Originally posted by mpower:
I am curious to know if budget was not a limitation (within reason and limited to gear that is available today) what would be the very best microphone, preamp and compressor set up? Say for female vocals.

Micky.

Stephen Paul modded U67 with a Manley Voxbox will probably be pretty good. Or a Brauner VM1 Klaus Heyne edition. You have lots of options when budget is not a concern, and most hi end stuff will do just fine.

Mats

Klaus Heyne VM-1 to a Manley SLAM

Elam 251 -> Vipre -> 1176

no wait...

U47 -> Neve 1073 -> LA-2A

just a sec...

AKG C12 -> Avalon M5 ->

or maybe

Sony C800 -> Martech MSS-10 -> API 525

oh yeah that's nice but what about

u67 -> API 512 -> Alan Smart C2

and maybe a little

Sound Deluxe u99 ->DW Fearn VT-1 -> InnerTUBE Audio Atomic Squeezebox

oh yeah.

I'm pretty partial to the Sony C800-G thru the Avalon 737 into a Lang Program EQ. Presence, air, clarity.
Money being no object i'd use Prism Converters to get it into Pro Tools....oh to dream.

-Full Time Dreamer

I just ordered 2 Presonus TubePre's. Anybody any thoughts on them. I read numerous reviews which were all talking about it being very good. I'm a tube addict so everything with the name tube in it attracts me hehe.

[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.presonus…"]TubePre[/]="http://www.presonus…"]TubePre[/]

IMO the Presonus stuff is very utilitarian. Not much special going on with them. For the money I guess they are all right...but that depends on if you choose gear "for the money." For home/hobby use they are fine.

But the word "tube" doesn't mean anything anymore in audio. Between an Avalon/Millennia Media tube preamp and a Neve or Great River NV which is more "fat and warm" sounding?

If it is a voltage starved tube design (Presonus, ART, Behringer) then you can bet that they advertise muddiness, top end rolloff and time smear as "tube warmth." You have to be careful when picking preamps just because they have the word "tube" in them. It rarely equals "fat, huge audio" anymore.

I used a Presonus Blue Tube as my only pre for a couple years. They're definitely work-able. There is not much in the way of "warmth" in them. As noted, the tube in there is a voltage-starved 12ax7, about the only thing it's good for is driving up some harsh vocal distortion for effect. It doesn't do the fat saturation that a good transformer-based pre will do. That said, it's a very decent pre. It will get muddy if a lot of stuff is tracked through it and piled on top of each other, but it does a good job on guitars and vox.

These are all very intresting replies, I'm glad I asked the question!

Ok, so that has satisfied some curiosity! I have a Rode Classic II, I just bought a Metric Halo 2882 which means I can get rid of my crappy desk and just go direct, since I can't afford a good analog console. In the mean time, I would love to get a really nice PRE to go with the Classic II, can anyone recommend what would be an ideal pair for this mic. Signal clarity, low noise are important but I really would love to introduce some extra "money" sound (sorry for that cheap term my vocab is limited I guess) into the signal there for my vocals and accoustic work. Something coloured would be great since the Halo is already very transparent I'm thinking some really nice quality valave gear, just a straight analog pre and then into the converters from there. I don't need analog compression, and what's more I can't afford a decent one, and there's no point in using something that is not decent as it lets the chain down, so I'm better off without that for now (will be using Waves and TC plugs). Just need one beautiful warm present channel of analog pre.

Micky.