A Great, Affordable, Small Recording Set-up!

I know many of you out there are just starting out in the recording business. I am all about continuing to spread information from generation to generation. Someone took the time to teach me and I think it is my duty to continue to learn, and give the knowledge I gain to someone else. In this blog post I will give you some opinions on how to build a very affordable recording rig that is also able to capture great audio. To start with, interfaces, which one? I am particularly fond of the Digidesign 003 Rack+.

There are eight mic and line inputs, each able to engage phantom power. The pre amps are decent and smooth. Obviously you can do better, I run a Neve Portico 5012 myself, but you could do a lot worse. Now, there are two channels of SPDIF and eight channels of ADAT input available to the 003, this means we can use another interface with equally decent pres to increase your inputs to 16 or 18 with SPDIF. This is more than enough to track a small band of power three piece. So I found out that it is not recommended to stack two 003s to achieve this, so I started looking for affordable choices.

I stumbled across the Focusrite Octopre MKII. The Octopre LE preamps offer 5dB lower gain, they are capable of 96kHz audio and there is an ADAT i/o. On the higher priced Octopre MkII Dynamic, you will have all the functionality you’d see on an ADAT expander. As well as a compressor-limiter on each channel, you get both ADAT in and out (again at 24-bit, 96kHz). I also talked to other colleagues that said they and people they know have used the Octopre to add eight channels to their home rig. In the Dynamic version of the MkII you get a compressor-limiter on each channel. So what I do is hook up my 003 Rack+ to my Apple Mac Book Pro. I run all of my sessions off of an Avastor HDX 500GB hard drive and leave the processing up to the CPU. I have two channels of Neve pres and if I need more pres I have the 003 and Octopre to turn to. The Octopre is connected to the 003 via ADAT light pipe and the 003 is the master device when clocking. This gives me sixteen channels of i/o and two high quality preamps along with sixteen decent pres. I have a variety of mics to choose from, but honestly one of my go to mics is the AT 2050. I bought and made my own XLR cable and ¼” cable and I was able to do it at a fraction of the cost of buying pre-made cable. The Octopre MkII Dynamic is $699.99 and the 003 Rack+ is being phased out, but you can get the Complete Rack in the plus version for about $1750.00. The Portico 5012 is about $1725.00 and a great starter mic pack that includes two Sampson C-12 pencil condensers, the AT2020, and the e-609 for $399.99. So, for about $4575.00 you can have a very mobile, very decent recording rig that is capable of recording anything from stand-up comedy to bands to voice-overs. I have used this rig for years with much success and I didn’t invest near that dealing with Sweetwater. They have worked with me on every purchase to help get closer to the numbers I have in my budget. I can’t say what they will do for you, but I lucked up and got a good friend on the inside and he treats me very well. This is just one option, but this is a great bridge between affordability and quality. It is a good medium. If you have more in your budget I would suggest going a different way. I hope you enjoyed the blog this time and learned something from it. Check out the links to see some of the gear I found and make your own mind up about it. Until next time…


http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/5012DuoMicH
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar10/articles/focusriteoctopremkII.htm
http://www.focusrite.com/products/saffire/octopre_mkii_dynamic/