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Post by jpanderson80 on Apr 23, 2021 10:23:57 GMT -6
Audient or Midas are solid. I like Audient for vocal and acoustic work. Midas is good for drums. I'd choose based on the features of these two. Audient plus a different 4 channel pre unit would be a good option too, for more flair.
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Post by Guitar on Apr 23, 2021 10:51:22 GMT -6
Yeah that Apogee sounds great! I had a dream last night someone bought me a MacBook Pro. Maybe I'll have a dream about an Apogee converter tonight, love the sound of those. Just can't afford that rig.
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Post by jpanderson80 on Apr 23, 2021 12:28:14 GMT -6
I used the ASP880 by Audient for a mobile rig for a couple years and it worked flawlessly. I'd go record bands in their rehearsal space with just an ID22, the ASP and some mics. These songs were tracked exclusively with the Audient: dominoandtheghosts.bandcamp.com/track/thinking-of-you-2wolvemusic.bandcamp.com/track/porcelainI think you'll enjoy it, when I got rid of the Audient I got a Clarett Eight pre thing just to change things up a bit and that was a big mistake, I didn't bond with the Focusrite preamps at all. After that I had the Midas XL48 which I really liked. Right now I'm using my Apogee Element 88 for quick mobile stuff, it sounds great. If I ever need more inputs, The Audient or the Midas would be my choice. The build on the Audient felt more solid though I think I liked the sound of the Midas better. It was a little smoother overall. Sounds good Brice. Real good. I agree, Audient beats Focusrite for me too.
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 23, 2021 13:32:20 GMT -6
Awesome! Thanks for the info. Hey, the Apogee sounds great!
Finding out how to work with low budgets is kind of the challenge for most modern productions I guess. I do the same. Can be tough.
It really is a challenge, but I also find it very exciting and really gratifying when it comes out great. I still do like 1/3 of my projects in big studios and the rest is like at people's places or mine and to be honest, the records I do that way I'd say sound almost as good as when I go to the $1000/day studio, like 90% there maybe. But in today's music economy, I understand that it's hard for a band to justify paying litteraly 10 times more for that extra 10%. It's really gratifying when it comes out great but also the learning along the way. I imagine the sound difference can mostly be attributed to the rooms at such studios, yea? Or having like 6 u67s lol. I walked into a studio near D.C. where I was basically ducking u47's left and right in the rooms. I felt like I should have had a machete or something. Damn jungle.
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 24, 2021 1:07:43 GMT -6
It's really gratifying when it comes out great but also the learning along the way. I imagine the sound difference can mostly be attributed to the rooms at such studios, yea? Or having like 6 u67s lol. I walked into a studio near D.C. where I was basically ducking u47's left and right in the rooms. I felt like I should have had a machete or something. Damn jungle. A little bit of everything but I'd say the room is definitely the most important thing. The studio I've used the most for drums recently, the room is just nuts, they have 4 u67s, coles , Rcas, old tube schoeps and many others and a ton of outboard but the room is what makes it stand out. You just set up the drums, put the mics up and boom it just sounds like a record. Recording drums in bad rooms is really the hardest I find, particularly since I try not to trigger samples so it often takes a lot of work. And yeah, I feel like I've learned a lot more as an engineer doing these DIY projects...I remember when I interned years and years ago in a big studio, recording great players on great instruments in an awesome room with great mics and pres and I was like, hey this is pretty easy haha!
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Apr 26, 2021 20:50:47 GMT -6
Audient and Midas are really hard to beat, for the $ the Behringer dosen’t suck, even better BLA modded Behringer. If you can find a deal the legendary Panasonic / Ramsa WZ-AD96M.
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 26, 2021 23:38:13 GMT -6
Audient and Midas are really hard to beat, for the $ the Behringer dosen’t suck, even better BLA modded Behringer. If you can find a deal the legendary Panasonic / Ramsa WZ-AD96M. The Audient showed up and after my cables arrived to get optical and clocking going I did some tests. The Audient is a damn fine box. Really impressed with the sound quality at such a price. 8 pres, 2 DI, variable hi pass and conversion in one for ca. a grand. Impressive. It isn't worlds apart from the Apollo x8p, from what I can tell.
I measure anywhere from 19 to 24 samples latency due to the conversion compared to the Apollo interface going into Reaper. Should be fairly quick to adjust after a session. More of an issue on a multi-mic setup of a single instrument if the channels cross units. Will try to avoid that scenario.
Great box so far.
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 27, 2021 1:07:24 GMT -6
Audient and Midas are really hard to beat, for the $ the Behringer dosen’t suck, even better BLA modded Behringer. If you can find a deal the legendary Panasonic / Ramsa WZ-AD96M. The Audient showed up and after my cables arrived to get optical and clocking going I did some tests. The Audient is a damn fine box. Really impressed with the sound quality at such a price. 8 pres, 2 DI, variable hi pass and conversion in one for ca. a grand. Impressive. It isn't worlds apart from the Apollo x8p, from what I can tell.
