i checked into both the grace 101 and the RNP and they both look awesome. i'll see what's readily available here in canada

i have no idea if i like my voice through the sm57. i usually just play drums in studios, but for one band i had to sing and i liked the way my voice sounded at that point, but i don't know what mic was used.

i'm a big fan of old elliot smith recordings but personally i think it sounds good because the music sounds like it should be recorded really lo-fi. i can't picture a lot of louder bands with elliot smith style recordings. i can't even picture stuff like the shins sounding like elliot smith recordings. and regardless, if i was going after that sort of sound i would need a drum kit and some amps and other things i certainly won't have room for. and if i really want to use real drums etc i'll have to go to a studio anyway.

anyway can anyone list a good standalone a/d converter (do those exist?) if my m-audio thing will work, awesome, but if there's a good standard one out there i would be interested.

also trash treasury, what do you have in your portable setup?

My point was that there's this notion that outboard mic pre's are really important. And to me, that's true, but only if your room, mics, and recording medium are all kicking ass. If you're doing normal-ish recordings, the quality of the mic pres is not a first concern.

Seeing now that this inquiry is all about being mobile, I am reminded that I do indeed own a mic pre! It's a 3 input mono output mic mixer that I've had for maybe 15 years or something. It's designed for field recording, like interviews or something. It's got an oscillator and a slate function as well, and it's powered by a couple 9V batteries. And it has phantom power.

I totally forgot I have it. I used to use it for live recordings sometimes, or anytime I wanted to use my Pro37R with my Tascam 4tk that had no phantom power.

I like it.

I think it's been discontinued, but with a quick look at their site, I saw this thing which is the same concept but a different box and whatever.

Rodabod wrote: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.

i'll check tonight/tomorrow - i agree it's a priority to figure out why i'm getting so much noise. i bought a regular standard xlr cable to attach the mic - should i go back and get the super high quality one they had there?

i'll also check it with some other mics i have around here and see how they compare. hopefully i can get to the bottom of this.

i looked into the joe meek stuff, it's definitely interesting.

thanks!

davesec wrote:i bought a regular standard xlr cable to attach the mic - should i go back and get the super high quality one they had there?

No! There is so much bullshit surrounding cables in HiFi and pro-audio. I'm sure yours will be fine.

Good luck sorting the noise. Also - your M-Audio box will probably be fine for what you want to do.

Am I the only one that can read my previous post here?

Seriously - check out THE BRICK.

It sounds exactly like what you need.

unarmedman's recommendation based on someone else's here (sorry I missed the original post I guess) post about the brick is a good one too. I only used it once but it wasn't bad. lt's kinda apples to oranges compared to the Grace 101 in that the grace has a much more clean, pristine sound, super detailed with probably a bit better transient response but not necessarily better.

I'll second Rodabod's post about not worrying about a super expensive cable. I do like some of the Blue cables but I usually just make my own. I speculate with some there might be some signal degradation or high end roll off but I think the biggest difference between a nicely made cable and some of the cheaper ones is durability. I am certainly not saying the expensive one's are better built, some might be, I haven't purchased a pre-made XLR cable in a really long time.

With the ES reference, I was just saying don't fret the small things. If the the noise is something serious, and it does sound like you might a problem then yeah you need to do something but a little noise or hiss here and there never hurt anyone.

I'll reitereate that the m-audio device you have is fine. I have never used it but I can't imagine it's much different from anything else in its price range. The apogee mini-me is neat and would be an improvement but they are almost a $1k. If you could sell the m-audio and stretch your budget you would have everything you need, 2 good pres, built in limiter, good converters in a very portable device.

oh, and ordinarily i'm not afraid of a little noise - i like lo-fi stuff, but in this particular case the drums & piano are going to be totally crystal clear, so i'm trying to get the vocals/guitars to match

if i had the actual gear i wouldn't worry so much, but i want everything to match as closely as possible

i checked out the brick & the mini-me, both look really good. there are a lot of options here!

i also won't worry about upgrading my XLR cable. and i'll see if my noise floor decreases when the laptop's power supply is removed tonight.

i don't want to make a new thread for this, even though it's kind of irrelevent here


what does A/B'ing mean? i keep reading this in reviews

like 'i A/B'd it with some top preamps'

anyone?

It just means that they tested them back to back, usually checking the same qualities of each preamp.

A/B is compairing. Usually (hopefully) in a very controlled environment, where everything else is constant except for the variable being tested.

So if you A/B'ed pre amps, you'd listen to the same mic on the same source on the same speakers in the same room, but the mic would be going to different pre-amps. Then switching between the two to hear the difference.