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Ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον άρθρο για το πως μπορείς να κάνεις ένα "pro" recording setup έναντι 1000 λιρών. Φυσικά είναι παλιομοδίτικο αλλά είναι της φιλοσοφίας less is more και έχει ενδιαφέρον η προσέγγιση του:
"The starting point of my most recent cluster of entries was a promise to outline a recording rig capable of professional results, but costing around a grand.
It can be done.
Most, but not all, of the following suggestions will be for used gear and, of course, the usual cautions apply; make sure any equipment you buy is in decent working condition and carries a money back or repair warranty. For our purposes, gear must work faultlessly, but I’ve plumped for bit and pieces that are generally reliable.
First, a couple of caveats. For my purposes, I’m assuming that I have a room in which to house the gear or at least an unoccupied corner of the bedroom or living room. I’m happy to invest a few quid in some old, heavy-duty velvet curtains from my local charity shop to deaden unduly reflective surfaces but other than this, I’ll have to rely upon the room having no obvious vices. Secondly, I’m assuming that I have a chair and basic table upon which to plonk the gear. Thirdly, I’ll generally be tracking one take at a time or two at most. Although my rig will be perfectly capable of recording drums and backline, I’m only budgeting for a couple of mics. Finally, my budget won’t include instruments. However, given a few more quid I’d probably invest in an old Yamaha drum machine (RX11 or similar) and early midi keyboard to programme. (Add £100 or so for these and £50 for an Atari computer with Cubase)
So here goes….
I’m going to start with the ubiquitous Alesis Adat. Indeed, I think I might well be able to squeeze a couple into the budget. Now before you all turn up your noses, bear with me.
The Adat is capable of excellent results, despite having been discarded by the thousands in this new, computer age. Indeed, the Adat converters actually sound better than many modern stand alone converters, and I know a lot of sussed recordists who are still using old Adats to get in and out of their computer/hard disc recorders. And because droves of musicians and engineers have discarded Adats, they offer the ideal bargain recording media for our paltry budget. Indeed, although I’ve allowed only £200 for our recorder, I’m pretty sure I could pick up a pair for this amount giving me sixteen tracks of decent digital recording. And remember – the Adat sounds a great deal better than the original Sony DASH machines such as the 3324 and 3348, which were responsible for many multimillion selling albums in the 1980s. We can also add additional Adats ad infinitum down the line to increase tracking capacity if we need to.
So the Adat it is.
How do we get in and out? Well, I’m a desk man and am going to allocate three hundred pounds for a mixer. Indeed, if I root about I might even save a hundred quid on my main choice – a Soundcraft 200.
Soundcraft made great little desks in the 1980’s. Fully modular with high quality external power supplies, decent mic pres and four band swept eq, the 200 offered eight, sixteen, twenty four or thirty two inputs and eight groups, eight fx returns, decent (VU) metering and a solid, well defined sound. Sure, they weren’t Neves but compared to most modern small desks, they shone. Costing between three and six grand new (in an age when you could buy a respectable new car for seven thousand) these are good sounding and low maintenance machines.
I’m pretty confident that given a little time and research, I could pick up two Adats and a Soundcraft sixteen or twenty four channel Series 200 (or even better, a Series 400) mixer for a total of £500.
There – I’ve invested half my budget but in return have an excellent sixteen-track console and recorder, perfect for tracking and mixing. Now to splash out on…
I want two mics. One will be a bog-standard Shure SM57, perfect for micing up guitar cabs, snare drums and even acoustic guitars, sax, clarinet and a variety of woodwind and brass. Fifty quid should get me a clean used example and a further fifty quid should provide two decent used mic stands and a couple of good leads. But what about vocals and the like? Well, in all my many years recording, I have to say that the cheapest mic I’ve come across that offers top quality professional results is the Audio Technica 4033a. This is a superb and vastly underrated condenser, very much like early AKG C414’s. I’m amazed that it is so often overlooked in favour of more expensive but vastly inferior mics. Irrespective of fashion, though, I’m going to put one in my rig, despite the lavish £170 price ticket – the only new item in my list.
So now I’ve spent £500 on a desk and recorder and £270 on mics, stands and cables (and I’m going to cheat a little by pretending that I got a bunch of cables thrown in with my Adats, sufficient to rig the desk and machines). So this leaves the princely sum of £230 for outboard and monitors.
Gulp.
I popped around to my local junk shop yesterday and hey presto – sitting in the corner were a pair of Gale hifi speakers and a Pioneer stereo amplifier. After some haggling I got the price down to £50 for the entire system. So that’s my monitors sorted, and very nice they sound too. Sure, they’ll take a bit of getting used to but I still have a decent pair of headphones (Beyer DT660’s) kicking about (another cheat) so I do have a point of reference.
Next stop is Cash Converters with my remaining £180 burning a hole in my pocket. My goal is ambitious, sure, but not impossible. And in a corner I found everything I need for basic processing and mixing.
