Inexpensive preamp Vs. my mixer's pres

D

Ding Dong

New member
I know this topic has been done to death, but my question is pretty specific to my situation, so i'll ask anyway...

I'm trying to power an old ribbon mic that i have. It's one of those reslo "beatles style" mics. It sounds Ok through my mixer, but it needs a lot of gain and gets a little noisy. I feel like i'm not getting the most from it.

I'm wondering if there are any decent preamps under $300 that would be an improvement over the pre's in my mixer (Allen & heath mixwizard 3) I don't own any preamps, so I'd like to get one anyway just to add a little variety to my setup. But my main goal is to make this ribbon mic into a usable tool.

I'm looking at the Studio projects VTB-1 and the Joe Meek threeQ. I've heard a lot of bad reviews of so-called "toob" pres, so I'm a little wary. can anyone tell me if these pre's are worth anything? should I just wait and save up for a neve?

thanks alot guys...
 
Ding Dong said:
It sounds Ok through my mixer, but it needs a lot of gain and gets a little noisy.
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Ribbon mics need a lot of gain, and sometimes it gets a little noisy when you have to crank it up. But as long as it sounds okay, then you're fine. Does it give you enough gain? I'm assuming it does. Does it sound okay? Yes. Do you have an insane and unbearable amount of noise? Doesn't sound like it does. Then you're fine. Get on with life.

.
 
I doubt that any cheap outboard pre will be of better quality. I rather like the Mixwizard pres compared to Mackie VLZ, Yamaha and other relatively inexpensive boards. On the other hand, if the issue is purely that of enough gain, there are inexpensive stand alone pres that offer more gain than the Mixwizard. It looks like the Mixwizard 3 only has 60 db of gain -- enough, just barely, for a ribbon or an SM7, or other gain hungry mic. Having 70db or so of gain would be helpful. I think the VTB-1 has 72db of gain. I don't know what the Meek offers. I'd look at a Chameleon Labs unit myself if I wanted to get a relatively inexpensive good quality high powered pre (80db) with very decent EQ, but that may be a step above what you are considering in terms of price.
 
pohaku said:
It looks like the Mixwizard 3 only has 60 db of gain -- enough, just barely, for a ribbon or an SM7, or other gain hungry mic. Having 70db or so of gain would be helpful. I think the VTB-1 has 72db of gain. I don't know what the Meek offers. I'd look at a Chameleon Labs unit myself if I wanted to get a relatively inexpensive good quality high powered pre (80db) with very decent EQ, but that may be a step above what you are considering in terms of price.
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thats exactly the kind of advice i was looking for , thanks :D

The chameleon labs 7602 looks pretty nice.

I'm also into the idea of older pre's like the ampex stuff from the sixties. Although I doubt they have as much clean gain as newer pre's. Plus i hear you have to know how to wrench them, which i'm not that good at.
 
chessrock said:
Ribbon mics need a lot of gain, and sometimes it gets a little noisy when you have to crank it up. But as long as it sounds okay, then you're fine. Does it give you enough gain? I'm assuming it does. Does it sound okay? Yes. Do you have an insane and unbearable amount of noise? Doesn't sound like it does. Then you're fine. Get on with life.

.
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Wow, that's some great advice...ROLLFUCKINGEYES!

Geezus man, what are you even doing here?
 
jamacian said:
Wow, that's some great advice...ROLLFUCKINGEYES!

Geezus man, what are you even doing here?
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What was wrong with chessrocks advice?

He can be harsh;) but, I don't see this being one of those times.

Now that I've stuck my nose in I gracefully exit;)

F.S.
 
Alright. Go out and buy a whole new preamp then, when you've already got like 16 of them on your mixer. :rolleyes:

Is that better ?

.
 
I don't have any experience with these, but heard some pretty good things about the Art and JoeMeek 200-500 pre-amsp. You might look through some of those. I know JoeMeek has a pre that has a compressor and a 4 band eq with sweepable lo-mids and sweepable hi-mids plus a few other things on board for like 200 bucks.
 
There's a high gain version of the Grace 101 that might be a good fit for you also. I wouldn't think anything vintage would improve your situation. It might have better tone, but probably wouldn't give you the kind of high gain with todays expectations of low noise that you're looking for.

