Thread: Gear advice moving from DIing to recording drums & amps

Oh and thanks to all of you for taking the time to help me out with this.

I'm not saying there is anything sonically wrong or inferior with the A+H GS1, it's just that it may not fit in the route you should plan to get to where you want to end up.

I like most of the A+H gear, and I think the company has a good feel for where not to compromise on their lower end products. I remember using a 32-channel GS1 in some venue I had to engineer many years ago. It produced a good sound, but its facilities were a bit limited for an 8-bus mixer. However, I've had a look around the web, and can't find any information on an 8-channel GS1, so it would be useful if you could describe it briefly, and also say whether it has either direct outs or inserts on the analogue channels that could be used for feeding multi-track recording gear.

Hmmm. This is complex because it is possible to spend infinite dollars on this. In my view there is bottom of the barrel (delta 1010 and Behringer) and then there is good solid life time gear. The price tag difference is big. There are things in between but the benefit sonically is small. The difference between a behringer mixer and the Zed sonically is minimal. You'll strain to hear the difference. The difference between the behringer and say a Focusrite 828 and an API3124 is very noticeable, as in my wife can tell the difference.

The problem lies in that you have not developed personal preferences. As in do you prefer colored or clean mic pres etc. So do you buy a ferrari and know it is a good car but then when you get to the point of knowing what you want you may prefer a vintage corvette.

IMO mic pre's are not "all this that and then some" They are a tool that boosts a mic's volume without smearing the image. You won't even hear this image smearing with cheap pre's until you get good ones. Right now I prefer cleaner pre's on drums and more colored pre's on everything else generally. The difference between convertors is much less important the pre's. The "best" option that MIGHT pass the "can the woman hear the difference test" would be an Alesis Adat hd 24. These convertors are bottom of the barrel good IMO. I've used them beside the high-end convertors and they stand up super well. The Audient pre's that I mentioned before should be great too.

The difference in price is pretty big. The general rule is that you spend 2000% more dollars achieving the last 10% more quality.

Inre driving preamps: the preamps that add color are often pushed hot to add saturation qualities etc to the audio. These levels of output would overload the input modules ofte 1010. In other words you lose the advantage of outboard preamps or much of it. Now if you want classically clean sounds the 1010 can useful if lackluster but an orchestra can overload the 1010 too if you have the mics hot enough to get the pianissimo sections with quality sound. I just think there are better options out here.

As to the big B, I understand sometimes one has to go cheap even knowing the issues wih the company in question. I've said my piece on the sonic qualities etc so won't harp on it.

I think an A&H board would be awesome for you or a PreSonus StudioLive or even a Mackie iOnyx1640 though Mackie's quality control is perhaps not as outstanding as it once was.

We're all typing on top of each other. Paul and Boswell are giving good info and I'll step out after this post. I think an HD24XR is a great piece of kit and can be utilized in many ways. Sonically I think there is an audible difference between the B boards and the quality level of AH or Presonus or Mackie but of course that is my opinion and worth what you paid for it ^_^

Originally Posted by Boswell

I'm not saying there is anything sonically wrong or inferior with the A+H GS1, it's just that it may not fit in the route you should plan to get to where you want to end up.

I like most of the A+H gear, and I think the company has a good feel for where not to compromise on their lower end products. I remember using a 32-channel GS1 in some venue I had to engineer many years ago. It produced a good sound, but its facilities were a bit limited for an 8-bus mixer. However, I've had a look around the web, and can't find any information on an 8-channel GS1, so it would be useful if you could describe it briefly, and also say whether it has either direct outs or inserts on the analogue channels that could be used for feeding multi-track recording gear.

There's some info and a link to the manual here: ALLEN & HEATH // OLD PRODUCTS

It has 16 channels, but only 8 of them have mic pres, while the other 4 are arranged as stereo pairs of line-ins. There's an insert on every channel. There are also eight group outputs, and I normally use these to route the audio to the Delta 1010. I'm very happy with the sound of the desk, but I have very little to use as a reference, apart from the fact it seems to produce a much more pleasant and rounded sound than I've noticed from friends' budget mixers. I've never had the opportunity to compare it to anything more professional.

Originally Posted by Paul999

Hmmm. This is complex because it is possible to spend infinite dollars on this. In my view there is bottom of the barrel (delta 1010 and behringer) and then there is good solid life time gear. The price tag difference is big. There are things in between but the benefit sonically is small. The difference between a behringer mixer and the Zed sonically is minimal. You'll strain to hear the difference. The difference between the behringer and say a focusrite 828 and an API3124 is very noticeable, as in my wife can tell the difference.

If that's the criteria to use then I'm screwed. One time I left my desk on headphone output, and when my girlfriend came to listen to some music she just pushed the main volume high enough to hear it, and later asked me why my speakers sounded a bit tinny.

Originally Posted by Paul999

The difference in price is pretty big. The general rule is that you spend 2000% more dollars achieving the last 10% more quality... The problem lies in that you have not developed personal preferences.

I think you've hit the Nail on the head there. I think I need to get some decent mics, play with the equipment I've got already and learn some basic skills, before I start even contemplating spending the amounts of money you're talking about. I'm not saying I would never spend that much, just that I need to know what I'm hearing before even auditioning kit of this quality will be worthwhile.

Originally Posted by TheJackAttack

We're all typing on top of each other. Paul and Boswell are giving good info and I'll step out after this post. I think an HD24XR is a great piece of kit and can be utilized in many ways. Sonically I think there is an audible difference between the B boards and the quality level of AH or Presonus or Mackie but of course that is my opinion and worth what you paid for it ^_^

No problem, it's great to get a range of different opinions on the subject, and everyone on this thread has presented info that's been really helpful to me in deciding which way to go.