Build a Recording Chain for Less Than $500

Tired of finding $1000+ pieces of equipment in these kinds of lists? I am. So on this budget, I am not going to include your interface which I’m going to assume accepts either a ¼ inch cable or XLR cable. We’re only talking signal chain here, meaning how we get the sound of your voice or instrument into your recording device. I am going to confine this article furthermore to gear and methods I have used and achieved acceptable results with.

To make this fair, I Googled the microphone package I like for this exercise and picked a big online retailer. That retailer doesn’t charge shipping or tax, so we’re already saving money. I decided to buy new because that is easier for you to duplicate. You can most likely find better prices on gear using eBay or Craigslist, but again, it isn’t likely we’d find the same prices at different points in time.

I Googled the mics first, because as a package, I thought this might be the hardest thing to find. It’s also the first place you can screw up your sound and we don’t want that, at any stage. For the microphones I chose the MXL 2003 & 603 Microphone Pac Plus. At $169.95, it is a steal and you get two good sounding mics that between them, can handle voice, acoustic and electric guitars and piano.

When proper mic positioning is used, you can get a good amount of clarity out of both mics, then if you feel like, you can rough the sound up after you get your takes down.

Sure the sound on them is good, but since we are talking about mass produced, cheap Chinese manufactured mics here, let’s safeguard against problems and buy the 3 year warranty for $34.99. I did when I bought my pair, and a year and half in, used it. They replaced my MXL 2003 without a fuss and it has worked fine the past four years since.

Personally, I only use the MXL 2003 with the ‘high isolation’ shockmount that runs an extra $29.74. The clip mount that comes with the 603 has worked fine for me, so I never bothered buying the high isolation shockmount for it and futhermore, never regretted my decision. The retailer wants me to buy the warranty on this, but I don’t think so. Let’s move on.

Since we’re going to have people singing into these sometimes, we’re going to need a decent pop filter. It will do double duty by containing plosive sounds such as ‘p’ and ‘b’ while the singer is going for it, and it will keep their spit out of our mic. Need further convincing?

I went with the Nady Metal Pop Filter in Black at 14.99. Honestly, this one I haven’t used, I use a Steadman metal pop filter after my smelly mesh pop filter broke apart. Since then, I will only go with metal pop filters, but the Steadman isn’t in our budget today. You could still opt for a slightly cheaper mesh pop filter like the one I used, but really, the last thing you need when trying to get a good performance out of a singer is for them to be disgusted with the hygiene of your pop filter. With the metal pop filter, a couple good swipes with a damp rag and cleanser and you’re ready for all comers.

We’re also going to need a mic stand. I prefer boom stands because they are more versatile for different micing needs and since we have two mics, let’s get two stands. There might be times where we want to double mic an instrument or throw up a room mic.

I’ve had good success with the ProLine Metal Boom stands. I still use one I bought back in 1989. This will run us $67.98 for the both of them and let’s not forget cables. You don’t want to skimp too hard on cables because they are carrying your signal. Since we might need to swap out a cable in the signal path to troubleshoot why no sound is coming into our interface, let’s grab a couple 25 foot Mogami Silver Series Microphone cables. Together they will set us back $45.90.

So we’re not done, but we’ve thrown quite a few good things in our cart. Let’s see what our running tally is looking like for a minute.

$363.55.

Hmmm. Not much money left, so we’re going to have to get a little extra creative from here on out. Both of our mics require 48v phantom power to pull down sound, so we need a preamp that can supply that. We also want a preamp that isn’t going to throw a lot of unwanted noise into our signal which some do, especially in the price range we’re looking at.
I’ve only used two different mic preamps within our current budget and of the two, my preference is the Presonus TUBEPre Microphone Preamp. It’s a mono tube preamp with phase inversion, a 20 dB pad and transparent sound for $129.95.

This brings our total to $493.50.

But wait. There are a few other items still found in the signal chain, namely EQ and Compression. How do we afford both of those for $6.50?

Well, here’s how:

EQ with mic placement. Experiment with placing the mic at different distances from the sound source and at different angles (on or off axis) in relation to the sound source. Switch between all the mic choices at your disposal when you can—without killing the vibe of the session, of course. In short, experiment.

These are techniques that will still benefit you even as you improve your gear selection. Your ears will develop and you might find that you will get the sounds you’re looking for much quicker than twiddling with knobs on gear or plugins. I have outboard EQ for when necessary, but still normally record tracks where I use mic placement to get the sound in the first place rather than fixing it later.

Compression is normally used by beginners for the sole purpose of preventing clipping during volume spikes from sound sources. You can get this done for free using your ears, knowledge of the singer’s performance and your fingers on the input gain of your preamp or mixer.

Even though I own four different compressors, I still learn the way the performer is working the song and adjust the input stage manually as we record. I use the compressors when I have one take to get it right, or if I want to print the effect of the compressor on the sound source while recording.