So many questions, so little time.

Where is Mr. Shotgun?

Okay, first - too many questions in too little space. Break up your questions to multiple topics in multiple forums. Second, I'm afraid that your heart is in the right place, but your ears aren't. It seems as though, instead of listening to the gear at hand, you listen to what everyone else has to say about it.

As for specs - who gives a sh*t? Specs are meaningless and can be doctored into anything that the company wants (I mean, are they measuring full bandwidth, 1kHz tone, what? What was their load while measuring? and so on...). SNR - Some converters or gear have SNRs of 120 dB some have 96 dB... it doesn't really matter. Unless your room specs out at an operating noise level of 25 dB or less (and it probably doesn't) then it doesn't matter. Even then, the best a CD can do is 96 dB of SNR. Some of the best recordings I have were made with gear which doesn't "spec" out to the caliber of today's gear, but that doesn't mean their noisy or bad.

Tubes - some are great some are not. Two "identical" tubes can sound completely (and I mean COMPLETELY) different. Some are noisy, some are dead quiet. Some are more microphonic than others (though I know of none which aren't at all).

Yes, tubes were cheap "back in the day" but as is such with the rest of the world, they are a rare commodity. Good tubes are hard to find now with the proliferation of sh*tty tube gear. Seeing as how B*****ger is not interested in a tube which costs more than $.04 per piece, there are tons of manufacturers who are making tubes at that price point. There are very few people who are manufacturing quality tubes anymore. So, a tube which may be 30 years old but still in its packaging may have a significantly higher value than a sh*tty Chinese tube from banjo mart.

Why does SA think 57s are over-rated? Because they are. They are a tool and that is it. Just as a Studio Projects C1 is a tool or an ELA M or Telefunkens are tools. When any "tool" becomes elevated to the stature of "MUST HAVE" for a studio, it is officially over-rated.

When people stop trying to buy stuff for the sole purpose of saying that they have it and they simply use the tools at hand to do the task at hand, then we will be back to the art that is recording which was lost sometime in the late 80s.

In other words - who gives a flying donkey penis what others say you MUST have or what others say is "good" or "bad?" The real question is, can you use the tools that you have to do a job? Yes or no? There is no..."Well, I could if I only had................" Cuz that means - You can't.

J

i appreciate you being the only person to respond, but where did i ever say that someone said i MUST HAVE this certain piece of gear?

you say the SM-57 is overrated and hype
then you turn around and say tubes that were 6 bucks back in the day and are hyped up as new old stock now for 400 bucks arent?

specs arent meaningless, no more than your ears are. this is why i believe to go half and half and take both into important consideration. you dont think your ears can fool you. half the time your ears arent even capable of comprehending the sound of one piece of gear to another.

i would never even utter even a censored version of the word behringer or ART when speaking of tube gear.

but yeah man good way of going around and answering just one of my questions.

by the way if you have a professional piece of gear that rates in around 96dB of Signal to noise, please list it because i would like to know what it is.

liquidstudios wrote:
by the way if you have a professional piece of gear that rates in around 96dB of Signal to noise, please list it because i would like to know what it is.

Okay...my Manley VariMu gets maybe 85 dB signal to noise ratio.

Oh yeah, Manley isn't professional though...damn.

Assuming that you can believe or verify published specs, and that is a VERY BIG assumption, specs are only an indicator or guide. They mean nothing if you are in search of tone. Often times the tone I am after is the result of poor specs or poor design. So? Other times the best specs equals something that sounds like crap. A lot of cheap/budget gear has great specs but sounds like crap. Once you get into high end gear, specs really no longer matter other than maybe for bragging rights. Since all high end gear has good to great specs, there is no need to dwell on that. Let the gear desinger worry about that. Respectable, time tested, studio proven gear is the only spec I place any value on. Not once did I ever worry or make a purchase decision based on specs.

To answer the first question. You want to hear and record warmth? Then start by having a sound source that is warm to begin with. There is no magic warm gear or procedure. The tools and techniques of recording are much more meant to compliment and enhance the source, not to try and process it into something that was never really there to begin with.

yeah alright cucco you got me, tube devices by nature have higher EIN, SNR, and THD. and yes audiogaff you're right about the price tag meaning something, assuming that is what you mean by "high end gear," at the same time though where i either can only make purchases via guitar center or online, specs have to mean something. i realize all the basic philosophy of this stuff, yeah sure state of the art components will not make up for poor design, that's great, i just wanted a few questions answered.

audio gaff i am trying to do a lot of things at the source, have great instruments and instrumentation. looking into recording on a 2 inch, tube microphones, tube everything for that matter. i honestly don't worry about things like signal to noise ratio unless its in my interface, because that is just something that is absolutely necessary to be transparent. still these responses leave me with many unanswered questions.

Ya ok. You go right ahead with that tape and all tube idea and see where that leads you.