There is a reason why I (and other people) buy a $5K+ piece of gear, it is because it help creating a specific type of sound. To give an example: lat year, I've found that a Pultec EQp1 makes the difference versus other EQ units. I had different units shipped at different times and I have tried these for 4-5 days on a variety of projects, I have recorded all the mods I have done with each of these machines, and then I have decided which one has done the best job. In this specific instance, the Pultec won. Therefore it is within the practical use of new gear, temporally integrated in my home studio, that I understand if a piece of gear is need or not. It takes time but in the end it helps me purchasing gear that i really use 24/7. I don't believe in youtube demonstrations/comparisons, in my opinion, every single purchase must follow a significant trial period.
I think that gear is not the important factor for a quality recording. It's the musicians, the sound and the energy in the performance and of course some basic experience/understanding of how to engineer the recording. As you said, SM57s and other mics in this price range are doing a decent job. I recently recorded an Instrumental Post Rock/Metal band here in my tiny studio that I have setup with mostly used gear in a low to mid budget price range. We recorded onto 1/4" tape on an old Fostex R8 through a Tascam M2600 console. No computers involved and we all love the outcome of this simple approach.
Man, Jim Lill's videos are fantastic. I have a "studio pro" acquaintance who likes to sniff corks and he always seems to take those videos as a personal affront while pretending that he doesn't. But his defensive niggling about ironclad proof and haughty opining at every chance he can create about the necessity for "the good stuff" for a decent sound says it all. In a studio business, top shelf gear attracts clients, and spending money makes money. For the rest, people are just trying to justify sunk costs to themselves. Almost never will you hear a good honest self-aware "I like it, it's what I want, and enjoying it is all that matters to me". My outboard is mostly reverb and compression. I'm going to add a few "good" pres for variety, and probably an LA2A clone. The fact is that the cheapest prosumer interfaces today have better conversion than the best vintage digital gear people are happy to keep using because it sounds good. Shitty 12 bit conversion is a hot item now, go figure. Mostly my outboard is to replace any processor intensive effects so I can keep using an old DAW on an old computer, and have a tactile experience too. People don't need to buy new plugins, companies just need to sell them. Even the stock plugins these days have models of all the cool guy studio gear that are just as good as the 3rd party stuff, and there is no shortage of free plugs that rival them, too. It's possible, even easy, to have a great sounding studio at a cost equivalent to its actual value to you, even when you're addicted to buying gear.
I got an Arturia - MiniFreak and run it through a Neon Egg Planetarium V2 then into a Meris Lvx and the sounds i'm able to create are amazing. yes i'm addicted to pedals, the Chase Bliss Loosy just came out this week and I'm now going crazy when i see what this pedal does.
I realized a long time ago that spending more on certain gear doesn't gain you much and that you are often times paying for a name. When I was gigging as an acoustic duo several years ago, I was using $200 - $300 acoustic guitars and I thought, now that I'm a "serious" player, I need a Taylor or a Martin. I bought a Taylor and although impressed with the tone, it had some fit and finish issues that I found troublesome and ended up selling it. Then, I paid almost $3K for the holy grail of acoustic guitars, a Martin D-28. Absolutely gorgeous guitar. It sounded fine, but I couldn't tell the difference in tone between a cheaper Yamaha, Crafter or Walden guitar and the Martin. It made me wonder why anyone would pay almost 10 times with price for a Martin when you get great tone out of guitars that are under $1000. I feel the same with mics, audio interfaces and most preamps. In fact, I even feel the same about plug-ins. I've got tons of free and cheap plugins that I think sound just great. I couldn't tell the difference between a tube preamp and an emulated tube preamp plugin. About the only thing I can hear a discernable difference between is tube guitar amps and solid state. I have a really decent Fender tube amp (not a very expensive one) that I think sounds better than any other amp I've used. But it could also just be the guitar/amp combination I'm using, because I've played some guitars through it that don't sound very good at all. That's another factor, there are so many variables when it comes to tone and sound; fingers, play style, talent, room treatment, mics, mic placement, and on and on. At the end of the day, the "best" gear is what you can afford, that you are happy with the sound of and that you will get a lot of use from.
Great points Travis. I love the "where does the tone come from guy" those kind of blind tests are extremely useful and enlightening. Love your stuff and your ultra cool barn studio.
