Young Buck

Well, I made the order yesterday. I settled on the AT3035 and the AKGC3000B mics, and the Mackie monitors. These weren't my first choices, but I think it gets me the most for our budget, so... But I just want to say thanks again to all y'all for helping me put that list together. Can't wait to "push the red button"! WE'RE ROLLING!!

B-3, I just noticed your signature...very nice! That has to be the craziest song (there are parts which are in 19/4! And Vinnie Caliuta is on top of it!) I appreciate your advice on the MXL's...I imagine a well designed cheap mic could sound good, and I'd have to hear it before I discredited it. The way it is right now, I had a little bit of head room in the budget...not enough to upgrade the Mackie HR624's to Genelec's, so I decided to upgrade my mics. My two L.D. condensors are AT3035 and AKG Solid Tube. I'm pretty sure that this will be our final choice, but it may be a few days before we cut the check, so if anyone has any solid objections, please let me know. Jim, I did as you said...I arranged a 30-day trial period to test out the equipment to make sure it is what I want. Thank you all for all of your advice...I would have been clueless buying this gear if it weren't for y'all, so.... Thanks a million. I'll let you know how it sounds when I have it on tape...possibly send some recordings to y'all. But, again, thank you.

Chris, thanks for the advice...unfortunately, I'll be on the other side of the store window drolling at the Nuemans, etc. for quite some time...for now, we have $7k to build a base of a recording studio. We are putting most of our $$ into a DAW that we will be happy with for __ yrs, and hoping we will continue to get more funding to fill in the mic/pre section later. The monitor situation is sticky, though, because we will probably be stuck with what we buy now...but we can't really offord too much more than $1000/pair. Can you think of any options in that range that beat the Mackies? I know, I know...you get what you pay for...but what is my best options considering the limitation? Would you advise me to perhaps drop anything off the list (replace the condensors with MXL's, or...) to allocate more money to the monitors? Because I will probably be able to get better mics in a half a year (maybe)... Let me know what you think... BTW, I am well aware of some of the ridiculously hilarious things some of these "artists" like to pull off before/during the show. I did sound for a company in Pittsburg...Northern Sound and Lights...and we had some pretty interesting experiences...I have to run to class right now, but I'll tell you about one in particular later...it involves the artists b*tching at the monitor guy for about 3-4 minutes straight in between songs DURING THE SHOW! And to make it better, he was talking through his mic (which was obviously going through FOW) even though he was about 5 feet from the monitor guy.......geez...

Wow, thanks fellas...(or ladies, if anyone is...???). So if I got an MXL mic, would you recommend that I scrap the Rode or the AKG (or another one I was looking into was the Audio Technica AT3035). Which of the three would you keep?

Well, I'm sorry if I have been using y'all as my personal consulting crew...and you all have really gave me some invaluable insight for the equipment our club is about to buy. We are probably going to make the purchases this Friday/Monday, and I want to run this list by y'all one time before I go ahead and buy it all. If anyone wants to take a moment to glance down the list and see if there is anything that you would advise that we shouldn't buy, or something we should buy instead, or if you feel that a price is too high, or... As always, all advice is good advice and very much appreciated... FYI, we have a $7,000 budget, and this list was offered to me for $7k including shipping...any thoughts? Digidesign Digi002 - $1995 4) Shure SM57 - $72 each Rode NT5 (matched pair of sm diaphragm condensers) - $235 Audix DP2 drum mic kit 1) D1, 2) D2, 1) D4, 4) Dflex mounts - $410 Rode NT1000 - $240 AKG C3000B - $295 Focusrite Octopre with ADAT card - $970 ($795 + $175) 8) AKG K55 headphones - $32 each Samson SPhones headphone amp - $139 ProCo 75' snake, 16 XLR ins, 4 TRS returns - $265 700' ProCo raw mic cable - $140 25) male XLR cable mount connectors - $1.85 each 25) female XLR cable mount connectors - $1.95 each 2) QuikLok A341 short boom stands - $30 each 6) QuikLok A300 boom stands - $23 each 2) A205BK heavy duty boom stands - $37 each 2) Mackie HR624 powered monitors - $420 each Producing in the Home Studio with ProTools Book - $25 4) Hosa GXP143 XLRF to TRS adapters - $4.65 each Roxio Toast N Jam CD burning software - $175 6' lightpipe cable - $8 4) TRS 1/4" connectors - $2.35 each 2) PreSonus Blue Tube - $135 each 8) 1/4" TS connectors - $1.20 each Shipping $200

200Hz from a Hi Hat!?! I didn't know that was possible. Wouldn't you normally high-pass that channel anyway to prevent phase disturbance with the kik, etc?

