What is a 'pro quality' set up

[dman5000]

hey guys, just making a post to see what some of yous on here would consider necessary for a 'pro quality' set up. i use quotes because i know alot of cats on here are into the lofi/grit sound and maybe have kind of a fuck it/hobby view... but none the less any opinion would be helpful cuz im not talking about the radio or mtv being pro quality im referring more to club soundsystems and 'pro sounding underground music' (if that even makes sense!). you know what im saying, like i doubt madlib plugs the 303 into his mic in on his laptop YA MEAN. im talking about more elaborate set ups in terms of recording, making recordings that are intended to sound good on large systems/clubs and cds or records... what are some good usb multi-channel mixers with midi, how many use external compressors/limiters, external soundcards?, whatever you think is the tits you let me know. im into the lofi sound but not for everything all the time and im confident that i can make any machine or recording sound as noisy as i want it to with out being chained to that fate. im also real into hardware and try to stay away from the computer for writing songs as i feel you cant jam accurately.. i am working on setting something up to hook reason up with my hardware tho because i think that will be manageable for me and give me some of the computers benefits in terms of complexity in songs. should i just get an MV if i want pro quality sound on hardware? ive been debating that since they came out! haha one thing i plan on getting real soon is a usb audio interface with midi, whether it has 2 channels or 8, i need that shit so any recommendations on that piece and further thoughts on this subject would be great.. sorry for a bit of a jumbled ramble...i got a whole mess of music about to come out made on hardware and im just trying to get it recorded right and going to other peoples studios isnt workin out so i turn to the brains and finger brawn of sp forums.

ps my recording system now is ghetto, i use a regular 8 channel audio mixer, into a usb rca input into garageband and either do a 2 track panning trick or do things one at a time and rechop and resequence my tune in the program... i know this is mad primitive but ive got SOME great results even on a soundsystem with 8 subs and all the frequency to speaker splitting biz going on, but im trying to take things to the next level and learn more.. whats good... if you are real knowledgable about this sort of thing let me know THANKS

[ellaguru]

i don't still have a pro system, but i'm not too far from it.
EVERY thing making part of the system are important, even the cables (less noise) and the room where you are (the position of the studio monitors too).
if the room is phonic threated is better.
normally the "chain" is this: seq/key/sampler etc + (multichannel mixer, not a must, but) + recorder or soundcard + pc + hifi speakers and studio monitors & studio headpphones.
the hifi speakers+studio monitors/studio headphones should give you more different "impressions" of what are you mixing/recording/listening. i advice to listen to other systems (hifi car, hifi stereo etc) too when finished...

...but first of all the sound of what you sample and the font where you sample is yet the first important step to take a look at...what i mean is that if the sound you sampled is "bad" after is very difficult to make it sounds your own right way also with sophisticated mixing processes...
i begin to make mixing inside the pc and it is not a bad thing. so for you questions about hardware compression i'm not very able to answer.

one question: have you got some studio monitors?

for the soundcards
MOTU 2408 Mk3 (not cheap at all, but more than 2 channel ins)
m-audio fast track pro (cheap, i got it, but only 2 channel ins, at the same price you have other models labels that are pretty the same quality)

[hurlingdervish]

ill just reiterate somet things

-decent monitors (flat response)
-(decent "room setup" but you may not have acoustic issues and they are expensive and time consuming to accurately fix)
-decent headphones
-any mixing plugins or gear will do as long as they have enough options
-quality samples
-quality samples

you can get by on quality samples alone, if you treat them right, like they say "you can't polish a turd"

but yea you can get good results with any mixing gear IF you have the experience under your belt.
however, if the program has a destructive audio engine it may be a lot tougher to accurately EQ things, because you may make a mistake, and "resample that" and now the original is lost.
most programs have non-destructive engines nowadays the most non-destructive being ableton live. its something they pride themselves on

keep in mind multi-tracking is what your after. it will be kind of pointless to buy all that stuff only to do stereo wave mixing, because there is very little you can do to improve the sound at that point.
volume levels and eqing individual tracks to sit with eachother is the goal. then reverb and panning can "place" the sounds in the virtual room.

[V-F!]

Good Computer, Good Interface, Good Speakers, Midi Controller, Good Software. The fact that you can have an ssl, api, and a neve all in your computer speaks volumes. You can get a sound close to that of an expensive vintage board, if you have decent converters in your interface and some good waves plug ins. Here's the hard part....you have to know how to use a compressor, eq, limiter, when to use busses,when to apply effects directly, techniques etc. Anything else, hardware synths, SP's.MP's are all just gravy on top and inspire creativity.

[V-F!]

-quality samples
-quality samples

Maybe the most important thing.

[dman5000]

word thanks for the input there... im with you on quality samples thats one of the first things i read when i bought the sp, my studio room i was told is real nice for acoustics because its a small rectangle room and we sit on the long side wall. i dont have specific monitors, but these computer speakers i got are nice and give a good impression of where the bass is at, so its been suitable, my roomate has 808 monitors that we can combine in a master setup when i get a mixer. my biggest thing right now is getting an audio interface/soundcard so thanks for the suggestions and also switching to a better recording program, probably logic. on my hardware compressor/limiter question - no one use them? someone mentioned about having a neve console in the computer program - are those types of plugins really nice? what about headphones ive heard of people grabbing like 300 dollar headphones but then ive heard it can be too much. personally in my experiance in studios or at home we've always done the 'check it on mulitple systems thing' monitors, car, boombox, etc thansk guys and i hope someone else is gaining some info from this post

[ColeRockLee]

The biggest favor you can do yourself regarding recording is read. Educate yourself before you buy anything.

http://home.earthlink.net/~rongonz/home_rec/home.html


Realize exactly what your recording, and how much of that will need to be recorded simultaneously. No need for an 8 channel interface if you never record more than 2 at a time.

