Time for some new mic preamps!

[GothicV]

I recently got a Focusrite Liquidmix and it made my life soooo much easier. Wicked sounding plugins, easy to use - between that and my Waves R-series I'm a happy man. So now I want better preamps.

Currently my setup is:

002r using the stock pres
Mindprint Envoice MK II
UA SOLO 610
UA Solo 110
Marshall JMP-1 guitar pre

Motu 2408 connected via firewire
2 Art Pro MPA's
1 Art Dual MP
Focusrite Trakmaster

Art DPS ii connected sp/dif

master clock is a Motu MTPAV

I was thinking my purchase would be a Focusrite ISA 828 and connect it to the motu 2408 - this would give me 8 great channels of audio, while leaving the 2408 in the system allowing me access to the other conversion options [I often record using a Roland VS unit and then use the 2408 as a lightpipe i/o to transfer my 8 tracks to protools for mixing without any re-patching].


Any other suggestions before I run out to the store? [2 weeks from now].

[MrJoshua]

I haven't used the 828, but it looks pretty similar to my 428, which I think is a great unit. So I think you'd be just fine with the 828.

If you want something with more variety, you could consider picking up the 428 with ADC card, then adding a few more channels of different preamps. The ADC card on the 428 has 8 line inputs, so you can use the four preamps on the unit plus add up to four more channels of outboard pres and send it all into your system via lightpipe. I do this a lot with drums - I put kick, snare, and overheads through the 428, and then for toms I use three channels from two FMR RNP units. Then I sometimes run a room mic through a Grace Design Model 101.

But if you really like the Focusrite preamps, then it looks like the 828 would be a good way to go.

[GothicV]

I was thinking that it could be my "board" pres, you know... the ones that get eaten up on things like toms and the like... and it also takes up the full 8 analogue inputs on the MOTU, and provides 4 instrument ins. And that leaves me a few spaces on the 002r itself to add some fancy "flavour" pres... and then I can take all the Art stuff and throw it in my mobile recording rig. And replace the art dps ii with something better in the sp/dif slot.