Quality - Is there something I can do?
G'day All,
I seek your advice please - I have an issue with the quality of vocal recordings I am getting.
In particular I can hear a substantial difference in the quality of recorded vocals with the X32 and maybe I'm doing something wrong?
Just so you know the setup - it's for recording. I (obviously) have the X32, in a very quiet room, with a PC thats virtually silent, running Cubase 7 as my DAW of choice via firewire. The PC is 'Kick ass' with SSD drives, heaps of ram WIn 7 etc etc.
I'm recording at 24bit 48khz, in this example using a neumann U87, and monitoring using quested mid field monitors, (And some dirty big 15 inch 3 way JBLs for back patting listening 
)
My problem is the quality of the vocal recording - it's not ..(ummm .. searching for words to describe sound.. always challenging)... 'present'....Drums & guitars etc are ok, but lets face it - the vocal has to be really good.
I'm at a loss to know how more direct the path could be... The vocals sound a little strained.... a little 'back', rather than warm and 'in your face' ....
I'm thinking that perhaps it's because I have to have the microphone gain down so low, in order not to clip - and as the X32 compressor doesn't effect the recorded sound, that's won't help. So.. in effect, the majority of the time I'm well short of using 24 bits.. But that's just a thought I could be wrong.
If the X32 had a digital input, I could just plug a good preamp into it and try that - but it doesn't.
The mic is just plugged into a channel, and (to my understanding) it's then just preamped and goes straight to the firewire regardless of what you do in the channel.
Is there anything you smart people can come up with that will allow me to get a more direct recording of vocals using the X32? Cubase only allows one audio driver at a time so I can't (for example) use the digital out of a good preamp into the PCs SPDIF input, _and_ monitor using the X32.
Thanks for any good advice
Pauly
