On Saturday, March 27, 2021 at 12:49:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Dorsey wrote:
It is "Plan B" in Suffern, NY. I have never been there. Our plan was to
check it out after the AES show last year, except that... events changed.
I think he has the right idea. Club owners are the only people that make
money off of live music...
--scott
True that. I can attest that there have been a few times I break even on my very-semi-regular Wed night jazz gig.. but not usually. It's still a joy.... great players, great vibe, and the place treats us great. Looking forward to it starting back up again when the world calms down. Here's hoping.
On Saturday, March 27, 2021 at 12:49:13 PM UTC-4, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Buy a used RME ADI-8. The thing is really very surprisingly good. You
won't have to worry about the shortage of AKM parts that is holding up
a lot of new converters. It's not fashionable because it doesn't go above
48 ksamp/sec.
Right now you have two channels of good preamp. Use whatever money you
have left to buy some Millennia HV-3 preamps. Again, they can be found
used, and 20-year-old ones are just as good as new ones. They are all
excellent.
Get standalone preamps and standalone converters and so when you want to
upgrade them LATER, you can do it a piece at a time. Don't get an all-in-one
box, if only because you'll have to upgrade it all at once.
Your budget will get you an ADI-8 and two channels of HV-3, which gives you
four microphone channels total. You can add on to that later.
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
Too late for right now, but will definitely keep that equipment in mind for the future. I ended up with an 18i20 (reference my previous comment about ME probably being the weakest link right now) which I'll be getting to know and putting it through its paces for the next couple days. Still, I DO appreciate the thoughts. A couple questions, though, Scott, for the future....
The ADI-8 looks like a great, flexible eight channel converter.. but not an interface if I'm reading the literature correctly. I'd still need to a way to get its outputs into my computer. ADAT out into the Focusrite, clocked by the ADI-8? Would the 18i20 pass the signals without any conversion or manipulation, taking advantage of the ADI-8's quality? I'm unsure how to use the ADI-8 with my setup. Is its intended use to feed a digital eight track recorder, and then mix that using hardware (a board) or using whatever interface the recorder has to get the tracks into a DAW?
The HV-3 pres look great, too. Finding two channels of them and an ADI-8, both used, for under $2k seems to be a pretty tough challenge.
Your advice is great, as always, and so was Mike's. I think for my budget and skill level the 18i20 was the right choice.... cheap, gives me what I was looking for (better, albeit not state of the art, mic pres, more inputs/channels, potentially better A/D, and a USB interface for easy portability in one box) for a price that will still permit me to continue to explore better, more specific gear in the near future..... for instance, if you know of or have some HV-3 pres for sale in good shape...
...
Thanks, Scott. Good to hear back from you, and glad you're still around, too. I miss Hank... is he still out there somewhere?
Barry