "Rockit" series goes for pretty cheap. I've heard some good stuff about KRK, so that might be worth looking at. Behringer has some cheap ones too, but knowing Behringer quality I'm sure they'd last you about a month. Moving up in price, if you can swing it you might want to look at the Mackie HR624. The biggest thing with monitors is just to learn them inside and out. If you know what you're working with, you obviously have a big advantage straight out of the gate.

Good luck and keep us posted!
 
Matt, thanks so much for the information. This is EXTREMELY helpful. What we plan on doing right now is recording all of our instruments digitially, direct into the console. We are needing a mic primarily for vocals. Sounds like the STUDIO PROJECTS B1 would be good, however I am reading ALOT of awesome stuff about the Shure SM57. Would the Sure be better for recording vocals?

I really dig the KRK monitors too..hopefully I can swing getting some of those.

Hey Spyderman..thanks for the tweakheadz link..I will definitely check it out.

Rock on,

Toby
 
circleofone said:
Hey Spyderman..thanks for the tweakheadz link..I will definitely check it out.

Rock on,

Toby
Click to expand...

you're very welcome, and I'm glad I could offer a resource...there's a whole section on choosing monitors, which I'm currently browsing for myself. The Shur mic that Matt posted looks very similar to the one we used in a demo a former band of mine did in 2000. probably one of the best quality "sounding" demos given that the whole thing was recorded in a 1 bedroom apartment using a single amp....a Fender 112 combo, a dynamic mic like that for both guitars and vocals, Boss Metal Zone MT-2 dist. pedal, a Yamaha Midi module and Cakewalk Soundforge. Really a very impressive sounding 4 song demo.....I sure wish I was still working with the founder of that band. His knowledge of home recording was awesome.....I just can't seem to duplicate his results and I'm using easily 10 times the gear. Just goes to show that Know how is the key. ;)
 
circleofone said:
We are needing a mic primarily for vocals. Sounds like the STUDIO PROJECTS B1 would be good, however I am reading ALOT of awesome stuff about the Shure SM57. Would the Sure be better for recording vocals?
Click to expand...

It depends on the kind of vocals. Generally, I prefer large-diaphragm condenser mics (like the B1) on vocals, so if you're recording normal singing you'd probably get better results and have to EQ less with that.
If I were tracking really screamy vocals, however, I'd probably try a dynamic like the SM57 first because they take abuse better and you don't necessarily want the super high end of a condenser on that type of stuff.

But it all depends on the voice. If you know you're going to be recording electric guitars and stuff, I'd say get the SM57 first (since you'll need it anyway) and see how your voice sounds recorded through that. If you're not too happy with it on vocals, pick up the B1.
The microphone preamp you're using will make a big difference as well (especially on dynamics like the SM57), but don't worry about that just yet--one step at a time. ;)
 
I bought a Nady SCM 800. A good starter mic..and inexpensive...I think I paid maybe $80 CDN for it. I wanted to be thrifty, but in hindsight it cost me more because I'm about to replace it with an Audio-technica 3035.
 
I bought the B1. Thanks again for the information.

Another question...

The B1 came with a shockmount, which was cool, but what kind of mic stand does it attach to? The threads are really small..smaller than a standard mic stand. This is my first time to set up a mic and shockmount myself, so what's up with the small threaded end on the shockmount? What do I need to do? Thanks again!

Toby
 
If it's like other microphones there's this screw thing inside it with the smaller thread. Just take a penny and untwist it and it should pop out and fit on a regular stand
 
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