I'm just a hobbyist who records in spurts. I'll leave it alone for months and then get the fever and come back to it. Usually this gives me GAS and I become obsessed with mics & preamps. I have a drum session coming up this weekend and I bought a couple of MXL604's for overheads. I'm going to use an Audix D6 on the kick and SM-57's on the rest.
I started lusting over preamps and decided to compare the ones that I have.
It's not scientific. I just spoke into a handheld SM-57.
The 3 pre's I used were;
Yamaha O1v96> aux out
Mackie 1202 VLZ> channel insert
ART Studio V3 modelling preamp-voicing set to "flat".> output
From there, I used the line inputs of my M-Audio Delta 1010 LT sound card. My speakers are my trusty old Alesis Monitor 1's.
I don't have golden ears by any means. I played guitar in loud bar bands for years and I was a monitor engineer for a regional sound company.
The bottom line is, I think I could hear very very slight differences between the 3 and even then, I could never qualify the difference in a million years.
So, my conclusions are thusly;
1. I'm deaf.
2. My monitors aren't good enough to reveal the subtleties.
3. There isn't enough difference in the 3 pre's I tested. They're all in the same low end classification.
4. Preamps in general are pretty subtle and spending $$$ on a high end pre for a project studio is a waste of money.
So, for me the pre's that I have are more than adequate. But I'm still dreaming of the Holy Grail magical preamp that will make me go "WOW!".
I started lusting over preamps and decided to compare the ones that I have.
It's not scientific. I just spoke into a handheld SM-57.
The 3 pre's I used were;
Yamaha O1v96> aux out
Mackie 1202 VLZ> channel insert
ART Studio V3 modelling preamp-voicing set to "flat".> output
From there, I used the line inputs of my M-Audio Delta 1010 LT sound card. My speakers are my trusty old Alesis Monitor 1's.
I don't have golden ears by any means. I played guitar in loud bar bands for years and I was a monitor engineer for a regional sound company.
The bottom line is, I think I could hear very very slight differences between the 3 and even then, I could never qualify the difference in a million years.
So, my conclusions are thusly;
1. I'm deaf.
2. My monitors aren't good enough to reveal the subtleties.
3. There isn't enough difference in the 3 pre's I tested. They're all in the same low end classification.
4. Preamps in general are pretty subtle and spending $$$ on a high end pre for a project studio is a waste of money.
So, for me the pre's that I have are more than adequate. But I'm still dreaming of the Holy Grail magical preamp that will make me go "WOW!".