Dave, your M-Audio box will be perfectly adequate as far as converters go. You can measure their performance to a certain extent using a piece of free software who's name I forget, but don't bother.

The preamps will likely be fairly crap in it though.

Have a look for Symmetrix, Joe Meek, or anything else made by good manufacturers. The Electro Harmonix 12AY7 is good and cheap, but you'll need a balanced line input (or DI box and unbalanced input) in order to use it as this is required to cancel noise at the preamp's output, and it has limited gain (~45dB?)

Have a look at the Joe Meek units - some have eq. and compressors built in which will probably sound better than your average plugin.

As for mics, you may want to look at some cheaper condensers if you already have an SM57.

oh, also, if i run my mic into a good preamp, and then run that into the m-audio, will the m-audio preamps automatically kick in and ruin everything? is there some way to turn that sort of thing off/bypass it?

i checked out the sytek - it's a bit out of my price range, and also i'm looking for something a bit more portable, and the sytek looks like you're suppose to screw it into a rack

i very much appreciate all the help

by the way the mobile pre m-audio thing i have is this one:
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/M ... -main.html
if that helps answer the question about bypassing the preamps in my interface

crap - just realized trash treasury answered that question about bypassing the preamp

First I'll say I probably shouldn't have been as bold as to say I would take a nice pre over a nice mic without a little more clarification. Really it's a debate I think that has been beaten to death and I'll just say given the choice over a console with decent to ok pres and a nice collection of mics or 1 or 2 mics and some really nice pres, I would go with the better mics. I've recorded in both situations and while I love to have the options when it comes to pres, have different types of mics at my disposal seems to work better for me. The key words are "better for me" but really like so many other things in life, recording styles are a matter of personal preference hence the wide variety of sounds heard on different records. I would be interested in hearing your reasons for your preference, skatingbasser.

Rant over, back to your post Dave. I wish I knew more about your long term plans as a far as recording goes. Do you ever plan on recording more than just your acoustic guitar? What type of music are you recording, my approach and equipment would be different for a classical guitarist than it would be for some singer songwriter type stuff. Also, have you ever considered a mult-mic setup for the guitar. Using two mics would give you some more tonal varieties.

Rodabod is correct that your converters are fine, I'm just saying they aren't the best in the book but I wouldn't worry about them. If you really must purchase a pre I would recommend stretching your budget to get some syteks, especially if you plan to expand your recording rig and eventually tackle some other instruments. Another alternative if you really only want 1 pre is the Grace 101. I was not that impressed by the Electroharmonix unit and generally feel most of the sub $500 pres offer only a marginal (at best) difference between that and what you find stock in low end converter combos and cheap mixers.

As for mics, once again I think it would depend on what you are trying to achieve. For a large diaphram condensor, a used 4050 just barely makes it in your budget and would give you a ton of options. It can be a boring sounding mic but a great utility mic to have in your mic locker and not a bad choice for a first LDC considering the 3 polar patterns. The Avenson omni's are cool as well as long as you aren't recording really quiet stuff. There are a whole bunch of other small diaphram condensors that would probably work as well. Everything from some of the Audio Technica 4051/41s to the Oktava's or a Shure SM81. Personally I find the pro37r to be a bit bright. Like an akg 451, it can be cool going to tape but generally I have only really liked them under snares or on hi-hats when I really need some sizzle.

But really, find out what you don't like about your sound, try to fix it by moving the mic around, recording in different rooms etc... After you have exhausted the possibilities with the equipment you have, you'll have a better idea of what you like and don't and then will be able to make a more informed decision about what to buy next. Like I said all this gear is just a bunch of tools which I use to solve problems. It sounds like to me, that you don't know what your problem is yet.

I've recorded a whole bunch of shit in the past 20 years, and I've never owned a mic preamp. For the first 16 years or so, all my recording was done with a Tascam 4tk, and once computer recording became readily available in 1996, after that I used the Tascam 4tk as a preamp. Then I got a Soundcraft mixer and use the channels as mic preamps.

I think "good preamps" are really overrated, and are the last thing that should be improved upon, unless whatever you have is total garbage and produces only square waves or something. Mics are way more important. Room acoustics is way more important.

