Anyone ever tried using a guitar amp as a tube pre for a mic?

[snellular5]

You may think im crazy haha but today I decided I would try this so I ran my mic through my firepod pre then hooked the "pre amp" out to my guitar amp (which is tube) and then tapped the direct out on my guitar amp and recorded that signal. I was expecting it not to work but was super suprised as I got some seriously nice sounding vocals ( better than normal as I have no tube pres or other pres than my firepods) I got really nice warm fat vocals and got to use the eq section on my amp to get some really chunky vocals.
So anyways I was just wondering if anyone else had tried this and how it worked for you.

[Seafroggys]

And you didn't blow up anything?

[snellular5]

nope nothing blew up... i think haha

[Farview]

Tube preamps don't necessarily give you the best sound. That's all marketing hype.

The most sought after mic preamps in the world are solid state. They just cost a lot. Of course, tube mic preamps of that caliber would be twice as expensive as the solid state ones and sound about the same.

[mshilarious]

Stick a good 1:4 transformer in front of it, and that might be interesting. I mean, yeah, you can use another pre in front instead, but transformers are cooler

[Minion]

My Latest DIY guitar amp has a unballanced Low impedance Mic input with a 12ax7 Dual triode in the preamp section (with opamp buffer) and it works OK if you aren"t looking for totally clean Vocals ......

[snellular5]

haha wicked

[martinjay]

Yes Sorry but it has been done before - Trevor Horn 'Video Killed the radio star' (Verse lead vocals)

[Wireneck]

I think the "Strokes" did that quite a bit on one of their albums. Not to say that it sounded good haha.

[snellular5]

haha fair enough thanks for the replies guys

[doulos24]

The most sought after mic preamps in the world are solid state.

you can't name a few tube mic preamps that people seek?

manley slam
avalon 737
universal audio 610
Tube-Tech MEC 1A
Millennia TD-1

etc

[Farview]

Originally Posted by doulos24

you can't name a few tube mic preamps that people seek?

manley slam
avalon 737
universal audio 610
Tube-Tech MEC 1A
Millennia TD-1

etc

All of these cropped up pretty recently. If you look at the stuff that most big time engineers and producers use, they might have one or two tube pres, but racks and racks of Neve preamps. My point was that Neve, API, Trident, Harrison, etc... and all the clones, are solid state. The quality of the preamp gives you warmth, regardless of whether or not it has a tube.

[donkeystyle]

Originally Posted by Farview

All of these cropped up pretty recently. If you look at the stuff that most big time engineers and producers use, they might have one or two tube pres, but racks and racks of Neve preamps. My point was that Neve, API, Trident, Harrison, etc... and all the clones, are solid state. The quality of the preamp gives you warmth, regardless of whether or not it has a tube.

Agreed.

There is definitely nothing wrong with tubes and I'll eventually get 1 or 2 good tube mic pre's, but the marketing of tubes is just ridiculous.

I've also run vocals through a tube guitar amp. distorted in an interesting way. I don't think those tracks were used in the final mix though.

[Adam P]

I hope for your amp's sake that you weren't running it without a speaker load hooked up (unless only the preamp section is tubed).

[donkeystyle]

Originally Posted by Adam P

I hope for your amp's sake that you weren't running it without a speaker load hooked up (unless only the preamp section is tubed).

Tube or solid state you don't want to run it without a speaker load. It's the output transformer that gets damaged, not the tubes.

In my case I recorded both the speaker and the direct out.

[snellular5]

haha i had the speaker going dont worry