Pro Audio Equipment Reviews

How do you get professional sound if you're just beginning or have a very limited budget to buy pro audio equipment for recording yourself? It's always tough when you have a limited budget, but you can still be creative and come out with some great quality recordings.

It's not going to be easy. You're not going to come up with that next great idea on demand, but it will happen if you experiment and keep your mind open.

If you have a limited budget here's what I recommend:

The software side should be free for the time being at least & spend money on hardware
There are a good number of free software and plugins. There are also free VSTi's and DXi's as well. These are software instruments and if you search for them you'll find them. More on that in a minute.

Depending on your budget, You'll want to get an interface first. The one I use is Protools Digi 003, but that may be out of your price range for now. There are some fairly inexpensive ones, but the important thing to remember with an interface is this:

The number of inputs and outputs increase the price the more you add

So it's very important that you know how many people will be recording with you at one time. And not get any more than that. If you have a drummer, a bass player, a guitar player and a singer, you're looking at six inputs at least, but you might need to go with eight.

If you're going at it solo, you may want to get a two input interface, because you will most likely be layering while you're recording and not need more that one or two inputs at any one time.

M Audio has some great interfaces as well as Line 6. I really like Line 6 products.

Microphones play a huge part in your recordings. I say it's the second most important. First being your ears. And third being your mic preamps.

You may or may not know the difference between these types of mics but you do need both while you record. The more you record, the more professional you sound. And your taste will go in all kinds of directions because you'll be learning what sounds good to you.

As far as condenser mics, there are a lot to choose from as well as many many price ranges. You can go with a fairly inexpensive microphone like the Shure PG42 condenser microphone. That's a really nice multi purpose mic. And it's very modern, having a USB input.

Eventually, you'll want to go with a pair of small diaphragm mics as well as large, but you don't need them right away. It's always important to keep adding to your gear, because once you've learned how to get the most out of a new piece of gear, you'll want to quickly move on to something else as your budget allows.

Although the quality of preamps are subjective, you will develop an ear for them once you've used a few of them. Some of them, you will prefer over others. The main thing they are supposed to do is amplify, but they all add something to the signal.

It can be good or bad based on your opinion. I myself prefer tube mic pre's because they sound warm and full sounding. I'm sure you've heard home recordings of someones voice and the voice is very weak compared to a professional recording of a singer. There are techniques to making a signal fuller and thicker. The preamp is a big part in that.

You can pick up a really nice tube mic-pre at ebay. My first one and one I still use is the ART Tube MP Professional Mic Preamp/Processor, you can get that one at musicians friend for under 50 dollars and it's an awesome preamp to start on.

It has a personality of it's own. That's one of the reasons I like it. And it's highly portable, so I carry it around with me on in my laptop case.

Ok, back to the software. Here is a list of free software that I've tried and liked quite a bit:

Recording & Editing Software
You can't have a section on recording and editing software and not list Audacity. It was one of the first open source software packages.

Ardour is another one. It's more robust than Audacity and you can do more things with it. You should download both of these at least and look for more. Because there are a lot more if you get to looking around online for them.

Free Plugins
If you can actually believe this, there are plugins that you can download online that are completely free, and sound even better than those that cost hundreds of dollars.

You might not believe that, but if you're looking for the least expensive system, the free plugins are where you need to start. Even if you have a huge budget, you still need to check them out. There are as many categories of free plugins as there are for paid ones.

Reverbs, EQ's, Compressors, Limitors, Delays, you name it, you can find  a free plugin for it. Here are some pages that have free plugins:

Pro Audio Blog's "Software I Like" page
Audio Mastermind

These are just a couple, but here's where the real quest begins:
Google for free vst plugins


VSTi's Virtual Instruments
This is a really exciting field. I love finding the gems that take my music to the next level. Here's a few of them starting with my all time favorite.

Synth 1 - This little beauty is patterend after the Nord Lead 2. Yes you heard that right. This little thing is awesome. It's made by a Japanese developer and it's kind of hard to find the link to it on the page, but it's 100 times worth the trouble.

Here's another blog of a developer of some really great ones.

This little resource should get you well on you way to putting out quality recordings. Just always remember the most important thing is to keep learning. Learn at least one thing about recording everyday.