Wanting to setup a 'good' (not excellent) Sax Recording Studio!

[GAS_Wyo]

I shouldn't have talked to Eddie this week! I have a friend from Nashville who is seriously into recording music digitally. In fact, Eddie's equipment has been used by lot of the "unknowns" who became HUGE STARS in the last 10 years. He bragged the other day that he made more renting out recording equipment to studios last year than he did as the owner of the Safety Company he owns! He also gets to jam occassionally on his guitar with the likes of Travis Tritt & Band, Winona Judd, and members of the old group Alabama, etc. He's quite a name-dropper!

Anyhow, he listened to me over lunch this week, sat back and laughed when I said "I'd like to set up a good way to record myself and improve my sound for less than $1000." He told me to spend $500/mic or I would be severely disappointed. Keep in mind, this guy has spurred me for the past 10 years with HIS recordings of his songs...some of which he has sold and have been recorded on Country Stars' albums!

OK, I've read the archives in this category and learned a LOT! BUT, I'd like to know what you folks think about several issues. Current equipment is important (a good bit of what is listed is from a long time ago) List of questions follows:

What's the best "clip-on microphone" for the sax bell? (I'd like to hook this one up to my church's mixing system and record at home with it)
What mics (brand) and how many to get the room ambiance? (I know mic positions theory pretty well)
Do I have a mixer software for these mics in Band in a Box?
Should I record to my computer or get a digital recorder?


I'm willing to spend up to $2000 on equipment and tell Eddie I only spent $700 just to see his reaction! :twisted: Please help me prove to my long-time friend that it can be done for less than $100,000!

[Gange]

I travelled this path a year ago and I'm very happy with my setup. I'm recording myself practising and I have also done some mixdowns with Aebersold backgrounds. I use my computer to record.
My setup:
Sound card: M-Audio FireWire 410 - Two analog input with phantom power. 10 outputs and two independent outputs for headphones. ~300 USD.
Mic: ADK 51 Vienna edition, large membrane condenser. ~300 USD
Recording software: Kristal, free to download from http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/ . Very nice, just open up your background mp3 into a stereo channel and one channel for the mic and press rec. :-) Very simple to use.
Headphones: BeyerDynamic DT770 closed headphones. ~200 USD
Total budget: 800 USD (mic stand & cable excluded)

What do I want to improve? I'm not satisfied with how my soprano records. It get kinda nasal, and I think that depends on the mic. The mic has a drop in the mid range, and it got a little better when boosting those frequencies a little in the (built in) equalizer. I have also been experimenting a little using two mics (remember there were two inputs in the soundcard) but no exceptional results yet. :-p
Maybe you should go with the vanilla (and even less expensive) ADK 51 (knowing what I know now I think I would).
I also had some problems recording the alto, but found out how to place the mic and it got _much_ better. It seems to be very important where to place the mic on the smaller saxes.

Hmm, I just paid some more attention to your last sentences. Are you willing to spend $2000 but not more than $100? I guess you mean $1000, aren't you?

Good luck!

[jmartin]

Record on a computer, use free software, make your own cables. Skimp on the costs where every you can. But Purchase the best mic you can afford. Let me be clear, the mic will make the most difference of any component. As long as you are recording digitally, spend the money on the mic. Look at neumann tlm 103 or akg c4000. both of those mics are good recording mics that will fit in your budget.

[tjontheroad]

A high quality condenser mic and mic pre-amp will make big improvement in any set up. IMHO, these are the best ways to get good results. How much you want to spend on the recording system (computer, software, ect) depends greatly on what type of tracking you'll be doing and your level of sound engineering skill. Do you want just a few tracks of bass, piano, sax? If so, a cheap and simple to use set up will do. More tracks, more editing, more effects = more $$$.

Recording is a skill as well as an art in-and-of itself. As with buying a new sax will not make you a better player... Buying new recording gear will not always make better CD's

Edited to add... Go to http://www.recording.org/ for a great forum on this.

[Bill Mecca]

Chops in a box doesn't work for horns, nor does it for recording.

Get started with the least expensive equipment/software you can, learn how to record with that, then you will be prepared to do anything with nothing.

[GAS_Wyo]

Great suggestions, guys!

TJ, Thanks for the website...didn't know it existed!