Top of the pile I spotted an Alesis 3630 dual/stereo compressor/gate for £50. I’ve long regarded the 3630 as a bargain. Based upon a DBX VCA, this 1U compressor sounds good enough to track vocals or guitars (in limiting mode) or slam over a mix.
Next in line I stumbled across a real gem – a Fostex spring reverb (again 1U) for £30. Indeed, I had a choice between the Fostex and a similar spring made by Realistic. I plumped for the Fostex but also scooped up an old, original Alesis Quadraverb at £40. Finally, lurking at the bottom of the pile, lay an unprepossessing Powertran delay. Indeed, I had a choice between the Powertran and an early Yamaha 1010 bucket-brigade analogue delay. At £30 each, I was tempted to buy both but that would have cleaned me out completely, and there was one more effect I needed – an eq. And there it was, in the hifi rather than music section – a Marantz hifi graphic eq. Now graphics are about as trendy for recording these days as flared trousers are on the dance floor, but I can’t work without one. Given reasonable desk eq (which the Soundcraft has), a graphic enables me to boost or duck troublesome frequencies, reducing bass guitar ring, accentuating snare drum crack or tightening flabby kick drums.
So there we have it – a basic but professional recording rig for exactly a thousand quid, comprising;
DESK Soundcraft Series 200 24-8-2 £300
RECORDER 2 x Alesis Adat 8 tracks £200
MICS Audio Technica AT 4033a (new) £170
Shure SM57 £ 50
2 x mic stands and cables £ 50
COMPRESSOR Alesis 3630 dual/stereo comp/gate £ 50
REVERB/fx Fostex Spring reverb £ 30
Alesis Quadraverb £ 40
DELAY Powertran £ 30
EQ Marantz dual 11b graphic £ 30
MONITORS Pair Gale with Pioneer amp £ 50
For exactly £1000 I picked up a complete recording rig capable of decent professional recordings. The main limitation is now my imagination, but given time, care, a couple of killer songs and the right voice, this is an investment capable of repaying my outlay a thousand times over.
What a bummer that I can’t sing..."
http://eccentricblog.livejournal.com/14061.html
"The starting point of my most recent cluster of entries was a promise to outline a recording rig capable of professional results, but costing around a grand.
It can be done.
Most, but not all, of the following suggestions will be for used gear and, of course, the usual cautions apply; make sure any equipment you buy is in decent working condition and carries a money back or repair warranty. For our purposes, gear must work faultlessly, but I’ve plumped for bit and pieces that are generally reliable.
First, a couple of caveats. For my purposes, I’m assuming that I have a room in which to house the gear or at least an unoccupied corner of the bedroom or living room. I’m happy to invest a few quid in some old, heavy-duty velvet curtains from my local charity shop to deaden unduly reflective surfaces but other than this, I’ll have to rely upon the room having no obvious vices. Secondly, I’m assuming that I have a chair and basic table upon which to plonk the gear. Thirdly, I’ll generally be tracking one take at a time or two at most. Although my rig will be perfectly capable of recording drums and backline, I’m only budgeting for a couple of mics. Finally, my budget won’t include instruments. However, given a few more quid I’d probably invest in an old Yamaha drum machine (RX11 or similar) and early midi keyboard to programme. (Add £100 or so for these and £50 for an Atari computer with Cubase)
So here goes….
I’m going to start with the ubiquitous Alesis Adat. Indeed, I think I might well be able to squeeze a couple into the budget. Now before you all turn up your noses, bear with me.
The Adat is capable of excellent results, despite having been discarded by the thousands in this new, computer age. Indeed, the Adat converters actually sound better than many modern stand alone converters, and I know a lot of sussed recordists who are still using old Adats to get in and out of their computer/hard disc recorders. And because droves of musicians and engineers have discarded Adats, they offer the ideal bargain recording media for our paltry budget. Indeed, although I’ve allowed only £200 for our recorder, I’m pretty sure I could pick up a pair for this amount giving me sixteen tracks of decent digital recording. And remember – the Adat sounds a great deal better than the original Sony DASH machines such as the 3324 and 3348, which were responsible for many multimillion selling albums in the 1980s. We can also add additional Adats ad infinitum down the line to increase tracking capacity if we need to.
So the Adat it is.
How do we get in and out? Well, I’m a desk man and am going to allocate three hundred pounds for a mixer. Indeed, if I root about I might even save a hundred quid on my main choice – a Soundcraft 200.
Soundcraft made great little desks in the 1980’s. Fully modular with high quality external power supplies, decent mic pres and four band swept eq, the 200 offered eight, sixteen, twenty four or thirty two inputs and eight groups, eight fx returns, decent (VU) metering and a solid, well defined sound. Sure, they weren’t Neves but compared to most modern small desks, they shone. Costing between three and six grand new (in an age when you could buy a respectable new car for seven thousand) these are good sounding and low maintenance machines.
I’m pretty confident that given a little time and research, I could pick up two Adats and a Soundcraft sixteen or twenty four channel Series 200 (or even better, a Series 400) mixer for a total of £500.