OOPS, just went back and read the OP, the Grace is over your budget.....but then so is Chameleon Labs.
 
If you're just not getting enough gain, try the direct out from mic channel going directly into the line input of another input channel for two gain stages (and more noise).
 
If I were spending money on a preamp I'd choose one that could do more than just feed a ribbon. There are distinct differences between clean & colored pre's, some are great for some things and bad for others, etc.

I don't know where Allen& Heath pres lean as far as being clean/colored but I'd take that into account (in otherwords consider choosing the opposite of what the Allen& Heath does now) with the style of music and find one with the amount of gain you're looking for.

Getting a few different sounding pres can bring very different tones out of your mics, almost like doubling your mic collection.
 
Freudian Slip said:
What was wrong with chessrocks advice?

He can be harsh;) but, I don't see this being one of those times.

Now that I've stuck my nose in I gracefully exit;)

F.S.
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Well the guy said he wasn't happy with his preamps and was asking for advice for something with higher gain for a ribbon mic which is a perfectly reasonable request. More and more less cock seems to just tell people bullshit like "just go record with it". Like every person here is asking dumb questions when they should just use what they have. Granted that is the case many times but he just seems to go across the board with his grumpy ass attitude.

Plus I hate the fucker...never once heard him record something I would want to have come out of my studio. But he is a fucking rat here, ALWAYS has to answer.
 
jamacian said:
Well the guy said he wasn't happy with his preamps and was asking for advice for something with higher gain for a ribbon mic which is a perfectly reasonable request. More and more less cock seems to just tell people bullshit like "just go record with it". Like every person here is asking dumb questions when they should just use what they have. Granted that is the case many times but he just seems to go across the board with his grumpy ass attitude.

Plus I hate the fucker...never once heard him record something I would want to have come out of my studio. But he is a fucking rat here, ALWAYS has to answer.
Click to expand...

That's cool. Ya feel how ya feel. I just thought this thread was an odd one to desplay it on.

F.S.
 
jamacian said:
Well the guy said he wasn't happy with his preamps and was asking for advice for something with higher gain for a ribbon mic which is a perfectly reasonable request.
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I'm not certain that you're even reading the same thread that I am.

Where did the guy say he wasn't happy? And no, I'm not trying to mess with you or ask leading questions. I'm trying to get back to reality, here. I didn't read the part that you read about being uhappy. You made that inference / assumption.

Seriously, let's break this down.

"It sounds Ok through my mixer"

Now I suppose "Ok" can be interperated one of two ways, depending on whether you feel the glass is half empty or full. But again, let's be realistic here. He's got an old mic. He's probably not very experienced in the arts or recording, hence his question. Frankly, I'd be really surprized if it sounded "stupendous," so I'll accept "Ok." I guess I just don't see that as a bad thing ... a rare occasion for me to see the positive in a given situation, being the grumpy bastard that I am. :D

"but it needs a lot of gain and gets a little noisy."

Alright. Let's break this down a little more. He has an old ribbon, and he's saying it needs a lot of gain. Now I'm not trying to talk down on you or anything, so I'm going to assume you've used ribbons before, and that you probably are aware of the fact that, for an old ribbon mic to need a lot of gain .... again isn't an unsual situation.

Going further, he says that it gets "a little" noisy. Again, I'm not flipping out here, just yet. Old ribbon. Needs lots of gain. Gets "a little" noisy. yea, go on.

In fact, it if gets just a "little" noisey, I'd say we're actually doing pretty good. "A little," at least to me, means not much. And in his situation, not much is actually a pretty good thing. So in review ... we've gone from an "okay" situation to a pretty good situation. Which is good. Again, I'm just reading what he's saying. Had he instead said: "This old mic sounds like a God Awful, ugly mess through my mixer," ... I may have responded differently.

I feel like i'm not getting the most from it.

Alright. So you don't "feel" like you're getting the most from it. Now to me, "feelings" tend to fall under the same category as things like suspicions or inclinations ... to wild guesses and speculations. Feelings just don't provide enough "meat" for me to base a solid conclusion on that something isn't working.