Speakers, as many as possible. Monitors, house speakers, car speakers, the more the merrier. The more different systems you have to demo your mix on the better.

Don't get caught up in gear. A good ear and knowledge can get you much better results than a $5000 compressor in the hands of a noob.

[V-F!]

- no one use them? someone mentioned about having a neve console in the computer program - are those types of plugins really nice?

I use the Waves SSL bundle and it's pretty damn close to the real thing. I've used a real SSL buss compressor and I'd say the software is about 90% there. 700$ and you get a virtual SSL in your computer with as many instances as you r computer can handle. A 700$ hardware compressor is going to sound pretty crap and you will have to have good converters to capture the sound anyways.

[cartesia]

-any mixing plugins or gear will do as long as they have enough options

I'm not so sure about this... you can basically mix using anything sure.. . but do a mix using ableton live plugins and compare it to the top brand name plugins.. then also include in the comparison cheap digital mixing hardware, expensive digital hardware, and analogue hardware... things would come out sounding different..

[megamaeng]

I tend to think that when people talk about pro audio gear most are talking about recording an acoustic guitar or voice in a studio with some super expensive tube mic, running through a preamp eq and compressor that makes those recordings sound really great, and I can see the benefit of that. The problem with that is that most of us aren't sampling using mic's trying to sound like Steely Dan in the studio, most of us sample off prerecorded music. And when I sample I like to think that I am using all this pro gear that was used in the original recording. I'm not saying that it won't make a difference using expensive gear or plugins when using our sp's, but I tend to think that it will make it sound different, not necessarily "better".

That being said, I recommend you look into the apogee duet for an interface. It's mac only (but seeing as you said you might move to logic that's not a problem) but it has very clean preamps and the best converters in this price range. These will make the most difference when it comes to accurately recording what you have coming out of your sp, and onto the computer. As for me, I don't really worry about that. If it changes a microamount during AD/DA conversion, so be it...

[hurlingdervish]

-any mixing plugins or gear will do as long as they have enough options

I'm not so sure about this... you can basically mix using anything sure.. . but do a mix using ableton live plugins and compare it to the top brand name plugins.. then also include in the comparison cheap digital mixing hardware, expensive digital hardware, and analogue hardware... things would come out sounding different..

it depends. my main point is that even with the best stuff you wont get a good mix without a knowledge on how to use them

if you learn how to effectively use eq and compression without using them as "effects" then you can get good sounds out of the free stuff, and a/b'ing it with a 1000 dollar plugin will be near impossible to tell which is which...IF you know what your doing

obviously you can buy tube preamps and special compressors that "color" the sound and "get rid of the ugly" (as I heard one guy put it) but you are altering the sound and its more of sound design and less about mixing at that point.

[HxC]

Pro Quality= getting paid quality= someone somewhere is kicking up some $$ to work with you in some fashion= Pro Quality

Alternately if you give someone a mixdown and you hear them talking on their phone to their friend saying "The shit is Pro sounding" it's a good sign

[dman5000]

Pro Quality= getting paid quality= someone somewhere is kicking up some $$ to work with you in some fashion= Pro Quality

Alternately if you give someone a mixdown and you hear them talking on their phone to their friend saying "The shit is Pro sounding" it's a good sign

this is what im talking about the first one.... recently ive gotten the second the one and even mixed and mastered my partners tracks off that... so anyway i bought the apogee duet for 2 at a time mono recording, the duet is supposed to have sick headroom and real nice ad convertors, i also got a usb to midi cord for syncing the machines start/stop and bpm to the program so no more re-cutting start points and losing or adding miliseconds of annoyingings... im gonna record with it all tomorrow and ill let you know how it goes... maybe this still isnt a pro quality set up, but hxc outlined what i really meant by that in a succint manner
i also found a buddy who has rack compressors and limiter that he uses for live pa sound and it sounds bonkers so we were talking and he never tried using it to master a track but we're gonna try that now cuz he uses ableton to make beats but doesnt know too much about using that gear to master a track - just setting it up for live use (djing etc)
thanks for all the input everyone gave, let ya know how it turns out

[Hot Sauce]

remember mixing your music is an art in itself. technically anything "professional" is just anything that makes money so that definition isn't really helpful. to find out what you need for mixing you need to consider what you want your music to sound like and where you expect it to be played.

things you defiantly need are studio monitors OR even good bookshelf speakers. there have been plenty of hits on the radio that have been mixed on regular book shelf speakers (obviously the mix was referenced in a couple of other places too).

secondly if you are recording from hardware you will need a decent soundcard. if you are just recording you sp and don't care about vocals then you can get a good soundcard for less than 100 bucks.



remember there is not much difference between low-end products anyway so don't sweat it so much when wondering what monitors and soundcard to get.

think of what your budget is and spend that on the best monitors and soundcard you can afford. monitors are the most important thing. second comes your soundcard.

i haven't even mentioned headphones because tbh they aren't that great for mixing. you are going to have to spend close to a grand to get headphones that even match cheap monitors.

finally you just need to think of what DAW you're going to be using. there are so many on the market and it really just comes down to personal preference. you also don't need a load of expensive VSTs. read up about compression, eqing, filtering, etc.. and find out about the other aspects of mixing your track down.

i've used the native fx in renoise and nothing but free plugins to mix a lot of my stuff. it might not be the best but it's ok for me and i'm always improving.

[HxC]

Using masking tape is definitely not pro. It's the worst for cables & gear.
So isn't getting drunker than the clients and having pets jumping around in the studio

Also (for real) setting expectations is pro- like letting someone know exactly when they will get their song, then delivering- OR hitting your own personal deadline.

Too much cellphone/smartphone paying attention to is not very pro, neither is burping on the mic.