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Except where otherwise indicated this equipment was all purchased in 2009, and the prices are what we paid for it at that time. Some of these models are no longer sold, but our impressions of the equipment and the companies which made it may still be useful to someone who wants to do high quality recording with limited funds….
Electronics
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- Echo Digital Audio AudioFire8 8-channel Digitalizer – $499
This amazingly inexpensive bit of gear does a squeaky clean job of digitalizing. True the built in preamps for its 2 front microphone inputs don’t match the quality of the M-Audios, but the six line-in jacks at the back of the unit (which are connected by patch cords to the M-Audios) are plenty for us. In fact since we never play with a third musician or use more than 2 mics on an instrument, four of these inputs are all we need. (Our overdubbed vocal tracks use these same mics and inputs.) Beyond this, if one wanted to be picky one could complain the headphone amp built into the Echo machine is a bit weak, but it’s good enough for our purposes, and in any case what really counts is the quality of the digitalizing, and that seems to be impeccable. Also we wouldn’t swear the unit is tough enough to be dragged around to gigs, but for us this isn’t an issue since we never record anywhere except at home.
* - M-Audio DMP3 Dual Microphone Preamps – $159 each
These guys are far superior to anything we’ve used before. Compared to the pre-amps built into our old Mackie mixer, they give 15 db more amplification and introduce very little noise until they’re cranked way up. Connected to them our old microphones sound like entirely different critters. So though the AKG C-2000’s are still hissy and still need to be very close to our soft sounding instruments, they now generate a larger cleaner signal. While connected to the M-audios our Shure SM-57’s do a better job recording our small voices.
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Microphones
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- Shure SM57 Dynamic Microphones (2000 – $49 each)
These classic vocal mics are so good they’ve remained unchanged for decades, but they’re designed for singers trained to produce lots of volume. Still once we learned to take advantage of proximity effect by singing with our lips almost brushing their tips, even for our small non performer voices they give plenty of signal. Of course there’s a downside to everything and using them this way means we also end up recording far too many breath and lip noises, but by careful editing we’ve learned to eliminate most of these.Also when we figured out putting them in direct contact with our instruments in effect turned them into pickups, they became invaluable for recording the slowly decaying resonance which adds so much body and magic to our music.
* - AKG C-2000 Condenser Microphones (2001 – $199 each)
We still use these along with our Shures to double mic our instruments. They do a better job of catching the initial attack and detailed shape of the sound than our dynamic mics, while the Shures are better at picking up the ring. Used together the two give us more accuracy, a rounder tone, sufficient volume, and that magic resonance. But these days much better condenser mics are available for less money. Back when we bought them they were the best we could afford and more or less matched the quality of the rest of our equipment, now they’re the weakest links in our recording system.With hindsight maybe we should have replaced them before recording Work In Progress, but we were counting our pennies. And actually the nasty hiss they introduced into our files turned out to be a disguised blessing, since in the process of figuring out how to remove it we also learned to deal with refrigerator, wind, and other continuous noises.Still the learning process was painful and removing the hiss from our files took forever, so we’re very much looking forward to better condenser microphones.
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Software
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- Tracktion 2 Music Production Software (Free – Bundled with the AudioFire8)
We started recording with this program because it came bundled with our Echo digitalizer, but the longer we used it the more we liked it. At this point we certainly believe if you’re trying to record on a budget, there’s absolutely no point buying a mega hyped main stream sound editing program like ProTools. Better to save your money and spend it on mics, amplifiers, and digitalizers.
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Listening Gear
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- Koss PortaPro Headphones – $38 each
These are amazing for being so small and cheap. They have ample bass, only rarely do they buzz, and they’re so light we forget we’re wearing them. Plus since they’re open, with them on we can still hear each other talk. And they come with a lifetime guarantee. If one breaks just send it back with six bucks, and Koss will ship you a replacement. Unfortunately all this praise is for the classic model of these lovely Star Trek era phones. Koss now sells a new “improved” version of the PortaPros which we’ve yet to try, though we must confess looking at its specs we worry that like so many “upgrades”, this one may have sacrificed basic quality for bells and whistles…
* - M-Audio AV-40 Self Amplified Speakers – $133 / pair
We also have a pair of M-Audio AV-40 speakers which put out remarkably rich and accurate sound considering they’re small ( 14 lbs. for the pair ) self amplified units. From them quarter inch cables snake down the hallway to the music room and connect directly to the line out jacks of our Echo. They’re our reference speakers which we listen through to make final decisions about our sound files. If our music sounds OK with the AV-40’s, we know even demanding audiophiles will be satisfied with its quality.
* - Sony Antique Cheap Self Amplified Speakers (~1992 – Price long ago forgotten)
However since we know many people will listen to our stuff through less exalted or laptop speakers, we also check how the music sounds through the pair of cheap self amplified speakers we had with us while living in India during the 90’s. They were pretty terrible when we first bought them, and after a decade of killer wet heat and dust in India, they’re truly bottom of the line. But that’s what makes them useful, since if we’ve engineered our music (by doing things like fiddling with high and low pass filters and reducing distorting peaks) so it sounds acceptable through them, we know it will be OK for people listening through low end gear. Then even marginal speakers and headphones won’t buzz too badly, though of course they’ll still fail to reproduce all the rich lows and clear highs which are actually in our files.
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Computer System
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- Cool Tech PC Silent Computer (2007 – $2,369)
Our dear old Stealth computer died when we were between CDs, and since at that point we were still living in a place where if we’d recorded it would have been in the same room as our computer, we replaced it with a new system which is both quieter and more powerful. As it turned out by the time we were ready to again record we’d moved to new digs with space for a separate music room, but as noise nuts we’re more than glad we don’t have to endure the buzzing hum of a normally loud computer.
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It’s also good we opted for a more powerful system, because every bit of that extra capacity turned out to be necessary for proper multitrack recording. And actually even a little more power would be nice. The computer we bought was advanced for its time, but its early quad-core CPU slows down noticeably when we add too many tracks.
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Since the company which built our first computer no longer existed we crossed our fingers and bought our new beast from “Cool Tech PC”. Right from the beginning their machine has done what we’ve asked of it, while the company’s stellar support showed they were proud of and ready to stand behind their products.
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Our Recording
Cleaning Up Our Files
Microphone Placement
Tracktion 2
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