Mic Pres

[MattNZ]

As a fairly new recordist, I’m just getting my head around mic pres and their function. Now as far as I understand it, these preamps are there to amplify the signal from a microphone to an acceptable level and provide phantom power where required.

Like a lot of users on this site, I have an Edirol UA-25 USB interface.

This is a cracking little box with a couple of built in mic pres. However, if I wanted to try out some other new mic preamps, am I able to switch off the pres within the Edirol? If not, what are the repercussions of two lots of preamps in the signal chain?

Please, no RTFM replies – I have done. The word preamp is mentioned only once in the UA-25 manual.

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by MattNZ

As a fairly new recordist, I’m just getting my head around mic pres and their function. Now as far as I understand it, these preamps are there to amplify the signal from a microphone to an acceptable level and provide phantom power where required.

Like a lot of users on this site, I have an Edirol UA-25 USB interface.

This is a cracking little box with a couple of built in mic pres. However, if I wanted to try out some other new mic preamps, am I able to switch off the pres within the Edirol? If not, what are the repercussions of two lots of preamps in the signal chain?

Please, no RTFM replies – I have done. The word preamp is mentioned only once in the UA-25 manual.

Does this Edirol have any line ins? If so, use them to bypass the preamp stage.

[KineticSound]

Looks like the inputs on the UA-25 are combo-jacks. I'm not 100% certain, but I bet the 1/4" plugs on those get fed through the same preamp circuit as the XLR signal. You do have a set of digital inputs, however they're of the optical variety and I'm not aware of many decent, entry-level preamps with optical cards on them. Most of what you see is Coax (or AES/EBU on higher end units).

To answer your original question, running one preamp into another is certainly not ideal. Is there a particular reason you're not happy with the Edirol's preamps? What sort of microphone are you running into it?