Plus I hate the fucker...never once heard him record something I would want to have come out of my studio. But he is a fucking rat here, ALWAYS has to answer.
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Whether or not you like how I say things ... it was a positive post (as the majority of mine tend to be, if you read them), affirming the equipment he already has. And it was constructive in the sense that I might have saved him some money that could be better spent if he put it away in to his 401K or bought some extra beer or something. :D

I also have a suspicion that you've never heard anything I've worked on in the last 5 years (or ever). But because you don't like the way I've come accross ... you've made the leap / assumption that my work sucks.

And judging from the kind of leaps you've made in this thread ... there may be just a bit of the 'ol "Pot calling the kettle black" going on here with what I see as some big-time negativitiy with your own comments.

.
 
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That Beatles Reslo mic probably has an output impedance of about 30 ohms. Much lower than your standard 150 ohms mic.
The best pre will be quiet with that impedance mic plugged into it. ie: it needs to be quiet with such a low Z mic. I dont know which type and brand is best but any specs you look at need to state the pre's noise figures with such a source impedance driving it. That's your basis of comparison.

These days, pre's are far better than they used to be when that mic was made. You should be able to get it much quieter than it was when it came out. But that assumes the mic is working as good as new, which it may not be. Ribbons are touchy.

Tim
 
chessrock said:
I'm not certain that you're even reading the same thread that I am.

Where did the guy say he wasn't happy? And no, I'm not trying to mess with you or ask leading questions. I'm trying to get back to reality, here. I didn't read the part that you read about being uhappy. You made that inference / assumption.

Seriously, let's break this down.

"It sounds Ok through my mixer"

Now I suppose "Ok" can be interperated one of two ways, depending on whether you feel the glass is half empty or full. But again, let's be realistic here. He's got an old mic. He's probably not very experienced in the arts or recording, hence his question. Frankly, I'd be really surprized if it sounded "stupendous," so I'll accept "Ok." I guess I just don't see that as a bad thing ... a rare occasion for me to see the positive in a given situation, being the grumpy bastard that I am. :D

"but it needs a lot of gain and gets a little noisy."

Alright. Let's break this down a little more. He has an old ribbon, and he's saying it needs a lot of gain. Now I'm not trying to talk down on you or anything, so I'm going to assume you've used ribbons before, and that you probably are aware of the fact that, for an old ribbon mic to need a lot of gain .... again isn't an unsual situation.

Going further, he says that it gets "a little" noisy. Again, I'm not flipping out here, just yet. Old ribbon. Needs lots of gain. Gets "a little" noisy. yea, go on.

In fact, it if gets just a "little" noisey, I'd say we're actually doing pretty good. "A little," at least to me, means not much. And in his situation, not much is actually a pretty good thing. So in review ... we've gone from an "okay" situation to a pretty good situation. Which is good. Again, I'm just reading what he's saying. Had he instead said: "This old mic sounds like a God Awful, ugly mess through my mixer," ... I may have responded differently.

I feel like i'm not getting the most from it.

Alright. So you don't "feel" like you're getting the most from it. Now to me, "feelings" tend to fall under the same category as things like suspicions or inclinations ... to wild guesses and speculations. Feelings just don't provide enough "meat" for me to base a solid conclusion on that something isn't working.



Whether or not you like how I say things ... it was a positive post (as the majority of mine tend to be, if you read them), affirming the equipment he already has. And it was constructive in the sense that I might have saved him some money that could be better spent if he put it away in to his 401K or bought some extra beer or something. :D

I also have a suspicion that you've never heard anything I've worked on in the last 5 years (or ever). But because you don't like the way I've come accross ... you've made the leap / assumption that my work sucks.

And judging from the kind of leaps you've made in this thread ... there may be just a bit of the 'ol "Pot calling the kettle black" going on here with what I see as some big-time negativitiy with your own comments.

.
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You sure can write but reading....that's what you seem to have trouble with. He said that the preamp gets noisy and that he didn't feel like he was getting the most out of it. Does he need an "insane and unbearable amount of noise" to want a new preamp. No. Did you make him seem like a dumbass for even bringing it up? Yes...yes you did.
 
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