Tubepre crapping out, bad tube?

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pearldrum944

New member
During a session tonight my presonus Tubepre started cutting out while tracking. Turning the knobs would get the signal back, but later it would drop again. I thought maybe they were dirty, but playing with them like crazy then trying to track again did not help. Is this what happens when my tube dies? Or is my tubepre a piece of crap...I need to just buy a DMP3...
 
pearldrum944 said:
Or is my tubepre a piece of crap...
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No offense, but if you take out the "Or" and move that "is" between "tubpre" and "a", you'll have a pretty solid answer. :D

Never had any luck with them, had 3, sold 3 shortly after purchasing them before I finally learned my lesson... ;)
 
I would start with the tube. It's easy to change and you will know right away if it's the problem. I put a Groove Tubes AX7 in mine and now it sounds much better.
There may also be a bad connection. If the new tube doesn't help then get yourself a can of Deoxit and follow the directions on the label for all the connectors on the TubePre.
If these things don't help then take it back to the store because there is little else on the unit you can change yourself.

As for it being a piece of crap, I would have to disagree. It certainly does have it's limits but I've always been able to get a decent sound from it in just about any situation.
 
The pre would probably run without a properly working tube. It's not a tube preamp, it's a solidstate preamp with a tube added in at low voltage to generate some noise. I owned one and I agree, huge piece of shit, of course one would only know that if they had something better to compare it to.
 
Yeah... isn't the tube "dialable"? If so, turning the knob to not-tube would tell ya if the pre is working, sans-tube.

If it is still doing the naughtiness at that point, I think ya got yerself a boned up tube pre.

Buy a DMP-3 - ya can't dial in tube tone, but ya can turn the gain knob up, and get a nice clean signal :)
 
You know everyone is always calling TubePres pieces of shit, but then they talk about their ART Tube MP's, DMP3's or their behringer or other shit that is just as low end - as if they are better. The tube pre is as good a preamp as anything under $200, and better than most. For whatever that is worth.
 
Well, the DMP-3 IS a good preamp. Haven't used the tubePre, but then again, I didn't call it shitty.

I just made fun of tube-dialable pre's in general, because the concept is a little ridiculous, bu whateva!

Sounds like someone just needs to justify their purchase of a tubePre. j/k????
 
amra said:
You know everyone is always calling TubePres pieces of shit, but then they talk about their ART Tube MP's, DMP3's or their behringer or other shit that is just as low end - as if they are better. The tube pre is as good a preamp as anything under $200, and better than most. For whatever that is worth.
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No it isn't. I've owned all those and the tubepre was the first to go.
 
jonnyc said:
The pre would probably run without a properly working tube. It's not a tube preamp, it's a solidstate preamp with a tube added in at low voltage to generate some noise.
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Regarding the exact nature of the TP's circuitry do you have any fact behind your statement that it isn't a tube preamp? have you seen the schematic?

I owned one and I agree, huge piece of shit, of course one would only know that if they had something better to compare it to.
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Was this piece of condescension aimed at somebody in particular? Had it occurred to you that people might have superior preamps than the TP but still keep it because they like it? I'm one of those people.

I hear alot of crapping-on but no reasons why. Indulge me on what makes this unit a "huge piece of shit", I'm curious.
 
jonnyc said:
No it isn't. I've owned all those and the tubepre was the first to go.
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Well I have had, or used a bunch of low end pres - Art Tube MP, M-Audio DMP3, Audio Buddy and a Focusrite Penta Platinum just off the top of my head. Throughout that time, everything else but the Tubepre got sold. Not because the Tubepre was way better than all of them, though it is noticably better than the audio buddy and the Art tube MP.

It's just that none of the others were any better than the tube pre, and they cost more. If I can't get a good sound out of it, I chunk it sell it and move on. I don't get attached to gear just because i have it. We're talking low end crap here. It's all cheap and made in china.

The bottom line, if you can't get as good or better sound out of a tube pre than you can with a DMP3 or Tube MP, then you are doing something wrong.
 
