Hey all. Looks like I have a wind fall coming. Going to be upgrading my studio in the new year. I've spent a ton of time researching the items that I'm going to be purchasing. One item that I can't decide on is my audio interface. First let me explain my situation. I only record the trio that I'm in. We write and record our own material, Folk/Country. We record acoustic guitars, banjo, flute, harmonica, electric guitars (direct, no amps), percussion, if we use drums on a tune, I use EZ drummer, vocals, and bass (direct).    I haven't upgraded my set up for about 4 or 5 years. I'm totally replacing what I have now, and I have a pretty sweet budget. 30,000.00.
Here's what I have on my list thus far, but can't decide on my audio interface. Was looking at the apollo quad, and the fireface ufx. 

The rackmount pro rack from studiocat  
Matched Pair of Neumann KM183 primarily for acoustic guitars, banjo
Blue Microphones Kiwi Vocals
LA-610 pre/comp
LA2A comp 
1176 pre 
API The Channel Strip pre/comp/eq 
Shure sm7 
Neumann TLM 49 
sE Electronics Reflexion Filter 
Avid Eleven Rack (guitar effects)
Avid Eleven Rack Expansion Pack 
Avid eleven rack Expression Pedal 
Yamaha HS80M studio monitors 

Fostex TP50 headphones
I'm going to keep my current headphone amp.
Studiocat offers both the apollo and fireface so they must have great drivers.
Thanks guys..

Would you adopt me?

Others with better knowledge will be posting with many good suggestions.

Bob Bone

A couple of things stick out. 

The Apollo looks good and I've got a friend who has replaced a lot of outboard w/ UAD effects. In his line of work the difference in quality wasn't worth the time to reset all the hardware when labels wanted "a little change."  Plus the fact he had 60 little heaters going in the Texas heat! You have likely heard his work or mixes on the radio or in the movie theaters.  With your budget I would think about picking up a used UAD 2192 for overdubs and montitoring.  They can be had for less than $2000 and should work well w/ the folk/country styles (hell, sounds good on any style with a deep rich transformer sound - a perfect balance for the clean, transfomerless Apollo).  They are cheap right now since they are being replaced by Burls (he designed the 2192).

Speaking of monitoring, I'd definately upgrade the HS80s.  At least the MPS 7s or something else more honest.  You won't be able to take the most advantage of all the other great the stuff you are using if you can't hear the details.

And some treatment for the room if you don't have it already.  Good for vocals, and I'm sure you'll do some other acoustic recordings where that will help - even electric guitar.  Amp Sims are getting good, but sometimes recording good ole air will be the necessary final touch for a song and make all the sims seem more real.

Another thing to consider is a good ribbon mike if you don't have one, esp. for the retro sound (or just another flavor for a change up).  You don't need to go hog wild, but a Beyer Dynamic 160 or the R101 run about $700.  Great mikes for the locker.
Finally, a touchscreen montior if you are doing your own mixing.  I'm looking at the new dell one - $650 for a 23 incher (or so) but the stand folds down flat.  I'll probably wait until prices drop w/ offshoots but it looks perfect for editing etc.

Have fun - it would be hard not to w/ so many new toys to play w/.

@

Hi liv4ree

+1 to what AT said in general. 
Some additional points:
I'm guessing you mean KM184's (not 183). Pretty standard, but may be worth it to poke at Gefells or some such. I know lots of folks (including me) who aren't terribly fond of the 184's (I like my Gefells way better than my 184's)

The 1176 is a compressor, not a pre. It's a studio standard and I love mine, but keep in mind you cannot use it as a pre....well...you can, but it may not be great.

API makes good gear, but if it was me I'd look at a 500 series rack instead of the Channel Strip. You can get a 10 slot rack and load it with the same API modules you get in the Channel Strip for about the same money, but then still have slots left over to populate down the road.

I'd really look at other monitors....Focal, Genelec, upper-end JBL's etc. Remember that your near fields are an item that you'll use every single time you use the studio...probably a good place to spend a little money and leave the KRK's and M-Audio's and such to others.

Along those lines, if you don't already have a treated room that'd be the first place I'd look. It's not as sexy as electronics, but IMHO it's the one commonality in your studio...that is, everything you do is affected by your room.

