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Hey guys. So tonight, I did some sound checking for a new song that my band is going to track starting tomorrow.

I took one of our songs we already recorded, made a copy of the protools file, and did the new soundchecks on the copy file, so I could quickly toggle back and forth between our existing, recorded tone, and the new tones I was getting. Back to back

My old signal chain was a speaker cab with a Vintage 30, a SM57 and a Sennheiser e609 blended, straight into the built in preamps on my Mbox, into protools.

The new signal chain was the V30, but using a SM57 or my new SM7B, into a Presonus Eureka preamp, into protools.

First I compared the SM57 to the SM7b. Upon first listen, you can really tell that the SM7B picks up a wider range of frequencies than the SM57, in a much flatter manner. I don’t know how else to describe the difference other than the SM57, after many listens, almost starts to sound like a caricature of an electric guitar sound. Wierd, I know. But the SM7b picks up the spectrum across the board, and you can hear alot more high end detail in the chords. It’s a much less fuzzy sounding mic, that’s for sure.

Next, I ran the SM7b and the SM57, separately, thru the Presonus. Now, I fully realize that the Eureka isn’t a $2K world class all tube channel strip. That being said, the difference that I heard was immediately noticeable. The guitars sounded richer, more even, less sterile, but with much more top end detail. The individual notes in chords rang out much clearer.

I guess the moral of my story here, and to anyone like me who is struggling to get a good guitar tone by plugging a SM57 straight into an Mbox, would be that quality mics and preamps cost more money for a reason. They sound noticeably better. I’m glad I made the decision to upgrade, because I think that the guitar tones on my songs in the future will just plain sound BETTER.

That is all…

Just got back from GC about 15 minutes ago and thought I’d update all you cats on this amp. I’m REALLY impressed. This little beast has both 6V6 and EL84 amps that are blendable- not switching between them, but actually blending them to whatever ratio you like. Chimey and raucous at the same time!

The gain went from Keith Richards to Kirk Hammett and everywhere in between. The master was very usable. I didn’t find much use in the knob that goes from 1 to 20 watts. I get the concept, but I couldn’t really hear much difference other than the modest change in volume (maybe that’s the idea, I don’t know).

I remember calling up Fred at Divided by 13 and asking him if he could mod my JRT 9/15 to blend between the EL84 & 6V6 tubes rather than toggle between them. I know others had this idea as well (I think the now-discontinued Mesa Blue Angel amp supposedly did this).

Any way, for those of you who can, go down to your local GC and test this puppy out. I played it with a new Les Paul Traditional. Sounded really good. The EL84/6V6 blend was da bomb (at about 50%). Price is good considering the damn economy too.

I’m new to recording, pretty good with computers, don’t really need to do much. Will be recording guitar, both mic’d and direct, perhaps vocals, perhaps keyboards. Want to use software drums/loops/etc.

Comments on the Digidesign bundle of the MBox2 with ProTools LE 8? That is what Sweetwater recommends (probably around $375 with student discount). I know there are cheaper solutions, but I like the idea of the software & hardware being from one place, as that makes for one less finger to get pointed in another direction…

I am a bit intimidated by ProTools, but I don’t know any other SW anyway, so I may as well learn on that, I suppose. I assume you can use it for basic stuff rather easily????

Specific questions - what can you tell me about whatever drums are included with ProTools LE? The website is incredibly obtuse.

Also, does LE come with some sort of "Amp Farm" software, where I can play the guitar into the PC and use different amp models?

Thanks in advance for helping a noobie who, as you can tell from the questions, is clearly a noobie!!

Lavely