Cargo's Equipment

This week I've ordered in a few things for Cargo's new studio. Since he'll only be doing vocal tracking and not much live recording, ideally the only thing he really needs is a good mic.

AT2020
£59

The At2020 is a superb condensor microphone, definetly a must have for the novice studio. What sets it apart from its competitors is the amazing price tag being in the £50-60 range, and certainly no other mic in that price range comes close to the quality found with the At2020. This is my first time trying it and I am glad to say I definetly would recommend this to anyone.

I tried the At2020 with my outdated USB preamp, and suprisingly it matches the quality of the mic I've been using all this while, the Rode Nt1A, or dare I say it even better. Certainly if I had known this, I would've never bought the Rode mic which is twice as expensive as the At2020. So good job Cargo you'll have the perfect mic to work with! Here's a little quality test on the top track:

Bear in mind I did absolutely NO mixing at all for once. And the quality is suprsingly good. Imagine what compressing and eqing the vocals would make it sound like.

Behringer Ultragain Mic100
£33

Another item thats easy on the pocket. This here is a tube preamp. I've never actually tried these since I've only ever used USB preamps. But essentially they do the same thing, warm up the condensor mic so it gives a decent enough signal. It has an output socket at the back, which I'm guessing is for an XLR to 1/4 jack cable, so it can hook up to the mic line in. So Cargo try to find that. And an XLR to XLR as well for the input. I can't try this now since I only have one XLR cable.

E-mu 0404 PCI soundcard
£58
And for the piesta resistance, the E-mu 0404 soundcard. Not to be confused with my E-mu 0404 USB interface. This item I've always wanted to get but since I'm using a laptop its not much use. Using a laptop forces you to rely on USB equipment which generally speaking allows for much quality loss since it turns everything digital. The tube preamp for example, will produce a nice analog sound, and you wouldn't want to force that through a USB cable. Firewire maybe, but not a USB. Cargo on the other hand won't have to worry about that since this Pci soundcard uses RCA cables, which is better than the normal Mic line-in you find on normal soundcards. It also has midi ins and outs which would be ideal for instruments as I use for my Akai MPK49 keyboard.

So there you have it. Good and affordable equipment all around. Next investments should include studio headphones, monitors, and/or eq/compressors. And you'd be on your way to making tracks such as Youth in Brunei, Kampong Ayer blues, and Legco Smedgeco! On another note today I had cereal and spoilt milk which isn't that bad, it tastes like yoghurt.

Salam.