Bought the Lamborghini!!

[bilco]

Now, how do I add a carport to the mobile home, Brandon?

I have a Great River ME-1NV on the way. You can say I told you so when I start posting threads about how it hasn't changed my life.......

I did do some recording with a Great River on my voice (Lawson mic) and acoustic guitar (Royer mic) last year in another home studio that didn't have any room treatment either and it was the best recording of my voice and guitar I have ever heard. (Of course, the guy doing the recording used to own an actual studio......) I have heard it plays well with an SM7b and an SM81 and that is what I will be using, along with going direct for the bass. If I can get a great direct Pbass sound, that will be the best gift of all.

I guess I'll get it mid-week and then we'll see. I sold the RNP to help finance this. I kind of hated to let it go, but you know how it is, the preamp's always ****er on the other side....

Really have to do something about the room and my monitoring though.

bilco

[brandondrury]

So how's it working out for you? Was it worth the cash? Are you hearing dramatic improvements in your recordings?

Brandon

[bilco]

Here is what I found out so far:

1. The main thing is that it takes way less effort to get a good/great sound out of a mic plugged into the Great River than it did with the same mic plugged into either the Digidesign preamps or the RNP.
2. The preamp somehow seems to emphasize the most flattering frequencies of whatever instrument or mic I plug into it. Every other preamp I have owned flattered one or more sources, but sucked on others.

Acoustic Guitar. It took me all of 5 minutes to setup my SM81 on a mic stand, point it at the 14th fret about 6" out and set the GR to the cleanest setting I could get. That is absolutely the best that guitar has ever sounded recorded by me. IT SOUNDS LIKE IT SOUNDS IN THE ROOM! Even my wife was tricked into thinking it was me playing live because it is a very faithful reproduction of what the guitar sounds like in the room.

DI for my Pbass - It definitely has more bottom than the RNP and is less hi fi sounding than the Portico that I rented. That is a good thing because I am trying to get a late '60s/early '70s tone like Leland Sklarr or Dee Murray. No matter how I set the Gain and Output levels and the Impedance and Load switches, it all sounds very good. It just comes down to preference and deciding what I like if I have to choose between thick with less detail in the finger attack frequency vs. more transparent with more detail in that frequency range. When I mix the bass track with the acoustic guitar track I think I am liking transparent with detail and if the bass is in solo, I like running the Gain hotter for the color/****th/thickness, whatever you wanna call it. These differences are so subtle, I am having to listen VERY close many times in a row to hear them. I am not even sure I would hear the same thing 2 days in a row. The bottom line here is plugging my Pbass with TI Jazz Flats on it directly into the DI is giving me the best direct bass sound I have found yet, no matter how I play with the settings that make the subtle color differences. (Other than plugging straight into a good old Teac 3340 and going straight to tape! Ah, tape saturation is a wonderful thing.....)

I have only tested it on my vocals using an SM7b, eating the mic at point blank range. I turned the output wide open and then brought up the gain until I had a good signal, left the impedance in the normal setting and the load in. Why look further? I am done! It sounds really good and has more than enough gain to drive that mic, even if I am not eating it. I need to test it on an SM57 because that mic actually sounded better on my voice than the SM7b did with the RNP, at least to me.....

The separate LEDs for the Gain and Output controls really help watch headroom and figure out how far I can get away with pushing either side of the gain stage without overdriving it.

+ & - of the other preamps I have used:

Mbox (1st Generation) - sounds really good with an SM81 on my acoustic guitar, sounds pretty good with the Pbass plugged into the DI, except that it has next to no headroom. Also, not enough gain to drive the SM7b unless I absolutely eat the foam. If I had an RNC, I could get better results out of the Mbox preamps. They are very usable preamps in my opinion.

Digi 002 Rack - Other than the fact that they have enough gain for the SM7b, I only use these when I have to. They absolutely suck as a Pbass DI unless I add radical EQ; they just have this raw, honky, boxy sound that is not flattering to a very good sounding Pbass. Unremarkable on acoustic guitar, not as good as the Mbox to my ear. Very 2 dimensional sounding. They are okay on a guitar cab with an SM57, but once I plug an SM57 into the GR on a guitar cab, I have a feeling I am not going to use the Digi 002 Rack preamps for anything ever again unless I am cutting more than 1 track at a time.

RNP - I sold it and kind of wish I hadn't. An SM57 on my voice into this preamp was the best sound I had previously ever gotten on my voice (other than recording it through someone else's Lawson 47 model into a GR preamp..... more than I can afford for a mic.) But it emphasized the most unflattering boxy, honky mid range frequencies on the same acoustic guitar with the same SM81. I could fix it with EQ, but it took some playing and tweaking with EQ to get the smooth sheen sound out of it that I want to hear. The DI for bass had plenty of headroom and sounded good on the Pbass, but lacked bottom end, even compared to the Mbox. It sounded great on a western swing kind of song, but not quite right on folkish acoustic singer songwriter tunes. Again, I could fix it with EQ, but I am really trying to get the best sounds tracked that I can without having it to fix the sound with EQ during or after the recording.

Portico - Not sure of the model, but I rented the one with an XLR mic input and a 1/4" DI for instruments. The DI was very good for the Pbass, but had kind of a modern sound to it. I don't want the Pbass to sound like an Alembic or a Warwick and that is kind of what it was doing. Great tone, but not the tone that I want. It worked well on acoustic guitar and vocal; I just remember thinking to myself that it was good, but not $1,600 good to me at that time.

The Brick - I rented this for a weekend and ended up keeping it for only 1 night. I liked what it did for the bass, nice, ****, round tone, but not quite enough gain and not quite enough bottom end. Really makes me want to try the REDDI on bass, same characteristics and it is supposed to have more bottom. I liked The Brick okay on acoustic guitar and on vocals, but I had to run it wide open with the SM7b and even then, it was not a lot of gain for that mic.

So, $1,080 is more money than I ever thought I would spend on a piece of gear that doesn't have strings on it, but I think it is worth it because:

My good old Pbass and Plain Jane workhorse mics on vocal and a laminate Martin Shenandoah acoustic guitar sound very good with absolutely no tweaking of the EQ. The preamp flatters all 3 of those sources nicely with very minimal setup and very basic point and shoot mic technique. If I am not getting professional sounding tones with this preamp, it is me, not the preamp.

It is really built like a miniature tank. Some very hefty transformers in there!

I am happy for now; I wish I had 8 channels this good, but for the most part, I can record 1 track at a time. My room still sucks, but using close mic technique which sounds good on my voice and acoustic, I think I can record basic tracks and transfer them to a real studio for drum tracking and for mixing and not be disappointed with the end result.

I will post some tracks when I get more time and see what everyone thinks.
Do I have talent worthy of putting through that preamp? I don't know and I don't much care. I think the songs are good enough and I have to use the one and only voice I was born with. I do wish I had a coach or producer to tell me when it is time to do another take or when I am done. It gets really hard to be objective about that when I am the one playing, singing and engineering. If only I could train the cat and the Corgis to do something constructive....... One bark if I'm done; Two barks for another pass.......

Still in a mobile home, but Love that Lamborghini!!
bilco