Howdy, all. I'm upgrading my amateur home studio and am looking to buy a two-channel pre-amp for mics (Studio Projects B1, SM-57) and DI'ing clean guitar. I've done a reasonable amount of research and, in my price range, it seems to boil down to two alternatives: the ART MPA Gold and the Focusrite TwinTrak Pro. Both have features I really like: the ART has tube-y goodness and digital outs (a growth thing, not a must have), the TwinTrak some nice notch EQ and compression on top of two pretty decent pres. I'd be interested in experiences/opinions/rants on these hummers. My one request--a plea, really--is to please try to minimize the, "Hey, have you thought about product X" replies unless you really, really think that both the ART and Focusrite are really and truly and profoundly inferior to your candidate. I'm already half nuts and I want to make a decision, set up the rig, and get back to making music.
The rest of my (primitive) setup is a dbx 266XL compressor (which I have yet to tame, hence my interest in the compressor section of the TwinTrak) and a Presonus Firebox Firewire interface to Logic Express and various plug-ins running on a G5 iMac. I've been using a first-generation ART Tube MP as my pre/DI box.
Thanks in advance for your counsel.
Cheers.
--- das
The rest of my (primitive) setup is a dbx 266XL compressor (which I have yet to tame, hence my interest in the compressor section of the TwinTrak) and a Presonus Firebox Firewire interface to Logic Express and various plug-ins running on a G5 iMac. I've been using a first-generation ART Tube MP as my pre/DI box.
Thanks in advance for your counsel.
Cheers.
--- das