My "Budget" Recording Night

[clineaudio]

So, last night I had to use some "questionable" gear in a pinch to help a friend track a christmas record (he plans to give it as a gift to family, etc).
Anyway, those "questionable" units included:
Oktava 319 (kick) ... gross bump in the low end which led to horrendous subsonic overdriving of preamp, even though I couldn't hear the kick, I was clipping the recorder, I moved it a bit to minimize it, ended up being ok. Nice "bassy" tone just outside resonant head. With the proper use, this might be a nice mic to get an 808/909 kind of kick sound out of to make those subs rattle. On headphones I couldn't hardly even hear it, cuz it was so low. A little "dead" and "flat" sounding, but for a $100 kick mic it ain't bad. This was for a "jazzy" kick where a little ring was acceptable, but it did have a nice "note".

Okt 012 (snare top, Hat,) Suprisingly decent. Not great, but acceptable. Don't use the -10 screw on pads. Totally wacks the tone.

At 2020 (gtr cab) Sounded good first shot in front of the amp. Great for the price. Seriously, I didn't move it at all. Not an "exciting" sound, but had body and richness that I didn't expect.

Lastly, friggin behringer.
First, Friend bought a pair of hpm1000 phones. Awful, worst I've ever heard. somehow sounded phase-y, w/ no top and no bottom. Took about 3 seconds, litterally before I grabbed for another pair.
Second, 1604, blah blah mixer. Whatever. I used it in a pinch cuz we needed some extra pres for the setup and we couldn't pull enough strings fast enough. Well, it did the job, got me 3 more channels into the recorder, with phantom, which I guess is worth mentioning for $100-ish. ....Now for the bitching, pres have ZERO headroom. I got a decent avg level (pre was 80% up). Drummer started playing, and I saw clipping, nothing out of the ordinary, I just figured he was playing a little harder. I ended up having the pre at almost off in order to prevent that little peak light from hitting. This happened on all channels on the desk (haha) at some point during the session. Eventually I got a complaint from the guitarist who was monitoring out of the Behr mixer's headphone amp about distortion, he was wondering if the recorder was clipping. I saw nothing, I put on his phones, heard the same thing at a comfortably loud volume, so I adjusted the headph amp down to ( again) about a 1/3 of it's total gain and heard the distortion disappear. Also, why on earth would you engineer only ONE of two aux sends to be able to be sent pre-fade?

So, there's my input. Discuss.

[clineaudio]

So, anyone got any stories/opinions about other "budget" items out there?

Pres?
Mics?
Monitors?

Of course the old addage of "get what you pay for" is true...but have you had any experience with units that toe the line?

[Nubus]

I think they made one pre and one post so you could use it live with one as the stage mix and the other as an echo send. These little boards make great things to bring on stage if you need control of your effects and mix. I saw Locks (they rock) the other day and they had two of them on tables runnning their voices though a bunch of delays; and mixing keyboard, samplers, and other weirdness through them. It ruled. Sorry this had nothing to do with a recording.

[clineaudio]

update,
AT2020, used in a pinch on a VO session. A little aggressive, not alot of "Brilliance" or top end detail. Also, not "Thick" at all. Not much bottom.

Sounds "True", not much coloration, except a little bit of 2-4kish sizzle.

[mikegee]

i'm hardly a sound engineer in any sense of the description, but a home hobbyist songwriter and recordist. The yamaha mg series mixers are really decent for the money, i got my yamaha mg102 for under a hundred bucks, and it is 50 times better in quality than the behringer mixers, for real. also, the low end marshall condensor mics mxlv57m record good quality vocals, and they are real inexpensive. i liked it so much i bought another, and i am buying another one soon.