Anyways, I need to get a mic recorded nice and clean and into my PC stat so I'm weighing out all kinds of options, with the future in mind as well. I thought about buying an entry level mixer, but I did a whole bunch more research and I've roughly decided that my first purchase will be a stereo mic pre-amp so that I can suitably amplify mic signals in a desirable way, with preamps of a much superior quality to those available in an entry level mixer.
ART TPSII tube preamp - $179USD (although I found a new one on ebay for lots cheaper)
Then, while I have a mic, I would like a better one for recording, so I did a bunch of research and was originally considering a large diaphram condensor, but I've ready that they tend to pick up ambient noise really really badly and I'm recording in a noisy basement with my singer pushed into a closet full of close. So I did some more reading and found that the Sure SM57 is supposed to be a superior mic for all kinds of purposes and it tends to reject alot of sound coming from the rear. Apparently these mics are famously capable all rounders.
Sure SM57 - $99USD
Any thoughts? I'll be using likely the RCA outputs of the mic pre-amp into the RCA input of my soundcard. I know this will add a small ammount of noise, but i"ve recorded mixes through those inputs and they sound alright - relatively clean. I'll be looking at something like the tascam firewire rackmount FW1814 probably after this, so I can get balanced mic signals into my PC, and then also have balanced outputs to my monitor as my soundcard hisses like a bitch when it switches to ASIO.
Possibly it would be smarter to get a dedicated AD/DA circuit which would likely give me better quality conversion than a soundcard. I don't need all those inputs and outputs. Then I can still continue to use my crap quality soundcard while aqquiring better and better quality recordings.