Imo... addicted is a bit of a tricky phrase as there are definitely ppl w physical and mental addictions to buying. That's not me, but I've bought a ton of gear in my life. A while back (maybe 8-10 years ago) I made a little rule for myself that whatever I buy I have to make 10 tracks. It changed things for me as (since then) I rarely feel like I wasted money on gear... as I get something from my purchases. Also I benefit from actually learning the gear before deciding I do or don't like it. Funny thing.... I've found that several times I've made tracks I really like with gear that I didn't enjoy and sold. Btw... not saying I get everything figured out... but thought I'd share... might benefit someone, dunno. Good video!
@@travisraabyes. I use the Stam one but they are all very similar. Its not a super gritty compressor but as a final stereo compressor at the end of your mix, its very true that it adds something subtle but very finished sounding. SSL style bus compressors are one of those things where the hype is true. Just remember to leave the “release” on auto.
With a microkorg and a tascam 388 I think I'd be set for the rest of my life, just lock me in an attic and maybe in 10 years I'll emerge with an album. Or not, but I'll sure as hell have a blast up there
Preamps are sexy fun but affect the sound less than any other component they mostly seem like way waist of dough compared to like compression or room treatment
In my case, addicted to plugins. Even tho I know I need to stick to the ones that I already have since that's pretty much all I need and it gets me the results I want. But still, can't stop my plugin addiction.
Some preamps are hard to tell by individual tracks, specially if you are not driving them, but it's when you have a dense session with that preamp in each track that it shows it's accumulative effect. The person behind the a/b comparison should keep this in mind! But it's like you said, having a preamp/compressor/eq isn't everything, one needs to focus on oneself!
*GRANTED I AGREE! How about having SURPRESSED DIGITAL AUDIO TECHONOLOGY?* ...How about having THE ONLY Digital Mixing/Recording System that is absolutely ANALOG SILK SHIMMERY SMOOTH and with an internal clock that rivals with top dollar word-clocking systems and it will even run on a Pentium 4 in Windows XP and the console version is an actual (x25) Console Replacement???? .......... #Most people IE: (97%) have never heard what their plugins can actually do, because the "WEAKEST LINK" in their signal chain is their DAW & DIGITAL MIXER, with slippery buffers, bloated C++C-- Code, smearing the image and doing all the translation between A/D and the plugins used. How about a system that with BEHRINGER ADA8000/8200 for your front end, you can completely OUT PERFORM everything else on the market ( LIVE OR IN THE STUDIO ) unless you are in bottomless budget ANALOG with 2 in Tape and outboard gear! *Which these two systems will still OUT PERFORM and all analog set up, because you absolutely achieve ANALOG SILK SHIMMERY SMOOTH audio quality without all the noise chasing and cumbersome workflow of analog!* *Here is a sample:* Recorded Live in the studio, with standard Microphones and an AKG C414 for the Lead Vocal, Behringer ADA8200 for all mic preamp front end via RME Adat CARDS, 24bit@48k, NO ANALOG SUMMING, NO OUTBOARD GEAR WHAT SO EVER, NO DITHERING and only (x5) PLUGINS USED for the entire project from Recording, Edit, Mixing and Mastering. Compare this to like R&B from the 1990's in bottomless budget all analog... *THIS IS ANALOG SILK SHIMMERY SMOOTH: Lightly MIXED, Lightly Master, completely under-processed on purpose. The more you turn it up the better it sounds!* www.rmllabs.com/MainSite/misc-video.html
You watched the same video I watched for the preamp shootout (I think). Api, trident console preamps, warm audio’s and another one I cannot remember, right? 😂
@@travisraab agreed, I did a shootout on the preamps of my focusrite octopre with my warm audio 73s and was surprised by how close they were. I don’t buy preamps anymore, just compressors and a few eqs lol
that's funny I have a Safire pro 40 that I always thought sounded great, and it was so simple to use that for everything with the meter on it, but on paper its not supposed to be as good as all the other stuff. without preamps do you get any juice going mic to compressor?@@santiagocalleja3926
@@travisraab mic to interface/wa73 (if the latter, a bit of eq using the ones from the unit), light compression (either as direct insert or as a “plugin” in the daw, depending on whether I am willing to crawl under my desk to hook it up or leave that to the patchbay lol) and external fx as sends I have a few cheap ones (a behringer and a klark teknik dimension D rack units) and a neve rmx 16 that I bought as a demo unit so cheaper than a new one. Chain pretty simple, but if the player is good, it sounds amazing
interesting cause I never even considered doing outboard reverb or chorus once I'm in the daw. how does it sound compared to in the box stuff?@@santiagocalleja3926
It looks a lot like the mix section of a tascam 388. Turn every single knob 10 times while it's plug in to see if you hear anything. If that doesn't work then You could first try to simply remove the dead channels blow canned air and reseat them. Before doing anything more heavy duty
The thing with super expensive gear is that it only makes sense if you already have other super expensive gear and if you have high fidelity as your main goal. A super expensive mic is wasted if you have a shitty preamp and/or a shitty room, and so on. To me "mojo" is much more interesting to listen to than high fidelity, which often turns into distracting snobbery. I think you should look for gear that inspires you, whatever it may be.
