Lookie What I Bought

[Peter]

I ordered this yesterday from Sweetwater, it should be arriving tomorrow or friday :D VERY COOL. So I'll finally actually be able to use my vocal mic (since there's a stupid defeciency in my laptop that won't let me use my MBox 2s phantom power).

http://presonus.com/bluetubedp.html

[Peter]

studio projects b1. nothing fancy, but it'll get the job done. Eventually I'd love to pony up and buy a TLM103. :heart: Neumann mics!

My signal chain (for now) will be B1 or SM57 > BlueTube > dbx266 dual compressor > MBox 2

:D

[Six Ways]

Do you recommend the B1? I've asked before, but with more experience with it now perhaps you can give me more info? Possibly looking to get one in the near-ish future.

[Peter]

I haven't gotten to use it yet because of an issue with my laptop...my USB ports don't provide enough power to the Mbox 2 and as such, when I turn the phantom power of the MBox on, the 48 volts that phantom power uses causes the MBox to crash and be inoperable...hence the dual channel mic pre I bought :)

as soon as I get the pre and use the mic a bit, I'll let you know how it is. The B1 comes to me highly recommended by others which is why I bought it and recommend it.

[Fab]

That sounds like a bit of a design flaw. I know Luke's Lexicon has a standard wall plug thing and copes with phantom power just fine.

[Six Ways]

Yeah, but the MBox doesn't have a wallwart does it? It has to draw its power though the USB port I think. So yeah, design flaw to not give the option.

[Peter]

No, the MBox does not have a wall wart, it is entirely USB powered. This particular flaw ONLY applies to a few apple laptops, not all of them. Mine just happens to be one of the special few that were built two years ago and contain this flaw. There's a thread about it on the DigiDesign User Forum at their website. The workaround is to buy a powered USB Hub and plug the MBox into that and it will draw power from the Hubs wall wart, but I decided to just buy an outboard pre because the pres in the MBox two don't have the most amazing amount of gain in the world (about 52 dB of gain...)

[Peter]

I just realized that I'm a moron. I knew the inputs and outputs I had to deal with in all this gear, and still failed to realize that I need to build two XLR > TRS cables.

So I have my preamp and I can't use it until I go to Guitar Center and buy some raw cable and connectors. I'm dumb.

[Crono]

ok peter, not trying to be hostile at all i promise, but i absolutely have to ask:

...do you still live above a studio?

[Peter]

no. I haven't lived above a studio since I left Seattle. That was my final apartment in Seattle, and I lived there for 10 months. I literally walked down to the first floor, unlocked a door on the right and was in the hallway outside the control room. It was both a blessing and a curse because I could be awoken at 6 AM after a long night of drinking only to find out that I had to run the morning sessions because the scheduled engineer called in sick because he was out all night drinking. As if I was better off!

Regardless, it was a lot of fun. But now...now I live above some fat guy whose name I don't know but who has TERRIFIC cooking smells on the weekends!

[Trickster]

I live in my own home studio, but it's not quite the same. :(

[Peter]

I'm the same way now...my living room is for living, my dining room is for recording...basically.

[i]

so where do you dine?

[Peter]

obviously, in the bathroom.

[i]

Then where do you bathe?!

[Peter]

I just sponge myself off at the kitchen sink.