There – I’ve invested half my budget but in return have an excellent sixteen-track console and recorder, perfect for tracking and mixing. Now to splash out on…
I want two mics. One will be a bog-standard Shure SM57, perfect for micing up guitar cabs, snare drums and even acoustic guitars, sax, clarinet and a variety of woodwind and brass. Fifty quid should get me a clean used example and a further fifty quid should provide two decent used mic stands and a couple of good leads. But what about vocals and the like? Well, in all my many years recording, I have to say that the cheapest mic I’ve come across that offers top quality professional results is the Audio Technica 4033a. This is a superb and vastly underrated condenser, very much like early AKG C414’s. I’m amazed that it is so often overlooked in favour of more expensive but vastly inferior mics. Irrespective of fashion, though, I’m going to put one in my rig, despite the lavish £170 price ticket – the only new item in my list.
So now I’ve spent £500 on a desk and recorder and £270 on mics, stands and cables (and I’m going to cheat a little by pretending that I got a bunch of cables thrown in with my Adats, sufficient to rig the desk and machines). So this leaves the princely sum of £230 for outboard and monitors.
Gulp.
I popped around to my local junk shop yesterday and hey presto – sitting in the corner were a pair of Gale hifi speakers and a Pioneer stereo amplifier. After some haggling I got the price down to £50 for the entire system. So that’s my monitors sorted, and very nice they sound too. Sure, they’ll take a bit of getting used to but I still have a decent pair of headphones (Beyer DT660’s) kicking about (another cheat) so I do have a point of reference.
Next stop is Cash Converters with my remaining £180 burning a hole in my pocket. My goal is ambitious, sure, but not impossible. And in a corner I found everything I need for basic processing and mixing.
Top of the pile I spotted an Alesis 3630 dual/stereo compressor/gate for £50. I’ve long regarded the 3630 as a bargain. Based upon a DBX VCA, this 1U compressor sounds good enough to track vocals or guitars (in limiting mode) or slam over a mix.
Next in line I stumbled across a real gem – a Fostex spring reverb (again 1U) for £30. Indeed, I had a choice between the Fostex and a similar spring made by Realistic. I plumped for the Fostex but also scooped up an old, original Alesis Quadraverb at £40. Finally, lurking at the bottom of the pile, lay an unprepossessing Powertran delay. Indeed, I had a choice between the Powertran and an early Yamaha 1010 bucket-brigade analogue delay. At £30 each, I was tempted to buy both but that would have cleaned me out completely, and there was one more effect I needed – an eq. And there it was, in the hifi rather than music section – a Marantz hifi graphic eq. Now graphics are about as trendy for recording these days as flared trousers are on the dance floor, but I can’t work without one. Given reasonable desk eq (which the Soundcraft has), a graphic enables me to boost or duck troublesome frequencies, reducing bass guitar ring, accentuating snare drum crack or tightening flabby kick drums.
So there we have it – a basic but professional recording rig for exactly a thousand quid, comprising;
DESK Soundcraft Series 200 24-8-2 £300
RECORDER 2 x Alesis Adat 8 tracks £200
MICS Audio Technica AT 4033a (new) £170
Shure SM57 £ 50
2 x mic stands and cables £ 50
COMPRESSOR Alesis 3630 dual/stereo comp/gate £ 50
REVERB/fx Fostex Spring reverb £ 30
Alesis Quadraverb £ 40
DELAY Powertran £ 30
EQ Marantz dual 11b graphic £ 30
MONITORS Pair Gale with Pioneer amp £ 50
For exactly £1000 I picked up a complete recording rig capable of decent professional recordings. The main limitation is now my imagination, but given time, care, a couple of killer songs and the right voice, this is an investment capable of repaying my outlay a thousand times over.
What a bummer that I can’t sing..."
http://eccentricblog.livejournal.com/14061.html
που είναι 20 χρονόνε.
)
.....Δεν αναφέρομαι βέβαια συγκεκριμένα στην χώρα μας που η έννοια του "εμπειρικού" έχει μια ίσως ιδαίτερα κακή χροιά (....και λογικό σε μια χώρα χωρίς παράδοση στον χώρο) και η σύγκριση ανάμεσα στις 2 προσεγγίσεις που ανέφερα δεν έχει πάντα και πολύ νόημα (ούτε βέβαια είναι πάντα όπως τα περιέγραψα ;D ;D) ειδικά αν αναλογιστούμε την ελάχιστη σημασία που δίνεται στην διδακτική ικανότητα των εμπλεκωμένων (στην δυνατότητα δηλαδή να μεταδώσουν σωστά τις γνώσεις τους) αλλά και στον τυπικά "ελληνικό" τρόπο επιλογής τους στην πλειονότητα των περιπτώσεων....
στο χώρο της ηχοληψίας, όσο περισσότερο ασχολούμαι (δεν είναι παραπάνω από 3 μήνες, όσο προλαβαίνω) τόσο καταλαβαίνω ότι:
