M-audio TAMPA : something strange

[Colwarter]

I got a new M-audio TAMPA like 2 weeks ago, and it seems like it changes "almost" nothing to my recordings. And yes, I tried to set it a lot of different ways, I tried all the buttons and the difference between using and not using the m-audio tampa is very little. I use a Presonus Firepod, nothing else, and it sounds almost the same when I just put a mic in a line of firepod than when I put my mic in the tampa. Do you have any ideas on how to solve my problem???

[Zed10R]

The answer I see coming from the pro's on the board is a common one. I have seen it many times.

You will not hear much of a difference in the sound untill your mix gets full. Then you will notice a greater degree of seperation between all your tracks, and the details will show more clearly.

A "good" preamp will not give you a night and day improvement over a "not so good" preamp (or none at all) on just a couple tracks.

Bottom line is you just have to keep using it untill you find it's voice.

Good luck.

[fraserhutch]

Absolutely right.

I would also add that you will likely not hear much of a difference if you have a weak monitoring chain.

What is your chain?

[SonicAlbert]

I don't think the Tampa is going to be worlds apart from the Presonus when it comes to preamps anyway. It's not like it's a big jump up several classes of gear, it's basically in the same range. So I'd be surprised if there were a big difference.

But certainly if you engage the compressor and dial in some extreme settings you should hear a difference. Have you tried that? Try dialing in an extreme threshold setting and then twiddle the attack and release knobs. If you don't hear that, then I'd be worried something is amiss with the unit.

But if you are bypassing the compressor and just using the preamp, I doubt you'll hear much difference. On one track or many. Just my opinion.

[Jtt]

And no offense to all the proponents. But the whole: you won't hear a difference until there are a zillion tracks smacks of BS. If there is a difference, then it must be audible on one track. Saying things stack up weird etc., sounds more like problems of eq and source.

I have a nice pre, (Great River)---and I 'can' hear the difference between it and a mackie on a single track. So I don't doubt that pres can make a difference, but... if it takes a thousand tracks to hear the difference, I want my money back.

And to echo Albert--tampa and presonus pres probably aren't all that different.

Record some music.

J

[LemonTree]

Originally Posted by Colwarter

I got a new M-audio TAMPA like 2 weeks ago, and it seems like it changes "almost" nothing to my recordings.

That's excellent! a nice clean sounding pre...exactly the same as my Tampa. Now punch in some compression, yep pretty clean too. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

[beeson]

You know, I've thought the same thing...very clean. I'm trying to get more out of it myself...say is there any way to use the compressor alone on that sucker?