My next best move...??

[audiosweet]

So i'm considering a hefty investment in some equipment but i'm not sure which road to take. I'm an intermediate recordist with a mobile rig comprised of a macbook pro with a digi 002, some decent mics, and the main pre's i use are a octopre LE with the ADAT card from focusrite. SO i wanted to know should i invest in some really nice pre's or a new converter? I usually do big sessions runnin at 44.1 24bit and smaller seissions 88.2 24bit. I was looking at a rosetta 800 and i'm wondering since i'd only be able to pull 48khz sample rate through the ADAT would there be much of a difference in my sound? Would it be worth waiting in case I get an HD rig down the road? Or would a pair of pre's do me more justice at this stage of the game? I'm lookin to drop 2-3 g's. YIKES

[The Scum]

Do you have any specific dissatisfaction with your current rig? If so, I'd start by addressing it.

[audiosweet]

I'm quite pleased with the rig, although, i feel like the sound could be much bigger. I mostly record harsh metal, noise rock, and hardcore bands at their practice spaces so i'm handed whatever acoustics are in the place (some are actually pretty cool) so obviously i would love to have an acoustically treated space myself. I guess i'm just looking to make things sound bigger. Would portable treatments be a better option?

[The Scum]

Would portable treatments be a better option?

Quite likely.

What's your mic selection like?

[audiosweet]

(2)AKG C414B-XLS-Stereo Pair
(2)AKG 3000B
(2)AKG C1000S
(3)Shure SM57
(1)Sennheiser MD-421
(1)Sennheiser e609
(1)Shure Beta 52

[audiosweet]

i guess too it might help if you check out some samples...http://www.myspace.com/capturedstudios

[Nick Sevilla]

Buy Silver and Gold.

Wait.

Then sell it.

Then get an HD rig, IF you are really busy and can write it off your taxes.

Cheers

[calaverasgrandes]

forgive my ignorance here but does the 003 not do SMUX over the adat port? Most boxes I have used recently can do 88.2 over adat, but with one optical port you only get 4 tracks.
As far as sounding bigger, I always get bigger guitars when I put two mics on them and really tinker with the placement.
There are some bomb ass pres out there but they dont sound much bigger if the mic is still just a 57 jammed up against the grill.
But yeah, practice spaces can have pretty gnarly acoustics. My band has this weird space that sucks all the mid out of everything. So the drums sound great but the bass and guitars are super hard to hear.

Honestly, most folks I know are much happier with anything but the octopre. I know folks that sold them for a presonus and were much happier.
You could also do the BLA mod on your 003. I got the mod on my MOTU 828 and aside from one glitch, am very happy.

[HeavyHand]

JARED! whats up man. it's tim from the drum shop. whats good brother?

i recently picked up a bunch of RCA BA72's. they sound awesome. very huge and warm. they are transformer input and output. these run through my presonus firestudio. i noticed a huge improvement with individual tracks and in a huge way as the tracks started to stack up on eachother. i dont think good converters and octopre's would be that much of an improvement.

you could pick up a vintech 473 (which is 4 channels and also has high and low shelving) for like $2800 new which is in your budget. the two channel version is like $1700. im only pushing them because i've enjoyed using them the few times i had the chance. or go with some 500 series stuff and have plenty of room to expand for some eq's or comp's down the line.

i would definitely do pre's first.

[audiosweet]

Tim you sonovabitch! Yeah man i'm thinking more the pre route as well. I've used Calncy's Vintech 1272 before and wasn't hugely impressed. I did have access to a chandler limited germanium which actually blew me away. I just feel like there's a general cloudyness in the overall product and i'm just looking for something to add some balls and make things cut. I'll def look into the RCA stuff. You in the shop at all lately?? I've needed to stop in to see you dudes it's been a long ass time.

And calaverasgrandes I'm pretty psyched on the guitar tone i'm getting lately that isnt up anywhere...just a 57 with the 421 in the right place comin off a 1960's marshall. And i'm not sure about the 003 since i'm using the 002! So i could use some pre's that i could use in the inputs 5-8 on the 002 since the pre's on the first 4 are shite. I'm not disappointed in the octopre i'm just thinking it's a bit middleground for what i'm trying to achieve.

[audiosweet]

And i know people dig the sytek mpx 4aii's a lot and i've always had those in mind as well

[HeavyHand]

yeah man im at the shop mondays and saturdays. you should come down and talk to todd. he has 2 chandlers germs, 2 vintech v73i's, a dw fern, 4 api's, rosetta 800 and a BLA modded 002. you should ask him about them and go over and check it all out. his are the vintech's i've used and liked a lot.

tjhe RCA's i have are old and i had to rack them up myself. they are actually back on the bench. so far they have been quite a project but they do sound great. if you have the cash get something that you wont need work on right away you should.

[calaverasgrandes]

Tim you sonovabitch! Yeah man i'm thinking more the pre route as well. I've used Calncy's Vintech 1272 before and wasn't hugely impressed. I did have access to a chandler limited germanium which actually blew me away. I just feel like there's a general cloudyness in the overall product and i'm just looking for something to add some balls and make things cut. I'll def look into the RCA stuff. You in the shop at all lately?? I've needed to stop in to see you dudes it's been a long ass time.