I measure anywhere from 19 to 24 samples latency due to the conversion compared to the Apollo interface going into Reaper. Should be fairly quick to adjust after a session. More of an issue on a multi-mic setup of a single instrument if the channels cross units. Will try to avoid that scenario.
Great box so far.
Also experiment with the Impedance, I got a lot of different sounds from the variable impedance. I sometimes found the Audient a bit hard in the high end with my Schoeps but with the variable impedance I could smooth it out.
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Post by javamad on Apr 27, 2021 4:52:10 GMT -6
The good thing about the ASP880 is you can use the rear dsub returns to convert any other pres you may have as well and just use the A/D on that particular channel with the send/return.
plus of course you can track easily with outboard of you connect those dsubs to your patchbay (which I have)
plus the variable high pass and impedance on each channel ... just really good value and sounds great.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2021 4:56:47 GMT -6
It's really gratifying when it comes out great but also the learning along the way. I imagine the sound difference can mostly be attributed to the rooms at such studios, yea? Or having like 6 u67s lol. I walked into a studio near D.C. where I was basically ducking u47's left and right in the rooms. I felt like I should have had a machete or something. Damn jungle. A little bit of everything but I'd say the room is definitely the most important thing. The studio I've used the most for drums recently, the room is just nuts, they have 4 u67s, coles , Rcas, old tube schoeps and many others and a ton of outboard but the room is what makes it stand out. You just set up the drums, put the mics up and boom it just sounds like a record. Recording drums in bad rooms is really the hardest I find, particularly since I try not to trigger samples so it often takes a lot of work. And yeah, I feel like I've learned a lot more as an engineer doing these DIY projects...I remember when I interned years and years ago in a big studio, recording great players on great instruments in an awesome room with great mics and pres and I was like, hey this is pretty easy haha! That place sounds sick! Mic choice is much more limited in practice spaces but hey that’s what the m160 is for! And then your average big budget modern production is obliterating that extra 10% in the mix with samples and the master, well those super limited masters eliminate the good room and usually sound awful.
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 27, 2021 5:17:48 GMT -6
A little bit of everything but I'd say the room is definitely the most important thing. The studio I've used the most for drums recently, the room is just nuts, they have 4 u67s, coles , Rcas, old tube schoeps and many others and a ton of outboard but the room is what makes it stand out. You just set up the drums, put the mics up and boom it just sounds like a record. Recording drums in bad rooms is really the hardest I find, particularly since I try not to trigger samples so it often takes a lot of work. And yeah, I feel like I've learned a lot more as an engineer doing these DIY projects...I remember when I interned years and years ago in a big studio, recording great players on great instruments in an awesome room with great mics and pres and I was like, hey this is pretty easy haha! That place sounds sick! Mic choice is much more limited in practice spaces but hey that’s what the m160 is for! And then your average big budget modern production is obliterating that extra 10% in the mix with samples and the master, well those super limited masters eliminate the good room and usually sound awful. Yeah it's wonderful and the live room is pretty extraordinary. You can check it out here: www.midilive.fr/#!/news For Band spaces, I've been alternating between m260s with RCA ribbons and Schoeps MK41 depending on the project! Had an R88 on demo, and thought " well I'm sure this sounds great in a great room but not here!" And yeah I agree, for a lot of modern productions, honestly, all you'd really need is a couple great mics and a vocal booth. Though beyond the equipment and the room, there is a comfort to large studios.
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 27, 2021 12:05:35 GMT -6
I love m160's on overheads even when the room is good. Those are just great overhead/tom/electric guitar mics.
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 27, 2021 12:08:07 GMT -6
The Audient showed up and after my cables arrived to get optical and clocking going I did some tests. The Audient is a damn fine box. Really impressed with the sound quality at such a price. 8 pres, 2 DI, variable hi pass and conversion in one for ca. a grand. Impressive. It isn't worlds apart from the Apollo x8p, from what I can tell.
I measure anywhere from 19 to 24 samples latency due to the conversion compared to the Apollo interface going into Reaper. Should be fairly quick to adjust after a session. More of an issue on a multi-mic setup of a single instrument if the channels cross units. Will try to avoid that scenario.
Great box so far.
Also experiment with the Impedance, I got a lot of different sounds from the variable impedance. I sometimes found the Audient a bit hard in the high end with my Schoeps but with the variable impedance I could smooth it out. Yea that is a great value. It even made a noticeable difference on my m49 clone which I didn't expect... I am not an electronics fella I just thought ribbons and dynamics would have the only real noticeable changes.
What a great value in this box. It DOES get toasty. Reminds me of my old Lynx Aurora 16!
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 27, 2021 12:13:12 GMT -6
The good thing about the ASP880 is you can use the rear dsub returns to convert any other pres you may have as well and just use the A/D on that particular channel with the send/return. plus of course you can track easily with outboard of you connect those dsubs to your patchbay (which I have) plus the variable high pass and impedance on each channel ... just really good value and sounds great. Yea, the A/D button to use it for conversion is really great, too. This unit probably won't be patched and will likely live with my Apollo x8p in my 6u gator case for road gigs. I rarely need 16 channels at the house here for tracking. I use my Aurora (n) mainly in the patch bay and plan on expanding it quite a bit for mixing with hardware.
