I apologize if this question has been invariably asked time and time again, but I'm genuinely hoping for some actionable guidance.

I'm recording stuff that is ZZ-Top "eliminator" inspired, with a VERY simple setup.

For drum machine: a Yamaha RX-11
Various guitars into a 4w Vox amp mic'd with an SM-57
For bass I have a cheap Ibanez IMB100 that I'm DI'ing into an MXR M80
Blue Baby Bottle mic for vocals

Generally I'm running this right into the Focusrite but I also have an Onyx 1220i mixer. (Side question - Is there any advantage to EQ'ing using the Onyx , while I'm tracking, versus EQ'ing within Logic after the fact?).

My question is...say you had a couple grand to spend on improving this setup. What would you purchase and why. Rack gear? Pre-amps?

I'm mainly concerned with getting the fattest possible drum sounds and improving the quality of the bass as well. I'm pretty good with just the SM57 on the electric guitars.

OR, suppose that I'm sending this to a professional recording engineer/producer to mix and master, does it even matter that much? Or would he be able to address all of these things with the tracks I have already recorded? How much am I losing by not having all the fancy gear being used at the time of tracking versus having an engineer come in after the fact to spruce things up?

Humbly submitted as always.

While some people will insist that high end micpreamps are life changing in reality the differences between any decent interface micpreamp and the even the big boys are actually pretty subtle unless you are intentionally pushing them hard to intentionally make distortion (anywhere from a touch to a ton of it)

There are tons of options for micpre's from a few hundred dollars to thousands if you want to open this Pandora's Box.

As to your bass sound, like all recorded audio the original sound is the number one thing that affects the final sound, eq and compression also being majors of course but even they can only do so much with the original sound if it isn't good and to your liking.

The M80 is a decent unit but the quality of your clean bass sound is going to mostly come down to your playing with the gear itself having less affect really unless of course distortion is what you are after and that can sound very different with different gear.

For your guitar sound the various incarnations of the AC4 are all pretty decent little amps but if you have one of the ones with the 8" speaker in my opinion getting a nice external cab with a quality 12" speaker would be good upgrade.

An SM57 is absolutely fine and can get great sounds provided great sounds are actually coming out of the amp. You could get a ribbon mic which will sound different but isn't going to be a magic bullet over the 57. A close mic on a guitar speaker is going to come down to personal taste and how you like to work really.



If you aren't getting really decent solid sounds with the gear you already own then upgrading gear isn't going to help.

Realize that moving ahead from what you have now isn't going to be some huge leap forward even if you drop a couple thousand dollars on gear. It's subtle stuff but sometimes the subtle stuff can matter.

plus:
• you get to hear the EQ sound as you play - possibly affecting your performance
• you get to commit. Received wisdom here at GS is that committing is "good", though there are caveats.

minus:
• despite what you often read here, hardware processing is not automatically better-sounding than software processing. Your Onyx mixer will have fewer bands and be noisier than a software EQ. And not being a Neve 1073, will probably lack the coveted 'Mojo' anyway.
• before committing can be "good" for you, you will need to learn what to commit to. You have to learn what it is you are "going to need" as opposed t what sounds cool to you at the beginning. I recommend starting out recording flat - or as flat as you can stand it. Once you learn what works, you can start committing to that if you want. Also, if you are sending it out, most mix engineers would like to have some "leeway" - i.e. well-recorded but not overly processed.

Personally I believe a less-processed sound often forces us to fix problems musically instead of technically. For example: If you track the bass with compression, it smooths it out. But then it is harder to notice problems and mistakes in the playing. The smoothness is a false sense of security. If the bass is "raw", you hear the performance issues more readily, and you punch them in or play your part again with more attention to detail. Then when you put some compression on it (in the mix) it sounds great.

you aren't going to like this, but the main expenditure I recommend is that you should treat your room. It will make a real difference on your vocals and maybe make it possible to add room mics to your guitar parts. It will also make what you hear coming out of your studio monitors much more reliable. It won't cost you a ton. If you are handy with carpentry, you can even DIY. There are plans an YouTubes galore. If you don't care about cosmetics, you can literally sew rockwool into bags made out of bedsheets. Hot glue if you can't sew.

As for rack stuff, preamps, compressors, mics, I say wait.
Save your money. Wait and see what you are dissatisfied with. As I am sure you are aware, hard times are coming. You may need that money to buy food.

Instead of trying to process your drum machine into sounding "fat", maybe one of the 100's of sounds in a drum software like Toontrack or Slate is already "fat". Also, compared to squinting at the little display on the drum machine, programming your drums inside Logic will probably be easier as well. For one thing, drum software in the DAW will be lined up with Logic's grid. The bridge will start at "measure 36", not at "2 minutes and 12 seconds".
I would record the Bass DI but also record an amp at the same time. It doesn't even have to be a bass amp. The DI will give you the low end and the amp will give you the "growl". Get a direct box because it has a parallel. They are relatively cheap. I'd get into the habit of recording DI guitars along with the amp as well. If only as "backup" for your mix engineer.

