My small set up - What else do i need

For discussion about setting up your studio and advice on the gear and equipment within it.
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Byyambomail Fri Jan 10, 2003 8:14 pm
Whut up peeps! This is my setup....... I have a MPC 2000XL, MK3 sound card runnin on on a Blue and White G3, Proteus 1000, Roland A37, Behringer mixer, and I am using Cubase 5.

My question is How do I make my music sound as close to whats out there with the majors? Is it possible to do that with the equipment I have? Does it all boil down to the mix and mastering? What else would I need (software or hardware) to accomplish this. I am new to this so, any tips and suggestions would be greatly appriciated! Thank you!
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By EdwardSakamura Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:20 pm
you have more then enough, think about this, pete rock uses ONLY an mpc 2000xl, and thats it, so if u like any of his stuff its all mpc.[/color]

Byyambomail Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:38 pm
Good lookin' Edward....Good to know that... just thought in the end I would need some type of compression.....I was wondering if recording digitally into my computer, I can come out with a good quality cd made from home? I know pete rock lays everything on 2 inch, but can you make digital sound come close to that 2 inch warm feeling?[/color]

By KoolSha78 Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:58 pm
Run your initial signal through some sort of tube preamp, the Joe Meek VCQ1 and HHB Fatman are reasonable options.

And yes, alot of it does boil down to mixing and mastering.[/color]

Byyambomail Sat Jan 11, 2003 7:23 am
Thank you KoolSha78.....I will check it out![/color]

By triton&on Sun Jan 12, 2003 10:19 pm
In my experience (I do A&R at a major & work with a lot of A level dudes) mastering is only about 10% of the  total eqaution.  Depending on the producer, tracks come out of tracking in various states, but mostly rough mixes sound pretty good. Few people are transfering  from pro tools to 2 inch tape for mixing (tim and bob do for sure) but most stuff gets dumped into pro tools and mixed out of pro tools (on ssl or neve console, mostly ssl j series / k series).  A lot of producers like to use neve pre amps etc when tracking to warm up the stuff going to hard disc but most of this happens at mix.
Unless your basic tracked sounds are ####, then mixing takes things up a huge leap (like from 50 to 95% of the  final quality). Mix engineers use a whole arsenal of vintage compressors, pre amps etc. to fatten and warm stuff up....printing the mix to 1/2" tape is crucial as DAT's don't compare.
The top mastering guys  look to balance out levels and iron out massive eq differences between songs, messing with overal eq as little as possible.  They can't polish a turd![/color]
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