For interfaces, I don't know a bunch about the RME stuff, but in general you may want to start looking at separate interface, conversion and pre's. In my case that's a Lynx AES16e, Lynx Aurora 16 and then a bunch of discrete mic pres, but there are a bunch of options out there (including RME). I do continually hear good things about RME, but I've loved my Lynx gear and you see those a ton as well.

Oh, and you may want to look at a nice 2bus comp...SSL or API or whatnot. I know some folks love software for that, but it'd take a lot for me to get rid of my SSL bus comp.

Sound like a fun project BTW!

Good luck
Dean

I love my HS80s, but if you have the money, maybe get a "B" pair. Just go to a store, with music you think is well done and see if it sounds correct and balanced to YOUR ears. The HS80s sounded more flat than other, more fashionable brands to me after extensive tests.

The room treatment is also very important. I wouldn't go crazy though (because who listens to music in a "perfect" room?).

http://fractalaudio.com/p...reamp-fx-processor.php   - I heard this was AWESOME!

Basically, if you have the time, go try everything out!

Your list is weak on pre-amps and mics.

Audio interface I would suggest a company that ONLY makes the interface, the UAD stuff gets a little less quality because they try to do so much...I'd check out a Mohog 1176 instead of the UA 1176 (Brandon is a big Cakewalk user by the way, his stuff is currently being used by major Grammy engineers), cheaper and better sounding with less noise...he is also making a new Neve pre-amp so a boutique shop where the owner also does the service might make life a little easier.

For an interfaceI really like the Lynx stuff, and have used the UAD, Prism and Apogee all...for the price Lynx in my opinion is doing the best bang for the buck right now...once you reach a certain price point the quality of the converters is not quite the issue it is lower down the food chain. Lynx has a lot of options in terms of cards/or rackmount and they are really good on customer support.

I currently do not like the 500 series rack approach, and my reasoning is this: when you go to a smaller footprint to make a 500 series card, you DO have to eliminate some of the stuff you get in a normal channel strip...a 1RU rack case has more room to get the transformers and psu AWAY from the input/output connections...all in all a lot of the companies do a pretty good job here, but we moved away from the 500 racks several years ago when we noticed our API 500 was noisier than the channel strip...supposed to be the exact same circuit, but it definitely sounded different...we may have thrown the baby out with the bath water on that one, but it was the only feasible explanation we could find.

Of course depending on how pristine and what you are recording, your mileage may vary.

I would check out Cathedral Pipes a a really great boutique mic shop, Chuck is top notch and builds a very good quality product, and nice eye candy mics as well...you'd be amazed at how much better your tracking performance can be when the eye candy is there.

Hi PSB,
Hunh...those Cathedral Pipes mics are sexy. Dammit...must...resist...G.A.S.

Oh, and to the O.P., Psychobillybob is totally, unequivocally wrong when it comes to the 500 series stuff! And not as just a matter of opinion...factually, empirically, demonstrably and maliciously wrong. So wrong, in fact, that it may actually make him a bad person.





I kid of course. There's lots of different takes on this stuff. Read up and try out what you can before buying. I've only used the 500 series API stuff and not the Channel Strip so his experience may very well be universal. For me I really like the API 500 stuff, as well as the Great River 500 series stuff and I'm not a fan of channel strips in general, hence my preference. Certainly there are folks who don't like the 500 series stuff and probably have reasonable rationales for that preference. Try it out and see what you like.


Oh, and PSB, between the Mohog stuff and now these mic's you're going to have me in bankruptcy :)


Dean

Sorry Dean, but this is why I joined Prodigy DIY so I could afford to build this stuff..

Wow.. Allot of suggestions. Thanks guys... I'll rethink a few items, Monitors, the api channel strip. I hadn't thought about a ribbon mic.
You guys have given me a ton to look at...

Ditch the eleven rack and get yourself an Axe FX II, it is hands down the best investment I have made in the studio. Im now using it as my interface and am selling my Lavry and RME stuff. You wont be dissapointed.

Also Steven Slate Drums 4 with the new CLA Artist pack is a must have