Small Studio With Splendid Equipment, Need a help to manage... Options

[cabasa]

Hello everybody!

I need your help. I have to manage small DAW based on ProTools HD system. Budget: ~EUR40,000.00

I need to understand how is reasonable this compilation or not:

· I need ONE, but high class tube mic with ONE high class mic preamp/compressor/eq for recording pop-style vocals (in general). It would be very good for me to know outstanding industry-standard combination of studio mic/preamp for pop vocal recording (if it is)
· 2 or 8 ch. A/D converter for ProTools HD sound routing specially. Apegee Rosetta 200/800 is good solution (not orginal Digidesign Protools HD converters) I heard. Or anything else?
· Well, Protools HD cards + G5
· STANDALONE final compressor/limiter (like TC Finalizer etc.) for final mix processiong. The sound goes from HD digital OUT to final comp/limiter digital IN. Then it goes to the second G5 audiocard digital IN to Bias Peak (for example) to make final stereo mix bounce.
· I need 2-ch. D/A converter to send the final mix to studio monitoring interface (like Presonus Central Station http://www.presonus.com/centralstation.html ) to hear all the sound which I ugly did.
· Active acoustic monitoring system Genelec 31A or 32A. I like Genelec's hi freq "sharpy" sound.

That's all.
I ask you, gentlemen the professionals, to help and give me an advice to complete this kind of studio!
What the best indastry-standard couple of tube mic/preamp for pop-vocal recording? Converters for Protools HD? Final stand-alone compressor/limiter with aes/ebu in/out?
Neutral sounding studio monitoring interface? Active monitor system?

Thank you very much in advance and excuse me for my ugly english.

Emegical IM

[flemming]

For a 20ish m2 control room, it'd be overkill to go with M2s. Use M1.5s, they are brilliant, got a pair myself. Luv them!

You CAN run Logic and Tools on the same G5, but to be honest it's not working very well. Logic 7.X and DigiHD just doesn't communicate too good anymore (not too hard to guess who's to blame, eh? hehe), sorry.

As for hardware limiting, have a look at the new Waves box, it's better than the Finalizers which are harsh sounding and sorta showing their age. The System 6000 from tc sounds terrific (some of the best converters I've ever come across too) and is very versatile, but is also very expensive. You should also consider going for software limiting and get a powercore setup, there you have the finalizer, the system 6000 mastering, and the sony plugs. I don't really see the point in going from one computer thru a d/a then to an a/d and into another computer. Why not just bounce internally?

As for mic pre's it's really a matter of taste. Vintage Neve pre's (1073, 3311X, 1081, 1272 (if rebuild for mic input)) are very very nice, but also quite pricey and to be honest, you need to know a bit about eleectronics to keep them up and running. There's reissues available now, but they are extremely expensive. If you're into valves, get a couple of Neumann v72s (or the telefunken/siemens equivalents). PV76s are nice Neumann solid state pres. If you need something absolutely terrific, and you insist on the valve bit (which is silly if you ask me), get a voxbox, or even better a Fairman channel. The Fairman is absolutely beautiful in any way you can imagine. Top notch!

If we're talking top notch standard for pop vocals, I think your best bid would be something completely differrent, though: ELAM251 mic OR AKG C12 into a Neve 1081 pre, then into a Pultec EQ and then into a Teletronix LA2A compressor and then into a Fairchild 670 compressor (yes, two compressors!). Unfortunately that setup kinda took away all your money, so nothing left for the rest of the studio. But that's the top notch way to do it. I guarantee you if your vocals sound shit with that setup, you need a better vocalist! :-)