I suppose I could get an ADAT card for the Aurora and use the Audient there for patching hardware, but that's about $500 in parts in the Aurora. Would probably just go for the 8 I/O analog...
The unit really does sound great. Like you say, the high pass and variable impedance, they packed in all the right features.
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Post by Vincent R. on Apr 28, 2021 4:56:20 GMT -6
Albeit it’s more expensive than the Audient, but what does everyone think of the Focusrite ISA 828?
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 28, 2021 6:24:28 GMT -6
Albeit it’s more expensive than the Audient, but what does everyone think of the Focusrite ISA 828? It's nice! I actually think Isa preamps sound good. Not my faves but good. I've used 428 mK1, 2s and the 828, though not at the same time and thought they all sounded like good reliable preamps. People say the MK1s are much better but I haven't compared them in depth enough to know. The problem is, price wise they're kind of in this no man's land, too expensive for most people, but not high end enough for others. As much as they get bashed online, you do see them a lot in studios and most people I know think they're fine. Oh and last thing, it is 2u and it weighs a TON. It's got to be like 3 times the weight of the Audient, which when going mobile is something that at least I thought was pretty important.
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Post by Guitar on Apr 28, 2021 6:30:43 GMT -6
With those mega 8 channel pres like the ISA828 or the UA8110 be aware of possible heat issues, they can get really toasty, from what I've heard.
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 28, 2021 6:36:03 GMT -6
With those mega 8 channel pres like the ISA828 or the UA8110 be aware of possible heat issues, they can get really toasty, from what I've heard. Focusrite recommends free rack space around the 828.
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Post by Vincent R. on Apr 28, 2021 7:10:09 GMT -6
Makes a lot of sense. Thanks bricejchandler & Guitar! Been looking at them as an addition to my current set up.
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 28, 2021 7:32:52 GMT -6
Makes a lot of sense. Thanks bricejchandler & Guitar ! Been looking at them as an addition to my current set up. You bet. The Isa is a cool choice. It has a nice weight to it and an interesting color in the high end that honestly I can't really compare to anything, it's just a tiny bit veiled but not necessarily in a bad way. I like it when I want something to have some weight but not be too upfront. The best way I can describe it is, it kind of has a pastel quality to it. Just a tiny bit faded, blurry. I don't know it's so hard to describe sounds. Transients are slower on the Isa which to me is a plus when tracking to digital. The Audient is really clean. I had and ASP8024 for a couple years and got to know the sound really well, and there is something distinctive in the Hi-mids but, it's a rather flat preamp and the transients are very fast. It doesn't have that immediate sounds like a record thing that some preamps have but then it does leave you with a lot of options for post processing.
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 28, 2021 11:21:17 GMT -6
To be honest, I may like the Audient sound a bit better than the Apollo sound. Both fine units, but the Apollo has a quality to it that I can find somewhat bothersome that I can't quite put my finger on. The Audient is more neutral. Both fine units, but if I had to do a mobile rig over again, I'd probably go with 16 ch of Audient. The Apollo got me a free Octo Satellite though so, no regrets here.
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 28, 2021 18:02:34 GMT -6
Unexpected bonus with the Audient: the pre's are simple and "not immediately like a record" thing Brice spoke of is really appealing to me in the same way I think my beloved Sytek(now gone) sounded. Patch out db25 to the Aurora(n) and I have 8 nice channels to add here.
Weird as it sounds, some of my own art I don't like to sound like a record.
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Post by Tbone81 on Apr 28, 2021 19:01:35 GMT -6
Albeit it’s more expensive than the Audient, but what does everyone think of the Focusrite ISA 828? They’re fine but nothing special. I prefer the Audient as the sound quality is the same, IME, but form factor way cheaper and smaller. The original ISA strips were closer to the real Focusritr console and sound much better. That console was seriously good sounding, recorded on one of the few in existence a few times at Paramount in Hollywood years back.
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Post by guitfiddler on Apr 28, 2021 19:41:00 GMT -6
I love the Original Focusrite 110’s!!!!!! Yum!!!!
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Post by bricejchandler on Apr 29, 2021 1:11:59 GMT -6
Unexpected bonus with the Audient: the pre's are simple and "not immediately like a record" thing Brice spoke of is really appealing to me in the same way I think my beloved Sytek(now gone) sounded. Patch out db25 to the Aurora(n) and I have 8 nice channels to add here. Weird as it sounds, some of my own art I don't like to sound like a record. I can totally understand that! If you don't expect it to do some of the work for you, like compress a little, smooth out some frequencies and transients it does a great great job. Ultimately I think I ended up liking the Midas xl48 a little more when I had it but because it was a bit more mid focused and softer but then you're stuck with that.
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