Toontrack EZ Drummer $135
Radial Direct box $130
6 ATS Acoustics panels $500

i second the call for room treatment. anything else is gonna be an incremental upgrade on top of what you have, but that's the one area where you haven't put anything towards yet. for the bass sound, yeah you could get a better di by radial or something, but you should also be able to make something that sounds good by eq-ing/compressing what you already capture.

Get some cheapo 1x6" wood, a $60 bag of mineral wool, a $20 roll of landscape fabric, and some clearance "breathy" fabric from one of those religious craft shops, and a staplegun. Maybe a little weed.

Your bass traps and acoustic panels are almost making themselves. Use busted up pallets and your little brother's bedsheets to save cash. It's cheap, and it makes a difference.

Check craigslist and FB marketplace. People sometimes sell used panels cheap.

Check out A-Designs REDDI for bass inject.

There are many techniques for beefing up the drum machine.

1. Layer drums with a drum replacement plugin. Just be careful with phase issues

2. Get the right preamp / compressor to suit your taste

3. M/s record the drum track in a room and detune a touch. Mix with the direct record. Check for phase issues.

Toontrack has an electronic drums pack that is fat and beefy.

For me, I use Elektron RYTM and layer samples over analog beef. Balls to the walls.

A loose bag will work just as well. You don't even need a wooden frame if you don't care what it looks like. And if you have enough weed, you won't care.

A hard rectangular shape makes the panels look neater for sure, which is important if you have clients. Or if you have a wife. Or if the room is also used as a normal room in your house. I built a drum booth in my cellar and I literally wrapped the stuff in fabric and stapled the bags to the ceiling and walls. Looks like hell, sounds great. It's my cellar, nobody goes down there but me.

Well, occasionally the furnace guy, but I don't care what he thinks.

I’m curious about these designs, are there photos? I’m imagining a bag of wood and rock wool wrapped in fabric and stapled to the ceiling…

Sure. Plus the bags will act a bit like diffusers because they aren't as flat as wall panels.

As cheap as that would be there really is no excuse not to at least make a shit attempt to control the room a little, other than the usuals: rental, mobile lifestyle, roommates, fear of cancer, etc.

No wood in the bag. The rockwool or fiberglass comes in batts which are roughly a rectangular solid in shape, just a bit "floppy". I wrap them up like I would wrap a sandwich in Saran wrap and hot glue it shut. The hot glue works great on the fabric. You can even glue some straps to the sides of the panels and hang them if you don't want to staple into the walls.

because the bag is soft, with no solid frame, it is easy to pinch the corners to get the staple in. I did spend a bit more to get the Guilford of Maine fabric , because I wanted a Class-A fire rating. (My father was a Fire Inspector and I inherited the Fire Inspector gene) I got a deal on an ugly gold pattern they were closing out. Probably because nobody wanted it.

The REDDI is a nice DI if dropping $1000 bucks for a DI doesn't mean much to you and you have a high end micpreamp to complete the chain and to actually get the benefits of it.

The REDDI run into a Focusrite mic input isn't really going to offer much more sonically than any other decent DI box that costs a fraction of it and the OP already owns a reasonable device to get a bass signal into his audio interface that provides a bunch more options than the REDDI does.

I'd say for someone who wants to blow a grand or so learning what some higher end gear might or might not provide a micpreamp that could be used for vocals and on a guitar amp as well as an alternate or even an additional stage to run bass through would be getting a lot more mileage than the REDDI.

A UA 610 Solo or one of the lower cost Neve type boxes would offer some learning experience to someone who's entire setup currently costs about the same as one of these devices and playing around spending a little cash on some rockwool probably would be a good idea as well.

if your landlord allows you to hang a painting, you can hang a panel. You could use the same hooks.

if you are mobile, you are bound to at least sometimes find yourself in a place with good acoustics

If your roommates tolerate you setting up a tracking session in your house: mics, stands, wires, headphones, amps, instruments, etc how much harder is it to get the OK to put out some freestanding panels... as long as you put them away when done?

"Conclusions: Despite a small elevation in RR for lung cancer among MMVF production workers, the lack of excess risk among end users, the absence of any dose-risk relation, the likelihood of detection bias, and the potential for residual confounding by smoking and asbestos exposure argue against a carcinogenic effect of MMVF, RW, or GW at this time. Similar conclusions apply to HN cancer risk among workers exposed to MMVF."