Quick question for y'all... Does anyone have any feelings on FocusRite pre's? Because I need an analog-to-ADAT converter to interface with the Digi 002 system, and the FocusRite OctoPre has 8 mic pre's and converts to ADAT to import to the 002 system. Can you recommend any other ADAT converter's? Here's the website for the OctoPre...any thoughts are very much appreciated! http://www.focusrite.com/products/platinum...opre/index.html Also, a rep from sweetwater recommended ADAM P11a monitors (w/ ribbon tweets). Any thoughts? Besides that, I'm making great progress on the recording gear I'm going to buy. I just talked to DigiDesign, and they told me to never skimp on the processor speed and worry about upgrading RAM later (he said starting with 512 MB should be enough). He said with too many plug-in's, you'll run into a ceiling with a slower processor. Also he said the new version of ProTools LE (out in a few months) will be able to run on OS10 and will be able to take advantage of the dual processor. As always, thanks for the advice...

LarsRec, thank you very much for your advice. Also to Jim...that is a really intelligent idea to use different Pre-amps across the board to individualize the tones...more signs of your expertise...keep 'em comin! Do you guys recommend ALL Genelec's...ie, are the cheaper ones still pretty good? I'm pretty sure you can get the 1030's for about $1500, are they far less quality then the 1031's, or are they comparible? Do you guys know anything about Digi 002 Pro Tools system? The specs say 18 I/o's, but only 4 analog mic pre's and 8 direct in's...I guess the other 6 are by Firewire or something (I have to research some more)...does anybody have any experience with this system? Recommend? ps. I think I will start a FZ thread, that sounds like fun!

As always, thanks for the advice...much appreciated... Why is OSX no more? I will definately check out MXL mics and I plan on getting some good mic pre's, any specific suggestions? The Zappa album, One Size Fits All, was before his synclavier days... 1975 to be exact. Anyway, the first song, Inca Roads (an amazing song by all rights) has a solo / jam section in the middle where FZ just wails over top of drums, bass, and rhodes. That whole section is from a live show and spliced in the middle of a studio take...flawlessly, I might add. He has done tons of stuff like that...he has put live solos over studio back-up, live tracks from one show over live tracks from another! He has one recording (I can't remember which one) which are two studio sessions where neither session played with the other...meaning, both sessions were completely independant and then matched up! The guy is a genious by all accounts if you ask me...

Thanks for the advice, Jim and B-3... Meyer for monitor, you say? Would you recommend them over, say, the Genelec 1030's (about $1500 / pair)? Also, you concur that RAM is more important then processor speed? That's interesting... I'll keep it in mind. With $2000 for the G4, $2000 for the Pro Tools, and $2000 for monitors, that will be a pretty solid core unit and still leaves $3,300 for gear (mics, pre's, comp's, etc). Then, as we get funding over the next few years, we will build our mic arsonal little by little. Thanks again for the advice, fellas. CJ, I'm not sure if your 'into' Frank Zappa, but he has done a lot of studio overdubbing over live material, and did it pretty interestingly as well (check out "Inca Roads" from One Size Fits All...) Also, the Grateful Dead have a live album called Europe '72 which features many overdubs over live, and it sounds amazing (in my 'Young' opinion!). Sorry for straying the conversation away from jazz, but it might be worth checking out...

Hello all! Hi Jim! As my name suggests, I am a student aspiring (and perspiring) to be a recording engineer. Jim spoke at our school, Penn State, at an AES meeting, and what an insightful lecture and Q&A it was. Thanks again, Jim! I have been discussing with Jim and other engineers, etc about recommending equipment to purchase for our student organization, Recording Engineering Collaboration (REC). The university has funded us for equipment just recently, and we are about a week away from making decisions on which gear we want and buying it. If any of you have any advice for us, I am currently collecting... The biggest question mark for us right now is monitor choice. Jim recommended the Genelec's 1031, but they are a bit out of our budget (Sweetwater has them listed at ~$3000/pair). We can probably only spend $1500 max for a pair. Any recommendations? Also, we are considering a MAC G4 (Dual 1 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HD). These specs can be modified, but only by upgrading one spec AND downgrading one spec, ie, we can upgrade the processor to 1.25 GHz by downgrading to 512 MB RAM. We will probably get Digi 002 (Pro Tools, 32 Tracks, 18 I/O's). Any thoughts on any of this? All advice is great advice. Thanks in advance...