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gmar 27 October 2011

Hey everyone, I'm a drummer who at the age of 23 has decided to expand from percussion to recording. The band I'm in, Drums, Bass Guitar, Guitar and Violin.

So, since I'm a drummer, I'm going to need/want more inputs than your average. I've done some research and I want to see what everyone thinks of my proposal here. Any and all advice is welcome, I'm very new to recording instruments.

The PC I built is high end and should handle just about whatever I throw at it. 3.3ghz quad core, 8gig RAM, booting off either a raptor or a SSD, and other nice parts.

What I'm planning here is to run a Tascam US1800 through USB 2.0 into my PC. I will use Cubase as my DAW.

I have a AKG P220 condenser mic. I plan to add 3x SM57 1xSM58 and 1xKick Drum Mic (Shure Beta 52a? Something cheaper).

I want the inputs so I can record our practices (a few, not every single one) and we can go back over them and listen. Right now we're sticking that AKG 220 in between the drumset and both guitar amps and it sounds terrible, but it is still useful.

Eventually I want to record our demo. Something we can be proud about and send to other people, etc. I'd like to maybe do some work with others down the road, of course, but for now these are my short term goals.

Is there any hardware I'm missing? Anything I should reconsider? I'm working with around 500$

Can I use that Tascam as a mixer for a PA?

Thanks!

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Comments

RemyRAD Thu, 10/27/2011 - 16:29

While there are plenty of us that do not appreciate the TA-SCAM Microphone preamps, they are most certainly usable. Especially for an entry-level situation as you've described. Their microphone preamps while not completely horrible are certainly not completely great. And while you're thinking about purchasing additional microphones, I would say, with your budget, I wouldn't bother with the Beta 52. A simple SM57 is more than perfectly adequate on the bass drum. And since vocals are involved, I would recommend the 58 or a 57 with an additional foam pop filter. There is no difference between the 58 & the 57 except for that metal ball foam filled pop filter on the 58. That can be unscrewed yielding the 57 under the 58 pop filter. And that's all you need is a bag of 57's and/or 58's. No, you don't need to have condensers over top of the drum kit. 57's can also do that job quite nicely. In fact, if you purchase any inexpensive Chinese condenser microphones it's just going to augment the lackluster quality of your TA-SCAM interface so I wouldn't go there if I were you. It will do more to hurt your recording than to help it. What? You don't think the 57 is adequate with only a 17,000 cycle passband? Well it is. In fact it is an adequate sounding replacement to the famed Neumann U87, which now costs over $3000 US. And you can get that similar sound with a $100 US SM58/57. And I'm not kidding about that.

Practically me
Mx. Remy Ann David

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