There is a reason why I (and other people) buy a $5K+ piece of gear, it is because it help creating a specific type of sound. To give an example: lat year, I've found that a Pultec EQp1 makes the difference versus other EQ units. I had different units shipped at different times and I have tried these for 4-5 days on a variety of projects, I have recorded all the mods I have done with each of these machines, and then I have decided which one has done the best job. In this specific instance, the Pultec won. Therefore it is within the practical use of new gear, temporally integrated in my home studio, that I understand if a piece of gear is need or not. It takes time but in the end it helps me purchasing gear that i really use 24/7. I don't believe in youtube demonstrations/comparisons, in my opinion, every single purchase must follow a significant trial period.
I think that gear is not the important factor for a quality recording. It's the musicians, the sound and the energy in the performance and of course some basic experience/understanding of how to engineer the recording. As you said, SM57s and other mics in this price range are doing a decent job. I recently recorded an Instrumental Post Rock/Metal band here in my tiny studio that I have setup with mostly used gear in a low to mid budget price range. We recorded onto 1/4" tape on an old Fostex R8 through a Tascam M2600 console. No computers involved and we all love the outcome of this simple approach.
Wow that sounds like a cool session!
Man, Jim Lill's videos are fantastic. I have a "studio pro" acquaintance who likes to sniff corks and he always seems to take those videos as a personal affront while pretending that he doesn't. But his defensive niggling about ironclad proof and haughty opining at every chance he can create about the necessity for "the good stuff" for a decent sound says it all.
In a studio business, top shelf gear attracts clients, and spending money makes money. For the rest, people are just trying to justify sunk costs to themselves. Almost never will you hear a good honest self-aware "I like it, it's what I want, and enjoying it is all that matters to me".
My outboard is mostly reverb and compression. I'm going to add a few "good" pres for variety, and probably an LA2A clone. The fact is that the cheapest prosumer interfaces today have better conversion than the best vintage digital gear people are happy to keep using because it sounds good. Shitty 12 bit conversion is a hot item now, go figure. Mostly my outboard is to replace any processor intensive effects so I can keep using an old DAW on an old computer, and have a tactile experience too. People don't need to buy new plugins, companies just need to sell them. Even the stock plugins these days have models of all the cool guy studio gear that are just as good as the 3rd party stuff, and there is no shortage of free plugs that rival them, too.
It's possible, even easy, to have a great sounding studio at a cost equivalent to its actual value to you, even when you're addicted to buying gear.
You are speaking my language. I love it. Happy Thanksgiving!
@@travisraab You too!
Thanks for the video.
You bet happy thanksgiving!
I got an Arturia - MiniFreak and run it through a Neon Egg Planetarium V2 then into a Meris Lvx and the sounds i'm able to create are amazing. yes i'm addicted to pedals, the Chase Bliss Loosy just came out this week and I'm now going crazy when i see what this pedal does.
The chase bliss generation loss sounds impressive from the demos as well.
