studioporn

thought i'd update everyone on the cool sexy gear i've been buying lately:

microphones

sennheiser 421. this thing is great on guitar amps. i like it a lot better than sm57s for this purpose--it has a smoother, warmer sound. it's also great on snare, although positioning it can be a bit awkward sometimes since it's a bit bigger than other commonly-used snare mics.

shure sm7b. rapidly becoming one of my favorite vocal mics. great for rock singers, great for taming harsh singers, great for taming singers with crazy dynamics. several times now i've put it up for a singer along with 3 other mics costing 2-4 times as much and it wins out by a pretty wide margin.

royer sf1. my first ribbon mic, this thing became my #1 choice for several things as soon as i heard it. it sounds INCREDIBLE on violin. absolutely amazing. it sounds pretty amazing on acoustic guitar too. i just went through a long period of being very depressed at the acoustic guitar recordings i was getting with my mics, and this thing was a complete godsend. on playback now i'm finally hearing guitars the way i want to be hearing them. i've been using it on vocals a bit, too. it wouldn't be one of my "go-to" mics, but it works amazingly well in the right context.

shure 520dx, aka green bullet, aka harmonica microphone. i have no idea when i might need to record harmonica, but i got this to use for a vocal track i was doing. it sounds horrible, distrorted, midrangy--I LOVE IT! it was perfect for giving just that right kind of lo-fi sound i needed. i've worked on a few songs in the past where i really wished i had one of these, so i'm glad i finally picked one up to have around. it's the kind of mic i'll probably only use a couple of times a year, but when i need it I REALLY NEED IT.

audio-technica atm450. bought a pair of these for a really great deal but haven't had a chance to try them out yet. i've heard from several people that they're really good as drum overheads and other general-purpose drum mics. i've been really unhappy with the sounds i've been getting from the mics i've been using as overheads, so i'm anxious to try these out.

outboard gear

aea the ribbon pre. ribbon mics and my sm7b are very low-put microphones and require gobs and gobs of gain (65dB or more). this pre has an ultra-minimalist signal path to help give really clean gain at those kinds of levels. i did my first recording with it on sunday and had the gain as high as 75-80dB sometimes, and this thing barely added any noise/hiss. the sound is pretty nice and uncolored and it seems like the highs aren't quite as hyped as on some of my other pres. i'll be playing around this unit more in the coming weeks

hear back headphone distribution system. i got this to replace my old furman distribution system. this system lets you send 8 signals digitally over cat5 to person headphone mixers where people can mix those 8 signals together however they want for their own headphones. mixers can also be mounted on mic stands, which makes it really convenient for singers to adjust levels in the middle of a take. i only have 2 mixers at the moment but i'll be picking up a few more in the next month or two.

computer stuff

universal audio uad-1 dsp card. i've been flirting with buying one of these for several years now, and now that i have one i'm kicking myself for having not purchased one like 3 years ago. this thing ROCKS. they've modelled a bunch of the universal audio hardware (1176, la2a, la3a, etc.) as well as other vintage and newer gear. the 1176 and la2a are my current go-to compressors and this thing has one of my all-time favorite reverbs. i've been using this so much i'm maxing out the card and will need to buy another one soon (you can have up to 4 uad-1 cards in one machine).