I tend to look at it as another color I can add to my palette. My other pres are all solid state and they have their own flavors, discrete class A, FET etc.
So too with the TP I use it for another source of colors. Tube swapping allows for a nice range too. I can choose between the original tube from the factory, a Groove Tubes AX7, a vintage AT7, and when I don't need so much gain there's the AU7. With these options I can get brite and clean, dirty, overdriven, airy etc. it's like a box of crayons. The Groove Tubes AX7 is great for the airy sound btw.
 
amra said:
The bottom line, if you can't get as good or better sound out of a tube pre than you can with a DMP3 or Tube MP, then you are doing something wrong.
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Yeah, turning that knob is a real hard thing to grasp. All I know is I had a pair of these so-called tube preamps for a good deal of time and used them as my overhead channels. I was satisfied with the sound I was getting for a long time until I bought a dmp3. Within 5 seconds of playing back my first run thru with the preamp it was very clear that the dmp3 had the tubepre beat when it came to clarity and detail. On top of that the tube drive section seemed to do little more than generate noise, and most of the time it wasn't pleasant. Could I make a decent recording with a tubepre? Absolutely, could I make a better one with a dmp3? I think so and so did several of my clients.
 
Somnium7 said:
Regarding the exact nature of the TP's circuitry do you have any fact behind your statement that it isn't a tube preamp? have you seen the schematic?
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Ok I'll rephrase that. It's not a TRUE tube preamp, it's a solid state pre with a starved plate tube design thrown in as an attempt to add character.
 
Well if you could "absolutely" make a decent quality recording with a TubePre, then I guess you shouldn't go around calling it a "piece of shit".

To me, a DMP-3 only sounded "decent", but you don't hear me calling it a piece of shit. It was decent. Decent and piece of shit, are not synonyms last time I checked. Yet here you are, telling everyone a certain piece of gear is a piece of shit, even though you admit you could get good recordings out of it. I just don't get that shit.
 
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amra said:
Well if you could "absolutely" make a decent quality recording with a TubePre, then I guess you shouldn't go around calling it a "piece of shit".

To me, a DMP-3 only sounded "decent", but you don't hear me calling it a piece of shit. It was decent. Decent and piece of shit, are not synonyms last time I checked. Yet here you are, telling everyone a certain piece of gear is a piece of shit, even though you admit you could get good recordings out of it. I just don't get that shit.
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It's still a piece of shit. I said decent, decent is a step below good. I will not concede, I even had a Eureka and the Joe Meek 3Q kicked it's ass.
 
You know, I initially posted a different reply, but had second thoughts.

If you really think your $75 per channel preamp is wowing your customers, or that they would even notice the difference when compared to another sub per channel $100 preamp, then you are in your own world and there is really no point in continuing.
 
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jonnyc said:
Ok I'll rephrase that. It's not a TRUE tube preamp, it's a solid state pre with a starved plate tube design thrown in as an attempt to add character.
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I agree that this is *probably* what it is. I imagine the circuit isn't much different than a PAIA Tubehead .
The attempt to add character is a good attempt. The flaw here is the junky tubes they ship from the factory with sound terrible.

Overall, I find that for less than a hundred bucks the thing does what it's supposed to do and doesn't sound bad when used correctly and a new tube installed. The build quality is pretty sturdy for Chinese-made standards. I have dropped mine on the floor from waist height several times with no apparent damage.
The added bonus of easily getting different sound colors from it makes it worth more to me than I paid for it. It's not a piece of shit, it's a handy tool and for the money it exceeds my expectations.

The TP will never replace the 32 beautiful sounding pres in my old console but I use it frequently and don't regret buying it new at all.
 
amra said:
You know, I initially posted a different reply, but had second thoughts.

If you really think your $75 per channel preamp is wowing your customers, or that they would even notice the difference when compared to another sub per channel $100 preamp, then you are in your own world and there is really no point in continuing.
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Yeah guess not, I mean according you to you heard the difference between the tubepre and dmp3 but neither me nor my clients can? Weird huh? Did you forget this thread was started because someone's CrapPre decided to take a nice little poo? By the way, according to you, you kept the tubepre because none of your other pres sounded better and they cost more, however you just said the dmp3 is only 75 a channel while the tubepre is 100 per channel. It really just looks like you're out to defend your preamp purchase more than anything.
 
Somnium7 said:
The build quality is pretty sturdy for Chinese-made standards. I have dropped mine on the floor from waist height several times with no apparent damage.
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Besides the fact it's cutting out and not working properly. Did you forget why you started this thread?
 
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