I have the plugin version of Lossy and it's nuts. Such a good weird sound to have
I realized a long time ago that spending more on certain gear doesn't gain you much and that you are often times paying for a name. When I was gigging as an acoustic duo several years ago, I was using $200 - $300 acoustic guitars and I thought, now that I'm a "serious" player, I need a Taylor or a Martin. I bought a Taylor and although impressed with the tone, it had some fit and finish issues that I found troublesome and ended up selling it. Then, I paid almost $3K for the holy grail of acoustic guitars, a Martin D-28. Absolutely gorgeous guitar. It sounded fine, but I couldn't tell the difference in tone between a cheaper Yamaha, Crafter or Walden guitar and the Martin. It made me wonder why anyone would pay almost 10 times with price for a Martin when you get great tone out of guitars that are under $1000. I feel the same with mics, audio interfaces and most preamps. In fact, I even feel the same about plug-ins. I've got tons of free and cheap plugins that I think sound just great. I couldn't tell the difference between a tube preamp and an emulated tube preamp plugin. About the only thing I can hear a discernable difference between is tube guitar amps and solid state. I have a really decent Fender tube amp (not a very expensive one) that I think sounds better than any other amp I've used. But it could also just be the guitar/amp combination I'm using, because I've played some guitars through it that don't sound very good at all. That's another factor, there are so many variables when it comes to tone and sound; fingers, play style, talent, room treatment, mics, mic placement, and on and on. At the end of the day, the "best" gear is what you can afford, that you are happy with the sound of and that you will get a lot of use from.
well said
Every once in a while I'm able to string together a bunch of coherent sentences! LOL@@travisraab
Great points Travis. I love the "where does the tone come from guy" those kind of blind tests are extremely useful and enlightening. Love your stuff and your ultra cool barn studio.
Agreed. Happy Thanksgiving!
Wow ! I was looking once again at your 388 videos this afternoon and was cruelly missing new videos. nice come back !
Thanks, glad to be back!
I've been asking myself questions like this lately trying to figure out what ribbon mic to buy. There's a lot of options and quite a range of prices
Come to any conclusions? Do we all need the Royer to accurately capture our amps?
@@barneyrubble8255 been looking at the golden age R2. Reviewers saying it’s as good as the royer r1 but it’s cheaper.
Imo... addicted is a bit of a tricky phrase as there are definitely ppl w physical and mental addictions to buying. That's not me, but I've bought a ton of gear in my life. A while back (maybe 8-10 years ago) I made a little rule for myself that whatever I buy I have to make 10 tracks. It changed things for me as (since then) I rarely feel like I wasted money on gear... as I get something from my purchases. Also I benefit from actually learning the gear before deciding I do or don't like it. Funny thing.... I've found that several times I've made tracks I really like with gear that I didn't enjoy and sold. Btw... not saying I get everything figured out... but thought I'd share... might benefit someone, dunno. Good video!
Good to see you back! Geeeaaarrr!
hey good to be back!
Travis you should try out an SSL style bus compressor if you get the chance.
does warm audio make one?
Yeah its called the WA bus-comp@@travisraab
@@travisraabyes. I use the Stam one but they are all very similar. Its not a super gritty compressor but as a final stereo compressor at the end of your mix, its very true that it adds something subtle but very finished sounding. SSL style bus compressors are one of those things where the hype is true. Just remember to leave the “release” on auto.
Ah I dig how you just rack stuff into some lumber! I been stacking it all recklessly, wondering if I can build a thing w/o buying thee hardware
With a microkorg and a tascam 388 I think I'd be set for the rest of my life, just lock me in an attic and maybe in 10 years I'll emerge with an album. Or not, but I'll sure as hell have a blast up there
hell ya!
Can you do a recording using the outboard gear running into the Tascam 388?
Preamps are sexy fun but affect the sound less than any other component they mostly seem like way waist of dough compared to like compression or room treatment
Yes.
Yes, yes I am. I drove for 4 hours yesterday to trade guitars with some guy.
that's commitment
In my case, addicted to plugins. Even tho I know I need to stick to the ones that I already have since that's pretty much all I need and it gets me the results I want. But still, can't stop my plugin addiction.
That neve is my favorite for tracking btw!
Some preamps are hard to tell by individual tracks, specially if you are not driving them, but it's when you have a dense session with that preamp in each track that it shows it's accumulative effect. The person behind the a/b comparison should keep this in mind! But it's like you said, having a preamp/compressor/eq isn't everything, one needs to focus on oneself!
I'm addicted to cheese
@@tigredejadeec My thoughts exactly.
Yes!
Yes, I am yes
I need help
me tooo
yes
yepp
Yes. Yes i am……
me too!
