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Old 10-09-2012, 01:11 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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Join Date: May 2002
Location: Walnut Creek, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by wbajzek View Post
Hi everyone... I'm new here but I already know a few of you in real life.

I already mentioned this to Anton on gtalk, but I think the thing about cheap gear is that it's even more important to get the sound you want from the beginning, because in my experience any tweaking after the fact just magnifies the noise floor.

When working on mic placement, it's pretty easy to come up with something that sounds massive and great in our headphones, but will probably sound boomy and muffled anywhere else. I've found lately that 9/10 times, the sound I get through the mics is way more bassy than most pro recordings that sound good to me, but guess what... if I tone EQ down the bass, you're just going to notice the hiss from my pres more.

I'm somewhat pleased with the recordings I can make with my CAD m179s, at least compared to my past results, but I don't have decent pres yet. I'm kind of saving up for some unspecified gear-related goal right now, and I've had to talk myself out of order a new interface or pres, realizing that I'll probably waste more money gradually upgrading than if I just save up for something that is actually good.
I don't know what you have for a preamp, but it's worth determining if it's really the source of your noise before spending on a fix that doesn't fix things. The trick is to wire a low noise metal film 150 ohm resistor across the hot legs of an XLR plug and use that as your source, then crank your pre to the level you normally use. I was surprised to find that all the noise I thought my preamp was generating was actually in the room with me, and any preamp no matter what cost or spec would result in the same noise level at the same gain level.

Fran
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