And calaverasgrandes I'm pretty psyched on the guitar tone i'm getting lately that isnt up anywhere...just a 57 with the 421 in the right place comin off a 1960's marshall. And i'm not sure about the 003 since i'm using the 002! So i could use some pre's that i could use in the inputs 5-8 on the 002 since the pre's on the first 4 are shite. I'm not disappointed in the octopre i'm just thinking it's a bit middleground for what i'm trying to achieve.

Sorry, thats what I get for skimming board posts between putting out fires at work.
Check out the BLA website
http://www.blacklionaudio.com/content.php?p=7

I feel like I got an octave on the top and the bottom that wasnt there with my stock MOTU. Transients were better too.The Motu job was only the analog stages, but it did make the mic pres on my motu usable (if not stellar). They do analog and clocking upgrades on the Digi stuff, so I would totally check that out if I was in yer shoes. It does have a downside, there is a waiting list, and you will be Digi-less for about 2 weeks. But it's much cheaper than buying a couple of channels of Germanium pres!
Shoot if I was in your shoes I would go for the premium upgrade. It's supposed to make it one of the best converters ever.

[KennyLusk]

Tim you sonovabitch! Yeah man i'm thinking more the pre route as well. I've used Calncy's Vintech 1272 before and wasn't hugely impressed. I did have access to a chandler limited germanium which actually blew me away. I just feel like there's a general cloudyness in the overall product and i'm just looking for something to add some balls and make things cut. I'll def look into the RCA stuff. You in the shop at all lately?? I've needed to stop in to see you dudes it's been a long ass time.

And calaverasgrandes I'm pretty psyched on the guitar tone i'm getting lately that isnt up anywhere...just a 57 with the 421 in the right place comin off a 1960's marshall. And i'm not sure about the 003 since i'm using the 002! So i could use some pre's that i could use in the inputs 5-8 on the 002 since the pre's on the first 4 are shite. I'm not disappointed in the octopre i'm just thinking it's a bit middleground for what i'm trying to achieve.

Sorry, thats what I get for skimming board posts between putting out fires at work.
Check out the BLA website
http://www.blacklionaudio.com/content.php?p=7

I feel like I got an octave on the top and the bottom that wasnt there with my stock MOTU. Transients were better too.The Motu job was only the analog stages, but it did make the mic pres on my motu usable (if not stellar). They do analog and clocking upgrades on the Digi stuff, so I would totally check that out if I was in yer shoes. It does have a downside, there is a waiting list, and you will be Digi-less for about 2 weeks. But it's much cheaper than buying a couple of channels of Germanium pres!
Shoot if I was in your shoes I would go for the premium upgrade. It's supposed to make it one of the best converters ever.

BLA upgrades that include the analog stages and the converters are fantastic. I totally agree with this post FWIW and feel the investment I made for premium upgrade of my 1814FW was the smartest thing I've done since buying a pair of MK012's at $90 a pair back in '01.

[trodden]

Tim you sonovabitch! Yeah man i'm thinking more the pre route as well. I've used Calncy's Vintech 1272 before and wasn't hugely impressed. I did have access to a chandler limited germanium which actually blew me away. I just feel like there's a general cloudyness in the overall product and i'm just looking for something to add some balls and make things cut. I'll def look into the RCA stuff. You in the shop at all lately?? I've needed to stop in to see you dudes it's been a long ass time.

And calaverasgrandes I'm pretty psyched on the guitar tone i'm getting lately that isnt up anywhere...just a 57 with the 421 in the right place comin off a 1960's marshall. And i'm not sure about the 003 since i'm using the 002! So i could use some pre's that i could use in the inputs 5-8 on the 002 since the pre's on the first 4 are shite. I'm not disappointed in the octopre i'm just thinking it's a bit middleground for what i'm trying to achieve.

Sorry, thats what I get for skimming board posts between putting out fires at work.
Check out the BLA website
http://www.blacklionaudio.com/content.php?p=7

I feel like I got an octave on the top and the bottom that wasnt there with my stock MOTU. Transients were better too.The Motu job was only the analog stages, but it did make the mic pres on my motu usable (if not stellar). They do analog and clocking upgrades on the Digi stuff, so I would totally check that out if I was in yer shoes. It does have a downside, there is a waiting list, and you will be Digi-less for about 2 weeks. But it's much cheaper than buying a couple of channels of Germanium pres!
Shoot if I was in your shoes I would go for the premium upgrade. It's supposed to make it one of the best converters ever.

you and I should get free t-shirts due to how much we hype their business on here!

Yeah if you plan on sticking with the 002 for awhile, the BLA upgrade is well worth it.. Well I can only speak on terms of the 001. I was using a stock 001 along with a stock alesis ai-3 and a finalizer for my digital conversion. They discontinued the 001 mods and I was bummed... but then found a modded one for sale here. Night and day difference... I then purchased the BLA sparrow in place of the finalizer, and finally this spring I had the premium mod done to my AI-3. So all of my daw hardware has been touched by them.. It sounds great. I also wanted to add more to my racks, some better pres, and such, but I'm glad i used the money on the mods because that made an obvious improvement in my sound, much like when i properly treated my live and control rooms back at my old place.

I also record heavy music, metal, punk, hardcore, ect. I find my decent assortment of large dynamics (sm7, e602, 421's, re20, atm25's) and the few ribbon mic's along with my oktava mk012's are enough to do anything really. I don't crave mic's much right now. Though i really need to get my beyer 260 repaired and a pair of beyer 160's would be awesome. A pair of 414's would be awesome as well.....