Do 'Good' mic pre's make a difference, to you?

Home studio is a meaningless term nowadays.
Every one who has an interest in making music today has a 'home studio'.
From multi-platinum selling artists to kids with an Ipad loaded with garage band.

So, mic pres. Yes good mic pres make a difference. But not to everyone. Good gear is meaningless except for status to someone that doesn't know how to use it or can't hear the difference.

Be it at home or in a 'real studio', by all means, get the best gear you can afford, but learn how to use it, and above all concentrate on developing the skills.
 
miroslav said:
Don't you have a studio...and don't you try and run it as a business...so then why would you be here on "home recording"...?
Click to expand...

Neither, all online. I do zero work locally. As I said, my setup is extremely modest compared to many here. My ears are my marketable skill.
 
Last edited:
OK...let's move this to the other thread....and then maybe move both threads over to the recording forum. :D
 
This forum has always had what is by today's standards and situations, the wrong name. I've always understood it to be a forum for people who do things themselves. Excluding studios where being there is an old fashioned job. Some people here clearly make money from their studio, but they use it themselves, and are the ones who eke out their budget small or large to constantly improve the hardware, the software and most importantly, themselves. Some are in their homes, some are in specially built or converted premises.

They record people they want to, not have to. They have choice. Commercial studios don't. Frequently they have to record anything to survive. The old "home studio tag" was used negatively in many cases, like we also used to do with the term "amateur" which always used to mean bad, poor, negative, compared to "professional" which always meant the opposite. Thankfully, that too has changed.

Pretty well everyone here wants to be knowledgable, and produce better music products. Old lags like me still learn new things, and pass on things they do know to others. Home studio owners and users tend to be part of a community. I'd like to think that the quality differences went away years ago.


Topics like this one prove we all have different views and aims. Give me a pile of cash, and I'd spend it on totally different things to people who would spend theirs on pre amps. That's good too!
 
The question IMHO should be the other way around. Are there BAD mic pres?

Yes of course there are! But how exactly are they "bad"? High noise level at a useful level of gain would be a badness. Low headroom such that signals start to get "strained" before clipping (it is a well know limitation of the most popular hybrid, transistors and op amps pres that they have higher levels of distortion than the rest of the mixer/AI chain!) .

Restricted bandwidth or/and increased distortion at frequency extremes. A non flat frequency response (though it is hard to see how THAT could be done unless they used some VERY shit transformers!)

But! The fully balanced feedback pre amp developed by D Self (Soundcraft) addresses all these issues and from the circuit it is hard to see it costing more than $50 per channel to implement?

Yes, more esoteric designs will squeeze a touch lower noise or/and lower distortion but I think it is for the makers and users of $3000 pre amps to justify themselves. I suites them of course to perpetuate "Da Magic".

I quite understand that a state of art device, built with high grade components (for longevity, NOT for sonic properties!) with high grade switches and pots and in a superbly engineered case IS going to cost, especially since they don't have Behringer's sales numbers.

But, in purely engineering terms 50bucks of electronics is as good as you need...UNLESS "they" can explain otherwise?

Dave.
 
Some very bad mic pre amps tend to get noisy when pushed beyond half to three quarter level. These are a problem.

Assuming sufficient "quiet gain" then the mic pre amp is low on my list of things to change to improve my recordings. Besides the performance itself, the biggies are room acoustics and the choice (and positioning) of the microphone. Given a choice of more acoustic treatment and a new mic or a boutique mic pre amp, I'll play with the acoustics and the mic every time. Do note that I'm talking about gear with "okay" mic inputs but, once you get above a certain quality threshold, a new mic pre is going to provide, at best, a pretty subtle change compared to your performance, mic and room.
 
Preamps sound different, for whatever reason, and some consistently sound better to some people. My friend likes his Dakings, I like his Grace M101. I started out thinking, meh, there's not enough of a difference to worry about then became convinced after using a variety of preamps he had that there were definitely differences. The differences can be subtle but they are real. No doubt they represent some sort of inaccuracies in the output, imperfections that consistently sound better or worse to various users. But I'm not making scientific acoustic measurement, I'm making art. I don't object to inaccuracies at certain points in the chain if they add something aesthetically pleasing. Now, I don't want the storage and transmission of my audio to change it, but capturing the sound is a part of the creative process where I do want to manipulate things.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I started out thinking, meh, there's not enough of a difference to worry about then became convinced after using a variety of preamps he had that there were definitely differences. The differences can be subtle but they are real.
Click to expand...

