Quality Mic Pre-Amp - Suggestions?

Z

zimbo

Member
Can anyone recommend a quality pre-amp for the home recording of vocals, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar into Cubase. Around £60-80 is my budget.
 
What interface are you using that has preamps so bad that they can be improved on by something in the £60-80 range? Solid state preamps are all pretty similar in that price range, and tube preamps in that range tend to suck.
 
I'm using a Behringer mixer and have trouble with hiss and a poor signal going into my M-Audio 2496 sound card/Cubase. I'm thinking of the Art Tube MP Studio V3 as a pre -amp. Has anyone any experience of using this?
 
Maybe a channel strip, like a dbx 286s, would be useful. Avoid tubes until your budget is substantially bigger.

But first lets go through your setup. It may be something simple.
 
Depends on the kind of quality you're expecting. I've been using a Studio Projects VTB1 with a 2496 card for years and have always been satisfied with the results. I also use an Alesis MicTube Solo in the other channel on the 2496 and while it's a lot noisier than the VTB1, it still does it's job adequately with proper gain staging.

I have no experience of the Art Tube MP thingy. Sorry. :thumbs up:
 
zimbo said:
I'm using a Behringer mixer and have trouble with hiss and a poor signal going into my M-Audio 2496 sound card/Cubase. I'm thinking of the Art Tube MP Studio V3 as a pre -amp. Has anyone any experience of using this?
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Even though the Behringer mixer is not the top of the line, I have used them for recording spoken word at venues and they are not that noisy even with the gain turned up quite high. In fact the ducted air conditioner was creating more noise in the recording LOL.

You may have other issues with the setup and if so buying another pre won't solve the problem.

Alan.
 
I've never used that particular ART unit but have used other their products. It's reviewed pretty well for the price range. I suspect your issue is related excessive gain somewhere in your chain. Experiment before you spend money.
 
I have the older version of the ART Tube MP and it's far from an exciting preamp. Very dark, and the starved plate "toob" design is much more gimmick than practical. Overall it makes a pretty good bass DI box, but not much more. On vocal and guitar it just casts a dark haze over everything. Not sure what the Studio V3 adds to the equation, but the original unit isn't much to be excited about.
 
I'm using a M-Audio 2496 soundcard with a Behringer Eurorack 802 Mixer. I've now managed to get a good signal from my microphone (an SE 2200) into Cubase via the mic pre amp on the mixer BUT still having problems getting a strong signal from my guitar/bass. I've now realised that the Behringer doesn't support a guitar signal. It only has mic pre amps and line input. So I guess it's a guitar DI Box that I need, yes?...
 
I'm now thinking about the Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic200 to serve my needs - getting a decent guitar/bass signal into Cubase via my soundcard. Does anyone have any experience of this model?
 
zimbo said:
I'm now thinking about the Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic200 to serve my needs - getting a decent guitar/bass signal into Cubase via my soundcard. Does anyone have any experience of this model?
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Nothing flash about this preamp, I have one and only use it to overdrive something like a harp or guitar cab mic. As suggested before have a look at the Studio Projects VTB-1, this would be the best cheap preamp out there, I have 3. Plenty of secondhand ones out there also. Review here, you did not say where you are? Street prices on the VTB-1 are usually cheaper than retail, but they have gone up in price a bit recently.

Alan.
 
zimbo said:
I'm using a M-Audio 2496 soundcard with a Behringer Eurorack 802 Mixer. I've now managed to get a good signal from my microphone (an SE 2200) into Cubase via the mic pre amp on the mixer BUT still having problems getting a strong signal from my guitar/bass. I've now realised that the Behringer doesn't support a guitar signal. It only has mic pre amps and line input. So I guess it's a guitar DI Box that I need, yes?...
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I'd take a step back to this post rather than your next one and get yourself a DI box so you can plug your bass into the mic input on your mixer. Even relatively cheap passive ones can sound fine--and frankly a pre amp in your price range might sort out your bass but isn't going to do much to help a pretty good microphone.
 
arcaxis said:
I gave him this reply 2 days ago in another forum.....

"I have one of these >> Behringer DI20 Ultra DI 2-Channel Active DI Box/Splitter (active DI) that I didn't buy for the purpose of guitar or bass, but does work for that purpose into a mixer. XLR out of the DI goes into the XLR of the mixer. The XLR mic mixer channel has adequate gain for guitar with this box. DI boxes are priced much higher or lower and quality would be reflected in the price. The Behringer is fine for what I use it for."

I also have a cheap passive Pyle DI that works, but the Behringer sounds better.
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This!!!
 
arcaxis said:
I gave him this reply 2 days ago in another forum.....

"I have one of these >> Behringer DI20 Ultra DI 2-Channel Active DI Box/Splitter (active DI) that I didn't buy for the purpose of guitar or bass, but does work for that purpose into a mixer. XLR out of the DI goes into the XLR of the mixer. The XLR mic mixer channel has adequate gain for guitar with this box. DI boxes are priced much higher or lower and quality would be reflected in the price. The Behringer is fine for what I use it for."

I also have a cheap passive Pyle DI that works, but the Behringer sounds better.
Click to expand...

I'm glad you posted this...there are several Behringer DI boxes which are great but there's one real dog and I can never remember which the bad one is so tend to keep quiet when recommending specific ones!
 
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