If anyone has more suggestions, like Gange's, let 'em fly. I'm researching now. I'll let you know what I end up with by reactivating this thread later.

[thehighend]

Greg,
If you have a Mac, I've had good luck with the Yamaha i88x, which you can pick up for a decent price at MF:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Recording/Computer/Hardware?sku=700432
It's a pro quality mic preamp and digital interface.

I bought it along with a pretty decent mic (for the price):
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Live/Sound/Microphones/Wireless?sku=273156&c_tid=topseller

I have been using Cubase, but I think I'm going to switch to a different software package asap.

[timobrien]

Good info:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

21 Ways to Configure a Recording Rig:

http://www.tweakheadz.com/rigs.htm

And a great beginners book that also covers hardware and studio setup:

Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764516345/102-9059220-3248917?v=glance&n=283155&amp%3Bn=507846&amp%3Bs=books&v=glance
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)

[bobsax]

Greg,
If you have a Mac, I've had good luck with the Yamaha i88x, which you can pick up for a decent price at MF:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Recording/Computer/Hardware?sku=700432
It's a pro quality mic preamp and digital interface.

I bought it along with a pretty decent mic (for the price):
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Live/Sound/Microphones/Wireless?sku=273156&c_tid=topseller

I have been using Cubase, but I think I'm going to switch to a different software package asap.
I'm just getting startd with Cubase SE (it came with the Presonus Inspire)
What did you switch to and how do you like it?
---bob

[Balladeer]

I think the recommendations, above, to get a good mic are right on the money. I'm a bit disappointed with my recording setup, and I think that the mics are to blame.

For many years I sang in bands. I have three mics. One is just for those loud situations where feedback could be a problem. The other two mics are an Electro-Voice 357 and a Shure SM57. I've had both for over 20 years. The EV and the Shure are what I'm using to record my sax. They would be satisfactory in a live situation, but they don't accurately reproduce the composite mix of frequencies of my sax in a 'dead' room.

Regarding software...the program Audacity is very easy to use. Also, n-Tracks is pretty good, though it offers much more than I want, and that makes it a little harder to use than Audacity. I have a very good audio file converter program that I use to convert between mp3 and wav formats. Most recording programs provide for import/export of wav files. I convert my Aebersold mp3 to wav. Import into Audacity. Record myself in stereo over the stereo Aebersold tune. Export to wav. and convert to mp3.

[Bill Mecca]

two questions,
1. why the extra step from Audacity to mp3, Audacity will use the LAME encoder and you can export as mp3 directly from there.(though I usually export as wav so I have that version to save)

2. are you using two mics? if not, then you are not recording the sax in stereo, just the same mono signal on both channels, taking up double the space.

[magical pig]

You might wanna check out Thomann's site. It's a german based shop (must be the biggest in Europe) and they have their own line of equipments. Cheap, quality mics for example. I personnaly own a ribbon (http://www.thomann.de/fr/the_tbone_rb500.htm)

and a tube mic (http://www.thomann.de/fr/the_tbone_sct2000.htm) with multiple polar patterns


For around 500$ I've got myself pretty nice results just putting one mic or the other or both in random positions. I never really dug into placements and patterns, but I'm sure I could get some nicer results if I wanted to put in the effort...

I plug those into an Alesis IO/2 soundcard which has two mic preamps. It's not such a great soundcard (latency and compatibility problems) but the sound of the preamps are OK. And the price is nice : 150$.

Nowadays, you can put together quite a decent pc for less than 700$. Add 100$ for cables, stands and other little thingies...

So for 1350$, including the computer, you can have a homestudio worth recording some good sounding demos/preproductions. Of course if you want to get professional quality tracks, you'll have to get some expensive mic preamps, mics, a Mac, have perfect acoustics in your studio and be a killer at positionning the mics, mixing and mastering.

As a conclusion, when you don't have 50,000$ to spend on equipment, get the cheapest pieces of equipment you can find and get creative with it. You would be surprised at the results you can get with just a Shure SM58 if you know what to do with it...

[thehighend]

I'm just getting startd with Cubase SE (it came with the Presonus Inspire)
What did you switch to and how do you like it?
---bob

I still like Cubase SE, don't get me wrong. I have been trying to use Adobe Audition 2.0 recently, but I am not 100% convinced that I should have bothered switching. The jury is still out on this one; I may go back to Cubase.