Right.

This was my point with "you don't know what you don't know".

There are times when subtle differences in anything during recording/mixing...are not all that important. You can push through in a variety of ways, and the nature of the song, the arrangement, the production intent, will simply override those subtle differences to a point of insignificance.

There are also times when even subtle differences, taken as a whole, can significantly change the outcome of a production...and you can hear the overall result of the subtle difference between choices A and B in your process.
It's something that you can't "guesstimate" or have an opinion about until you have, and work with, a variety of gear, with those differences, over time, and when you can focus on and utilize those subtle difference in some creative, intentional way.

I just look at it that more gear = more options...and it just seems to me, that often, the better gear delivers more/better options, where a low budget piece may deliver one good option...generally speaking.
I see no downside to having more gear. :)
It's purely a budget thing...and that, we all deal with on some level in our recording journey.
Like rob said above..."given a pile of cash", I think most of us would get...more and better gear. :D

And yeah....maybe some of what Armistice wants. ;)
 
Hi, I have found in the many years of recording that the high end pres like Aphex 1788 make all the difference in the world ...but they are rather expensive. It goes back to the adage you get what you pay for ...If you want the great sound you have to spend the big bucks..... Things like API, Neve,Aphex, Focusrite, Manley.etc ....... On the other hand if you already own a high end console ....Neve, API, etc then the on board pres are great .......
 
I would (respectfully) 'challenge 'all the difference in the world'. In the absolute sense perpaps, and certainly not until a bunch of bigger things were up to snuff.


:>) Gotta love all the 'sliding scales we have in this life.

Dr. 'Do you have sex often?'

Her 'Oh god, constantly!! Several times a week! '

Woody Allen 'Shoo.. Hardly ever!

By the way Welcome to the dance!

..no Shamin
:)
 
Last edited:
The Rocker said:
when I first read this subject post, I was curious as to what you had, and then upgraded to,,
Click to expand...

Hi Rocker, I have no intention now of putting the eq types I now use up here, for fear it will just open another can-o-worms, and launch a whole new tangent. It's probably also a moot question now? That's not to say this hasn't been an eye opener of a journey with so many variables put forward, some I never considered. I'll just stay with the AB tests I'm still running, and be happy with my results so far.
 
Two years ago I bought an EV 320. Waste of money for me. Just didn't do any of the things I thought it would be good for. A fine mic, but I have plenty I'd use in preference. I have a Tascam 1U interface for my recording computer. It sounds nice until, as above, you crank the gain up too much, when it gets a bit noisier, but definitely 'rougher' sounding. I'm completing a project where I producing backing tracks for of all things, a carpenters tribute, and have spent ages and ages working out the chord voicing for the harmonies. The plan is to record each track using the original as a guide and then play and sing along. The piano is too tough for me in many of the songs, so I have a real pianist doing these parts. Part 2 of the plan needs me to sing all the harmony parts, and then the girl singer will simply replace each line I have created - which in some songs is 12 tracks worth of harmony vocals. I need to sing falsetto for many of them as they're really high for a fella, and discovered the EV on a radio style anglepoise over my mixer, lips touching works really well with the interface, not needing the extra gain. I've found a real niche for the mic, and you can pull away or go in without the tone changing, which helps no end. So not by any description an exotic preamp, but with the right mic on the end it performs very well. I wonder if when people praise or slag off preamps, it's really the combination with a specific mic that is really being considered?
 
The problem with people recommending preamps on this site in particular, is that most people have experienced a very limited number of preamps under very limited circumstances.

Especially when you get into a certain level of quality, when the biggest difference between them will be taste and circumstance.

The mid-level preamps will all work fine 98% of the time. Even the cheapest ones will get the job done under most circumstances.

The order in which the equipment affects the sound is this:
1. Instrument and room
2. Mic and the placement
3. Preamp
4. Converter

Now, the instrument and the room will be 80% of the sound. The mic and placement will be 17%. The preamp will probably be 2.5% and the converter 0.5%.

So, if you don't get the instrument and mic right, the preamp and converter can't save you.
 
With an untrained ear you will not even be able to tell the difference between $500 pre and $4000 pre...

But the difference between low budget pres/converters and $500+ is huge!
 
Still trying to figure out why my post was connected to the Gear Shaming thread. The gear Shaming thread is very good with some good points for thought. Just don't get (the original threads) connection to it. Anyways, cheers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top