Entry Level Recording Gear

[Hentai]

For those of you on a budget but want to give XLR gear a try for your UTAU or home studio projects, Amazon is having a sale on a wide variety of Behringer gear.

Highlights of this sale include:

Behringer Xenyx 302USB Mixer

$40 - A compact desktop mixer that can also act as an audio interface and/or external soundcard/hardware volume controls and basic 2-band EQ for gaming and headsets. Has phantom power so you can use even XLR condenser mics.

Behringer U-phoria UM2 Interface

$30 - Behringer's entry-level 2x2 audio interface. Supports one mic in with phantom power, one instrument in if you need it, and headphone monitoring. At $30 there is no lower entry point with this kind of feature set.

Behringer U-phoria UMC22

$40 - Also a 2x2 audio interface from Behringer it has feature parity with its little brother with one significant upgrade: It uses Behringer's newer MIDAS mic pre-amps that are a bit cleaner on dynamic mics. Also, it has better build quality than its little brother.

At one point, I owned all 3 of these and I can't recommend them enough. With a good USB audio interface, you gain access to a wider variety of recording hardware and can actually save money by being able to buy and sell individual parts of your project studio one piece at a time, as well as a very healthy used market of recording gear.

If you need a microphone to pair with your new USB interface entry level recommendations include:

$20 - Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 (Dynamic)
$40 - Sure SM48-LC (Dynamic)
$70 - MXL 990 (Condenser)
$100 - Sure SM58-LC (Dynamic)
$100 - Behringer B-1 (Condenser)

Also, don't forget your accessories like your Gooseneck Pop Filter and Balanced XLR Cable.


Whether you are recording an UTAU, are a hobby musician, or want to be a streamer, let's talk recording hardware!

The pride of my personal collection is, of course, my Yamaha AG03-Miku

It is sadly no longer in production and goes for crazy scalper prices. I was lucky enough to import it directly from Japan while the Yen was weak and got it cheaper, shipped across the Pacific, than the non-miku version of this USB mixer would have been directly from Amazon.

If you have a bit more budget ($100-150) for audio interfaces I definitely recommend the non-Miku version of the AG03, or the other Steinberg gear, who collaborated with Yamaha to make the AG03. Recommended higher-end interfaces include the more basic Steinberg UR12 and the Steinberg UR22 Mk2 which has an even more advanced DSP than the AG03, that Yamaha/Steinberg co-developed.

 

[uncreepy]

Oh, hallelujah! I've been wanting to get one of these so we could replace our cruddy USB microphone, but didn't know what kind of product to research. I also have been looking up about getting an electric guitar and knew it needed something to be plugged into, so you've saved me the headache of looking through tons of product reviews.

 

[Hentai]

I am a bit of a recording geek, both for UTAU-reasons, my various attempts at starting a podcast with friends, and my current attempts to get into streaming. Well, I don't want to be a Twitch streamer but I am helping/producing a friend who wants to get serious about it.

If you are looking for anything beyond "Entry Level" you definitely want to be looking at reviews as when you are spending +$300 on hardware you want to make sure it is the right fit for you. Everyone's voice an usage application is different so it is hard to make recommendations for anything beyond above $150-ish dollars, which is the cutoff point where I classify "Entry Level" to enthusiast gear.

Depending on your specific use case and budget I can probably make better recommendations, but if you are looking to spend +$150, I can give you starting places to research, but I do recommend you do some reading yourself, or optionally buying it off of Amazon, and using their liberal return policy if you find you don't like it. At one point I owned an AT2020 but I hated how it sounded so I returned it, which is why while I used to recommend it a couple years ago, I have since stopped, mostly due to my own subjective experiences with it, that and the fact I fell in love with the Behringer B-1. It is big, it is heavy, it breaks the bands on the shockmount that came with it, but I love how versatile it is. Truly, the best condenser mic at the $100 price point.

My various USB interfaces:
Behringer U-phoria UMC22
Yamaha AG03-Miku

I used to own the Behringer 302USB, Behringer 1204USB, Behringer UM22, and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 but I have since sold them, usually to fund the next in a series of hardware upgrades.

My personal recording cabinet:
Behringer C-1
Behringer B-1
Rode NT1-A*
Oktava Mk-319*

I own all the condenser mics, my friend owns all the dynamic mics. We split down the middle the other misc recording gear we bought for the podcast.
One of my favorite parts about using analog gear is there is a very healthy used market. I bot both my Rode NT1-A and Oktava Mk-319 for less than HALF of MSRP by finding crazy deals on Craiglist.

I liked my Yamaha AG03-Miku so much, I am thinking of getting a bigger audio interface for the podcast (supporting 4 mics) in the Steinberg UR44.
The Yamaha AG03 was a collaboration with Yamaha and Steinberg with Yamaha designing a lot of the hardware and Steinberg a lot of the software and Yamaha providing more DSP effects. I really like the onboard DSP on my Yamaha, so I am looking forward to the Steinberg UR44, which has an even more advanced version of my Yamaha/Steinberg DSP. The inbuilt DSP channel strip and zero-latency monitoring is perfect for my podcast and saves me a lot of money in side-chained compressors, gates/limiters, and EQ.