If you're just starting out and learning and stuff, you can get by using a Tascam 4tk that you buy for $25 at a pawnshop. It worked for me for like 16 years.

trash treasury - i think my goals are a little unusual. i'm going to be travelling abroad for the next few years starting in september/october, so i'm trying to find a way to keep recording music while staying portable

so anyway this is what i've decided upon

drums - no way in hell i'll be able to travel and have enough gear to record drums. i won't have drums. so i'm using a combination of reason, cubase & battery 3 along with a usb midi keyboard. i'm actually really happy with what i've come up with so far. playing drums on a keyboard isn't much fun, but the sounds are very impressive and after i edit everything in cubase i end up with a very live and acoustic sounding drum track.

piano - same setup, reason + cubase + usb midi keyboard

guitars.. what i'm working on right now. acoustic guitar should be straightforward once i have a good mic/preamp/converter chain going, but this needs to be portable enough to take with me at a moment's notice. for electric guitar i'm running the signal into guitar rig II which sounds fine to me (i'm not a guitarist).

bass - haven't started into this one, but assume i can somehow turn my acoustic guitar into an electric bass using software.

vocals - same chain as the acoustic guitar.

so yes, eventually i'll plan to branch out to vocals, but really vocals + acoustic guitar is all this will be used for for a while.

trash treasury - also i do know what my problem is. it's the noise floor. apparently you can somehow get a noisefloor of -75db with the m-audio pres but i haven't figured out how that can happen. i'm stuck at about -50db. regardless i'd like something crystal clear, especially since any sort of noise floor gets amped in guitar rig when i'm processing electric guitar sounds.

i am a beginner at all of this, but i do have some idea of what i want. i don't expect to be recording in the same place for very long, nor expect to have a lot of time to spend positioning mics and moving little things around.

First things first, don't be afraid of a little noise. Somebody will chew me out over this but I will take a well written, well played song recorded poorly over a polished piece of crap. I think the problem that you are going to encounter is the fact that you are also using some virtual instruments or samples which I'm guessing have a very polished, noise free sound to them. So, based on that, I'm assuming that when everything comes together in the mix, the live recorded instruments are not sitting as well as you would like ie the noise.

I'm torn about what to recommend. I don't know what music you listen to but if you have ever heard any early Elliott Smith, I believe most of that was done with just a 57 into a 4 track (and later some other tape machines). There is noise but it doesn't matter, the songs sound excellent. Sorry for so many questions but how does your voice pair with the 57. It can be the right mic for some vocalists but it's seldom my first choice. Seeing as you are going to be traveling, I'm a bit more relaxed about recommending some more prosumer equipment seeing as there is a potential it will get banged up or worse. I think if you like your voice through the 57 then put all of your $ into a pre. If you can get the Grace 101 used it would be under $500 and you definitly sell it when you got back from your travels for about what you paid if you don't like it. The RNP is another option but I have never used it so I won't speculate or repeat other people's opinoins. I don't know of any other compact mic pres that fit your budget that I would personally recommend. I know m-audio also makes an audio buddy pre but I'm guessing (never have used it) that it might be the same or a very similiar circut to the pre in your unit. The symetrix and aphex stuff that occassionally gets some praise is all built into 19" rack mounted enclosures so that would probably be too big if you are really trying to travel light.

Ultimately it's a tough questions to answer. For awhile when I was traveling around alot I used an mbox and a tascam unit and usually something like a 57 or whatever else was lying around to do demos on the road. The thing is, they were demos. The sound was more important. There was noise and of course I couldn't achieve all the sounds I wanted too but I knew my limitations. I have a portable rig now I take with me but it is a bit more involved and is contained in a 4 space rack. That sounds like it might be a bit too cumbersome for you so I wish you luck.

scott wrote:I've recorded a whole bunch of shit in the past 20 years, and I've never owned a mic preamp.

I think youre drawing an imaginary line around the concept of "mic preamp." Even though they arent in a separate rack mount box, the channel pres in a Soundcraft 800 like yours are good (and cheap) mic preamps. The pres are the only reason I bought my Soundcraft.

I still use my Sytek more though.

And I dont know how to solve davesec's problem. Light, very small, and travel-worthy gear that also sounds great is a tough nut to crack.

Just a few points -

Dave, are you using a laptop? If so, have you tried removing your laptop's power supply to see if the noise situation improves? The noise performance you are getting just now is pretty shit.

I like Scott's attitude, and I agree with his approach - recording techniques are more important.

If you do plan on travelling with a compact rig, then I would maybe try one of the Joe Meek mini channel strips. They are cheap, and Ted Fletcher used nice designs with good components. Plus as I said, you get eq.s and compressors built in some of these boxes.

You can bypass the M-Audio preamps using the line-in connectors. There is one plus a stereo 1/8" jack for doing so.

Get your noise problem sorted first.