And this study was done for the people working in the factory that makes the stuff. I don't think once it is inside a fabric wrapped panel that any gets out.

So beefing up a drum machine and improving a bass going direct.

Both are being directly fed into a converter. No room involved. No amount of “room treatment” is going to change this setup.

To beef up a drum machine get a spank, smack or crunch machine like a preamp compressor combo of some kind in parallel or a vibe machine. It’s a process to finding a sound. Maybe an Empirical Labs Fatso or SSL bus comp. An SSL SiX has some top and low shelf EQ, channel comps and bus comp. This could beef up the drums and everything else for recording and mixdown. It costs a grand at AMS and Zzounds.

For bass di read about the REDDI. It’s quite a tech marvel. It costs a grand new.

I bought a few pricey mics to test out a few years ago from shops with a good return policy. Returned the mics that didn’t work for me.

https://adesignsaudio.com/reddi-all-tube-direct-box

The number of A-Designs REDDI's in use on stages and studios all over the world is nothing short of staggering. Quite simply, there just is no better sounding way to convert an instrument or line level signal to XLR.

Designed with the help of top studio engineers and bass players, REDDI has been widely praised by engineers and bassists all over the world as the best-sounding DI solution on the market today.

It is important to note that the REDDI is not a high-gain device! Its gain structure has been painstakingly engineered to avoid the slightest compromise in sound quality. Inspired by the glorious sound of the Ampeg B-15 tube bass amp, REDDI’s 6N1-P tube-driven amplifier feeds signal directly into a hefty custom output transformer by Cinemag – a key component to providing a harmonically rich tone.

REDDI’S extremely wide frequency range (20Hz to 60kHz) prevents in-band phase shift, resulting in outstanding detail and realism. Another major benefit of its wide bandwidth is the prevention of LF phase shift by maintaining a linear response extending below the audible bass range, insuring a full, natural sound.

REDDI’S distinctive bright red steel chassis sports a front-panel Neutrik XLR/1/4” combo input jack, balanced XLR output, and a 1/4” thru-put, for sending signal to a bass amp – not only useful for live applications, but also for simultaneously recording direct and miked amp tracks in the studio.

A 0-16dB-level control and a bright blue LED power indicator complete the front panel controls. On the back panel are heavy-duty toggle switches for power and ground lift, along with the IEC power outlet.

The REDDI’s all-tube circuitry will enhance the character of any electrified instrument run through it – not just bass! Plug the pickup of an acoustic guitar through REDDI to add depth and fullness to its tone. Capture and improve all the richness and life of an electric piano or analog synthesizer. Warm up sterile sounding digital keyboards or drum machines by strapping a REDDI across their output – or two, for stereo!

Excellent advice IMO.

aw. People beat me to it; was gonna say stuff like don't waste your money chasing fancier/pricier stuff, treat the room, etc. Basically what they said.

Use the back seat of your '70s Cadillac as a vocal booth.

The speakers will be the single most important thing, apart for room treatment.
Spend as much as you like in a pair of good active monitors and then improve the instruments (the bass, the amp, the DI).
Then a decent single channel preamp.
The songs, arrengement and good mixing will do the difference.

the OP may not even be doing the mixing according to this:

Even if he decides his own mixing, it's a hell of a lot easier to remix a well-recorded song at a later date because you finally upgraded monitors, than it would to re-track your song because you finally upgraded your front end.

Both are important, but one of the time-orders makes more sense than the other.

Thanks for the explanation. The last time I was looking into this I decided considering fire hazards was a good idea (not using bags of sawdust insulation...). The Class-A fire rating for fabric is a useful idea too. (That Fire Inspector gene sounds useful...).

I'm just an amateur hobbyist getting back into things. I started on acoustic drums, but switched to electronics ages ago. I mess around in Ableton and am really impressed with how their "Drum Buss" makes all drums sound better. It's basically an overdrive + distortion + compressor + EQ type thing.

For my out-of-the-box setup (still in progress) I picked up an Aphex 104 Aural Exciter ("type c2 with big bottom") that might actually be something ZZ Top would have used (Dimebag Darrell from Pantera had one in his guitar rig, some DJs and bass players too). There are a bunch of versions, I got mine pretty cheap ("low-end gear" for sure). It does sort of "tighten up" the bass and add "presence" (more grit than air). Also has knob labeled "Girth" (guessing why Dimebag had it...)

I've also been running drums through effects pedals to experiment, fattening and distorting happens. I like the EHX Big Muff Stereo (also an audio interface...), SA Ultrawave (some cool drum presets), bunch of others.

Just some thoughts...

It has cost me extra hassle and extra money on a number of occasions. OTOH, I am still here, so you never know what might have been. Exits being unblocked makes it easier to get around and there is a certain peace of mind in knowing the extinguishers are charged.