*GRANTED I AGREE! How about having SURPRESSED DIGITAL AUDIO TECHONOLOGY?* ...How about having THE ONLY Digital Mixing/Recording System that is absolutely ANALOG SILK SHIMMERY SMOOTH and with an internal clock that rivals with top dollar word-clocking systems and it will even run on a Pentium 4 in Windows XP and the console version is an actual (x25) Console Replacement????
.......... #Most people IE: (97%) have never heard what their plugins can actually do, because the "WEAKEST LINK" in their signal chain is their DAW & DIGITAL MIXER, with slippery buffers, bloated C++C-- Code, smearing the image and doing all the translation between A/D and the plugins used. How about a system that with BEHRINGER ADA8000/8200 for your front end, you can completely OUT PERFORM everything else on the market ( LIVE OR IN THE STUDIO ) unless you are in bottomless budget ANALOG with 2 in Tape and outboard gear! *Which these two systems will still OUT PERFORM and all analog set up, because you absolutely achieve ANALOG SILK SHIMMERY SMOOTH audio quality without all the noise chasing and cumbersome workflow of analog!*
*Here is a sample:* Recorded Live in the studio, with standard Microphones and an AKG C414 for the Lead Vocal, Behringer ADA8200 for all mic preamp front end via RME Adat CARDS, 24bit@48k, NO ANALOG SUMMING, NO OUTBOARD GEAR WHAT SO EVER, NO DITHERING and only (x5) PLUGINS USED for the entire project from Recording, Edit, Mixing and Mastering. Compare this to like R&B from the 1990's in bottomless budget all analog... *THIS IS ANALOG SILK SHIMMERY SMOOTH: Lightly MIXED, Lightly Master, completely under-processed on purpose. The more you turn it up the better it sounds!* www.rmllabs.com/MainSite/misc-video.html
interesting!
You watched the same video I watched for the preamp shootout (I think). Api, trident console preamps, warm audio’s and another one I cannot remember, right? 😂
yup. that shit was ridiculous
@@travisraab agreed, I did a shootout on the preamps of my focusrite octopre with my warm audio 73s and was surprised by how close they were. I don’t buy preamps anymore, just compressors and a few eqs lol
that's funny I have a Safire pro 40 that I always thought sounded great, and it was so simple to use that for everything with the meter on it, but on paper its not supposed to be as good as all the other stuff. without preamps do you get any juice going mic to compressor?@@santiagocalleja3926
@@travisraab mic to interface/wa73 (if the latter, a bit of eq using the ones from the unit), light compression (either as direct insert or as a “plugin” in the daw, depending on whether I am willing to crawl under my desk to hook it up or leave that to the patchbay lol) and external fx as sends I have a few cheap ones (a behringer and a klark teknik dimension D rack units) and a neve rmx 16 that I bought as a demo unit so cheaper than a new one. Chain pretty simple, but if the player is good, it sounds amazing
interesting cause I never even considered doing outboard reverb or chorus once I'm in the daw. how does it sound compared to in the box stuff?@@santiagocalleja3926
Nailed it man.
thanks dawg!
I've got a Tascam 320 desk with a few dead channels, any thoughts on what it could be?
It looks a lot like the mix section of a tascam 388. Turn every single knob 10 times while it's plug in to see if you hear anything. If that doesn't work then You could first try to simply remove the dead channels blow canned air and reseat them. Before doing anything more heavy duty
Thanks, Ill give this a shot!@@travisraab
Oh yes. Moar gear pls. Also, that dbx 118 be sexy.
What’s the UA-cam account with the guy testing the tonality of stuff?
I can't remember ill get back to you
Jim Lill@@travisraab
Jim Lill.
Hi, also yes
yepp
What a silly question, i only live and breath gear!
me too
Damn man, we gotta Chat
The thing with super expensive gear is that it only makes sense if you already have other super expensive gear and if you have high fidelity as your main goal. A super expensive mic is wasted if you have a shitty preamp and/or a shitty room, and so on. To me "mojo" is much more interesting to listen to than high fidelity, which often turns into distracting snobbery. I think you should look for gear that inspires you, whatever it may be.
Utter nonsense. So many holes in this logic I don’t know where to start
@@threepe0 Please explain.
No