larsrec

Young Buck, Since you are getting an AKG Solid Tube, try the following modification: Loosen the set screw that holds the capsule and electronics in the housing and remove the foam windscreen that surrounds the capsule. I found this opened up the mic considerably and didn't seem to make it appreciably more susceptible to plosives. You can usually avoid plosives with careful placement or a pop screen if you use it with vocalists.

Young Buck, Given your budget constraints that looks like a pretty good list to me, too. Given a good sounding room and some good players you should be able to make some nice recordings with that rig. If you're planning to mix entirely "in the box" don't forget to budget for some plug-ins. The freebies you'll get from Digi with the 002 will be a good start, though. Have fun.

One other suggestion for a good low-priced 8 channel mic pre: The Yamaha HA-8. These were originally made by Yamaha as part of their 20-bit digital recording system and originally sold for about $1500. They are rugged, well-made, and sound very good, especially on drums and percussion. Tom Jung made many recordings with them as his primary mic pre and got rave reviews from the audiophile press (admittedly not always a thing to brag about.) I don't think they're being made anymore but you could look for one on e-bay. I bought one for an extra 8 channels for a portable rig for $400. I agree with David and Jim that obsession with equipment can sometimes distract us from the real task of improving our listening skills and our ability to extract the best performances from the musicians on the other side of the glass. If you can't make a good-sounding record with a Mackie and some SM-57's, you can dream about those Brauners, a Meitner convertor, and a DSD recorder, but it probably won't help much.

John sells the units himself. He is located in Evanston, IL. His number is listed under The John Hardy Company. You can also find his ads in all the major recording magazines.He also sells the best DI in the world, the AMB.

Hi Jim, I agree that RAM is more important, up to a point. ProTools users who also use their machines loaded with 2 gig of RAM for video editing (FCP and Avid Express) are having problems. I am running the HD2 system on an 800 mghz single processor G4 with 1 gig of RAM with absolutely no problems. Over the past week I upgraded to PT 6.0 which runs on OSX and the whole process was absolutely painless. Waves vers 4.0 now runs on OSX as well. PT 6.0 can use dual processor machines but, for now, there seems to be little practical benefit. On the subject of mic pres, I love my Precision 8, my Milennia HD-3, and Night Technologies PreQ3 (I believe you and I used all of these along with your Hardy's on Patricia Barber's Companion CD.) The Precision and the Milennia are transformerless and in the straight-wire-with-gain family. The Night Technologies units sound a lot to me like John Hardy's units but unfortunately are no longer made. David Baker swears by the Presonus 8 channel unit. If I were buying new pres I'd be hard-pressed to decide between Hardys, Grace, and/or more channels of Milennia. Cheaper options would be the new Focusrite OctoPre, which reportedly contain the same pres as my Digi Control 24 (usable but not exciting) and the Presonus. John Larson