What should I do?

[genesisariana]

I have enough saved up to buy a RNP now, and the money is burning a hole in my pocket. Should I save up a little more and get the Grace 101, save up a lot more and get the Solo 610, or go for broke and wait forever to get the La-610? I need a good all around pre for lead vocals, but I am so impatient. What should I do?

[Daisy]

What are you doing this for? Are you recording yourself or other people? Pro bono, or are you getting paid? Is it for a demo, or are you selling / distributing copies?

[NL5]

I'm a big fan of the RNP. I find the 610 to be almost unusable - well, not unusable, but no better than way less priced preamps.

The LA-610 is not too great IMHO either. It's marketed as an LA2a "style" compressor, it's not an la2a.

If I was gonna go all out for a vocal channel on a "budget", I'd get a GR MP-1NV, and a used Mackie UAD-1. That way for about $1200, you would have an 1176, and LA@A compressors that do a pretty good job of emulating the hardware versions, plus you would have them available for other tracks as well. The GR can go from pretty clean to damned aggressive - pretty versatile IMHO.

[genesisariana]

What, pro bono, other people or me? What does that have anything to do with what pre amp I want to invest in? I need a good all around mic pre for lead vocals, thats about all I can tell you.

[kojdogg]

the 610 is a bit of a picky preamp ime/imho, so i think it would depend on what mic you're using it with. i did like it for vocals though (particularly after a 12ax7 upgrade) and fwiw you can often find them used for about the same price as a rnp new.
thinking down the line though, it is handy to have a two channel pre-- perhaps a dav bg-1 is worth considering?

[Sonic Idiot]

Hey, genesisariana -

Buy the RNP. It's a great pre, you'll love it, and you'll get to work right away discovering what you like about it and what you don't like and 6 months from now, you'll have a great base by which to compare other pres. GO man!

[pipelineaudio]

Get the RNP and move onto stuff that actually matters

[JuliánFernández]

Originally Posted by pipelineaudio

Get the RNP and move onto stuff that actually matters

Man, you´re giving good advice on this forum lately... Rep for you...

[MadHatterTCM]

for it's price, RNP is hot.

Grace 101, i like better. but it's not necessarily your "all-around" preamp.
It's clean... crystal...
RNP has character that is usable on most anything you run through it.

I don't dig the solo. period.

This probably helps none. It's just my opinion on the 3 you mentioned.

[Daisy]

Originally Posted by genesisariana

What, pro bono, other people or me? What does that have anything to do with what pre amp I want to invest in?

Because if this truly is an "investment" that you expect to get a return out of by way of actual paid work from paying clients ... then generally speaking a larger investment can be better justified on the grounds that it can reap some sort of financial return. You ever take a business class?

But generally speaking, there isn't going to be an enormous difference, sonically, between the various mic pres out there -- you have to get in to some pretty critical listening before differences eventually become noticeable.

With that in mind, if the idea is to put together a demo, which would act as a portfolio of your work and show off what you can do ... then I wouldn't sweat it; no one is going to care what kind of mic pre was used, and just about anything in the prosumer level will do. On the other hand, on a more critical project you may again be able to justify the added expense; particularly if it is going to be spread out over several thousand copies and so on and so forth. In such an instance, I could possibly see spending more on something if it gave you even a miniscule sonic improvement.

So as you can probably guess ... I happen to be of the opinion that the context and intent is very meaningful. Otherwise, I might just be inclined to tell you to get just any old thing, so long as it has a an XLR input and a gain knob on it.

[genesisariana]

Very helpful info guys. And no Daisy, I have never taken a business class, cant you tell, lol. I am going to get the rnp to get me by for now, and keep saving for that mac-daddy.

[MadHatterTCM]

the macdaddy = solo? gross
Once you get to that point of money saved up,
you should ask these questions again.
As I said. I don't like it at all.
NL5 even called it near unusable, and cheaper pre's sound better.
I agree.

[genesisariana]

No, the solo is not on my "mac daddy" list.