Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

This is what I'm hopeful to invest in over the course of the next two years, probably in this order. Does anyone have experience using any of these products? I've used the 1641 and SM57 before, but don't know much on the others. I understand that much of this is entry-level gear, but that's what I'm looking at now. All of the below are links to images btw. Thanks in advance.

Tascam US-1641 w/ Cubase LE DAW

Shure SM57

CAD 4-piece drum mic kit

Fostex PM0.4W Studio Monitors

Acoustic B200H Bass half stack (200 Watts, solid state)

Right now, that'll all cost me roughly $1500

My contention is to buy the best you can possibly afford up front.
It wont cost you to upgrade. And you suffer less depreciation on your gear if you must upgrade.

Should have followed my own advice.

I have an SM57. It's the industry standard for a guitar mike (often used in conjunction with some kind of condenser mike to get the lower bass notes).

I've used mine to record with; really like it. Now I use it to mike my guitar cab for gigs.

I don't think you can go wrong with the SM57.

I know about the SM57 well. We use them like every day in the studio at school. I was looking more for opinions on things like the monitors, the drum mics (especially the kick mic), Cubase, and that bass amp. The only industry-standard DAW I've really used in a big way is Pro Tools, but I don't want to have to buy specific gear for it. I was hopeful that Cubase was an effective alternative.

And yeah, I understand about that whole upgrade thing, but through research and budgeting myself to a reasonable amount, that's what I came up with in the end. From what I understand, all of it can do a pretty awesome job of recording a full band, and mixing shouldn't be a problem with what I've read about Cubase.

Check out the Carvin website my friend. Look at the specs on their gear.
You can take a virtual tour of the factory. You can listen to examples of their equipment being used.
And price wise, because there is no middle man marking you up %30.
I think you can get a good package deal on the stuff you need.
We have been abusing ours for several years now. And I always get positive comments from other musicians who hear and or use our equipment.
The drum mic set has been a solid performer for us. As has my PA system.

Hmm, I think I'll take being able to have one more more mic on the set from CAD. Carvin's set that's in my price range has fewer mics, and the TSM411 has tons of appraisal as a good snare/tom mic, though I may have to replace the kick mic eventually. I guess no one around has used any of this gear?

http://forum.recordingreview.com/f8/tas ... view-5305/

I have limited experience with all but the Carvin mic's.
To be honest I cannot tell the difference in their top of the line mic and the Shure Ray is using now.
All I have on my drummer now is the two condensors left and right over head and the kick.
One of my tom mics is in service in front of my guitar amp.
The rest are ready and waiting.

http://forum.recordingreview.com/f8/tascam-us-1641-usb-2-0-audio-interface-review-5305/

Sweet, thanks for that. Hmm, I think the only thing I don't like is that Phantom can only be switched from two places rather than from each individual channel, but that's probably due to the cost, and I can definitely work around that. I don't think I'll be using all 8 channels at a time anyway. That was really informative.

I personally would reconsider the Tascam. Unless it does something specific that you want to use it for.

This is what I use dude:

http://xrl.us/betyjf

Comes with Cubase LE. Does pretty much everything I need it to do. Could save you half the cash you're looking at. I love this thing. Works great.

I used it on the song Check Your Behavior in my profile. Take a listen.

Unfortunately I need more than four XLR ins, and that board uses USB 1.1 and not 2.0. I could probably make it work, since it looks like a solid little console, but I'd rather have the greater amount of inputs for more drum mics. I know I'm going to be using at least five when I do, and it may be six in the long run.

I tried out the Acoustic B200H stack with the 1x15" cab and with a 4x10" cab when I was shopping for a bass amp recently. I liked it ok. If you're not doing anything where you need super clarity, I say go for it. The cabs and amp are tuned to be mid-heavy, and this can cause the bass to be a little muddy.

Keep in mind, the 1x15 cab and 4x10 cab are both 8ohm, so you're really only going to be getting about 125w out of the head, as it pushes 200w at 4 ohms. Don't expect it to be very loud, but you can mic it or run into the house with the XLR out on the head. If you're going to get this stack, I would recommend getting it with the 4x10 cab if you can -- I personally prefer 10's over 15's for bass whenever possible.

I ended up buying an Ampeg BA115HP with 220w, a 15" woofer (yes, hypocritical, but the model with 2x10's was out of my budget), and a 1" compression horn. Hope this helps.