Quality Issue

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Chantry Frank

whats the best recording chain to have when workin with hip hop vocals?

There is no real answer to this question. One person might want stuff whispered into a large format condenser mic with pristine sound and some proximity effect, another may want the tension of somebody screaming into a harmonica mic. You need to make artistic choices you want and then use technical skills to do that/troubleshoot things. Folks here can help more on the latter. Generally with smaller budgets as I already said, I would skip outboard preamps and chanel strips and put the money into a better interface, and use plugins instead.

[groundcontrol]

What he said.

[Chantry Frank]

i was speakin of the pad on my presonus tube pre and thank you for all the other advice. so your saying id b better off upgrading from my mbox mini2 to a better interface? what interface would you suggest tht wouldn also break the bank?

[Chantry Frank]

thts exactly what i have and how i have my preamp connected to the mbox

[albee1952]

Originally Posted by Chantry Frank

thts exactly what i have and how i have my preamp connected to the mbox

Which? Mbox quarter inch input or xlr input?
I see in your screen shot that you are clipping the submix track

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Chantry Frank

i was speakin of the pad on my presonus tube pre and thank you for all the other advice. so your saying id b better off upgrading from my mbox mini2 to a better interface? what interface would you suggest that would also break the bank?

Great. OK so maybe more confirmation you may be overdriving the Mbox 2 inputs.

Yes I think you could do a lot better than an Mbox 2 Mini. And that DI/line input stuff they do is awful.


So a Mbox Mini + Studio channel would be like what $600-700 or so when new?

A UAD Apollo twin is around $900 and a huge amount more features and quality than any Mbox type interface, including nice UAD plugins and Unison mic emulation if that floats your boat.

MOTU also make a lot of different nice interfaces at lower and higher price points.

Whatever you get, get something with separate proper line-level inputs if you want to use your external channel strip (I would leave that on the shelf for now) or in future add high-end preamps etc.

A huge factor is how well the vendors provide driver ASIO support/updates. And I'd argue that UAD and MOTU do better than most there. Even though you have an Mbox 2 mini now, what exact inputs and outputs, hardware/direct monitoring, in box effects, monitor controls, headphone output(s) etc. you might want to upgrade to is hard to know. How much would you pay for lower latency etc. (for me that pushes me to some of the recent more expensive Thunderbolt interfaces, even on a PC, which may mean a PC upgrade as well). There is so much stuff here you need to start looking around at what features/specs interfaces have and see.

And I'm just saying what options are, you don't need to do any of this to solve your current problems, but they may make things easier to do and better sounding in future.

[Chantry Frank]

I apologize i ment i have xlr cables connecting my mic to preamp and preamp to mbox

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Chantry Frank

I apologize i ment i have xlr cables connecting my mic to preamp and preamp to mbox

Then you are going into the mic preamp on the Mbox 2. Bzzzzt. You need to use a 1/4" TRS into either of the input channels. And open up and read the Mbox 2 documentation.

[Chantry Frank]

Is there anything i can do to prevent clipping in the submix? N wuld u know y it doesnt clip in my master submix but clips in my aux supmix?

[Chantry Frank]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Then you are going into the mic preamp on the Mbox 2. Bzzzzt. You need to use a 1/4" TRS into either of the input channels. And open up and read the Mbox 2 documentation.

dam mayb thts whats wrong wit my quality... i had bought my mbox off the streets n unfortunetly it didn come wit a manual but ill luk it up online n go ovr it. thnk u 4 ur insight i hope thts what fixes my problem.