i have to reckon that my post was a bit exagerated and provocative. still i know a lot of people who have good hardware but still can't achieve good sound quality. when i get bad sound quality, i only have to blame myself and not my behringer - or any other cheapo brand- gear.

my 70s 2x12 marshall tube combo produces a lot of noise, so technically its far from perfect. so does my 72 strat. also got a very unstable korg stage echo (80's tape delay). but for nothing i would trade these for modern gear. imho sound quality should always be defined from an artistic point of view and not from the technical one.

when you know about the stone age like hardware they used 30 years ago and hear what wonders they were able to produce, it makes me think twice before getting the latest gear.

use a good microphone, set it up at the right spot, apply the right processing. all the rest is secondary. one should really try to master these skills to achieve good quality.

off topic : eventually, i found out it's also very important in order to make a good take that the singer/musician feels absolutely comfortable : he must perfectly hear what he's doing (with pleasant processing already) and the backing. also i always get coffee, drinks and food for the session

do you know other tips to have the performer feel comfortable ?

my preamp is a behringer. microphone are behringer and t-bone. my board is a mackie. i usually set up like this : mikes -> mackie thru alt 3-4 -> behringer -> mackie thru insert-> delta card. it does introduces some noise but it helps a lot with monitoring and eq. i used to go straight from mike to preamp to the computer but i couldn't use more than 2 mikes with phantom power this way. i'm absolutely happy with the sound quality and my next purchase will probably be the behringer midi controller (hey it has motorised faders and costs less than 250 bucks !!!) for controlling cubase. too bad it doesnt feature a jog shuttle


why buy one expensive limited piece of gear (a simple preamp) when you can get a full featured analog channel processing suite (eq+compressor), for example from behringer ?

i suggest that you get a compressor or even better an EQ + compressor as a preamp. processing the dynamics before getting into the computer , now THAT will help a lot with sound quality ! since the gain/gain reduction is applied in analog domain, you get a lot less aliasing and digital noise, and get the most out of your card's analog to digital converters.

I do understand what you mean, because I also have some older equipment that I will not give up for digital.

but, as far as SIGNAL is concerned, I prefer to have a clean signal in, and I do not eq during recording, cause you can not undo it.

I did buy a Rane preamp like I said, and I am pretty happy with the sound! I then compress the signal while recording.

I did not mean to slam your mackie board like I did, I was a little harsh... What you said had plenty of merit, just not the route I (at least I dont think) I want to go just yet.

The microphone I bought just was not very satisfying through my berringer cheapo board, but as soon as I hooked it up the rane and the compressor, it cam alive! I can not go back...

I've taken a back seat on this thread but thought I'd throw in some extra fuel at this stage.

Though this resource is not completely related it does have a general bearing on sound quality which has not been mentioned:

http://www.audiocourses.com/article50.html
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Recording Studio Suntans

I really like that audiocourses site, are you affiliated?