I am primarily a musician, with very little recording experience. I need some general help. My band members and myself have recently bought some rec. equipment, and I want to know the amount of quality I can expect. We just bought a Fostex Vf-160, a Nady drum mic kit, 2 sm 57's, a 58, and a Shure bg 4.1. Another question, the vf-160 records 8 tracks simultaneously out of the box. For about $400, fostex sells a analog/ADAT converter that will give me 16 track simultaneous. Should I buy that, or can I get by without it? Any and all answers will be greatly appreciated, thanks
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i apologize in advance, this is my first post.... hey downflo
i apologize in advance, this is my first post....
hey downflow,
looks like you have a pretty nice setup to start out with. 57's are are excellent choice not only for guitar cabs but also for the snare. I'm not sure if you're into DMB or not, but that's one of the mikes carter uses for his snare. i've been borrowing a set of the nady drum mikes from a friend and i've found that with a little EQ and some tweaking on the gain, they'll get the job done. I'm not sure what nady package you got, but you might want to consider overheads for the drums if you don't already have them. I use two octava mk319's and they seems to work really well, they've also done really well with acoustic guitars and vocals, if you're into that sort of thing...
[="http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/sid=030212170413066071060084013216/search/g=home/detail/base_id/51993"]musicians friend, mk 319[/]="http://www.musician…"]musicians friend, mk 319[/]
I haven't used the fostex mixer that you have; however, if it has a removable hard drive and you have a decent computer, you might be able to throw the HDD in the computer and use an inexpensive program such as [[url=http://="http://ntrack.com/"]n-track[/]="http://ntrack.com/"]n-track[/] to get as many tracks and effects as your processor can handle. personally, i use a creative audigy 2 platinum edition for input with a 24 channel behringer board. this records at 24 bit 96 khz and provides excellent quality. i'm sure the fostex will work really well for you. i think they record at 16 bits or so, that's what my laptop did and it was fine with the exception of electronic noise (due to being a laptop), which you won't have with the fostex. so far, you've go a rock solid setup with proven equipment. i'd be more than happy to answer any more questions over AIM so i don't take up any more space, i have some samples of stuff i've done in the past that you might find helpful also.
Hi Downflow; The mikes are fine, the SM57's are great workhorse
Hi Downflow; The mikes are fine, the SM57's are great workhorses, 8 tracks is plenty, you can alway bounce non essential tracks and make more tracks available. Remember that the actual music you are playing will be the standard by which most will judge your band. keep it tight, you have more than enough to record some decent tracks..... I hope this helps ! -Steve