Note: I have done some searching on this site and found a lot of good information, so I've edited this post to get to more specific questions. I want to be able to do rather minimalist analog recording for singer/songwriter types, jazz combos, and maybe even classical quartets and such. Here is what I have:
Ampex 351-2 - 1/4" two track stereo tube reel recorder
Soundcraft Spirit Folio F1 mixer - 8 channels
An old EV635 mic
Two Beyerdynamic M55 mics
Five Shure 565SD mics (a thrift store find)
Roberts 778 portable tube stereo reel recorder (never fired up)
Fisher KX-100 tube integrated amp (for monitoring)
I just ordered a pair of MCA SP1 condenser mics which I will be sending to Jim Williams at Audioupgrades.com for mods (these mics are supposed to be awesome with the mods and not bad without).
What monitors would play well with this vintage tube stereo amp?
Should I get a compressor to use before the Ampex?
Or just record into the Ampex hot and let tape do the work?
Or forget any of that and compress after dumping to digital?
For recordings using just two mics I plan to go straight into the Ampex.
When adding more mics, will the Soundcraft preamps be enough or should I get something like a DMP-3?
Many thanks. Looking forward to learning a lot, and over time, hopefully contributing a lot back. :)
Sean
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When adding more mics, will the Soundcraft preamps be enough or
The pres in the Soundcraft are probably just as good as those found in the DMP-3 ....
For what you are doing you probably do not want pres that add character or color ... so you will want to keep away from pres that use transformers on the input and outputs like Neves, Great Rivers and API's ...
What you will want to look at would most likely be pres from Millennia, Grace (the 201s, not the 101's) , Earthworks and in some instances perhaps Avalon. On a budget (this will surprise some) you might really like the Sytek pres ... as long as you allow lots of headroom for them, Syteks can be very clean and neutral sounding and might just do the trick for you...