Recommend a preamp?

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drewz0r

New member
Hey guys, I'm looking for a quality preamp that can provide a hefty amount of clean gain. Specifically, to be used with my SM57 and, more importantly, my SM7b. I don't really know where to start, so please recommend something and I'll look into it! My budget is $300ish

PS: I will be upgrading from a Presonus Firepod. Whatever you recommend needs to have a noticeable positive difference. Can this budget even provide such a change?
 
i don't know how good the firepod pres are, but i just bought my second dmp3 so i can run all 4 drum mics through this pre, and i'm amazed at how much better it sounds.

before, i had my mxl 603 pair going through the dmp3, the audix d6 through the vtb-1, and an sm57 for snare going through an art tube mp. what a difference now that the snare and kick are on that new dmp3.

just a thought. what you'll get at $300/channel may not be much better than what you can get at $170/2 channels.
 
drewz0r said:
Hey guys, I'm looking for a quality preamp that can provide a hefty amount of clean gain. Specifically, to be used with my SM57 and, more importantly, my SM7b. I don't really know where to start, so please recommend something and I'll look into it! My budget is $300ish

PS: I will be upgrading from a Presonus Firepod. Whatever you recommend needs to have a noticeable positive difference. Can this budget even provide such a change?
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http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/page/shop/flypage/product_id/1932

img10401221670.jpeg


2-channel tube pre for just over 200 bucks. I have a one-channel baby version of this (Ultragain Mic200) and it does an amazing job for my AKG mike. If you don't trust me read the reviews on Harmony Central -

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Effects/product/Behringer/T1953+Tube+Ultragain/10/1
 
drewz0r said:
Hey guys, I'm looking for a quality preamp that can provide a hefty amount of clean gain. Specifically, to be used with my SM57 and, more importantly, my SM7b. I don't really know where to start, so please recommend something and I'll look into it! My budget is $300ish

PS: I will be upgrading from a Presonus Firepod. Whatever you recommend needs to have a noticeable positive difference. Can this budget even provide such a change?
Click to expand...

The Behringer mentioned is a starved plate design, with most of the gain coming from op amps. Unless your goal is to have a very colored sound, you don't want that.

The Brick that someone else mentioned is a more proper tube circuit, but only provides about 55 dB of gain, 10 dB less than your Presonus pres. Even that isn't particularly clean at the high end of the gain range, at least with the stock tube. Not sure how much a tube swap will help.

You might consider some kit pres that you assemble yourself if you're into that sort of thing. Otherwise, I doubt you will find anything in that price range that will be a huge win over the FIREPOD pres. There are plenty of things to hate about the FIREPOD, but the pres aren't one of them. They're pretty clean as far as low end pres go.
 
guitar zero said:
Don't know what you're recording, but for your budget if you want clean gain, consider the symetrix 302. If you want some "tube warmth" look at the ART MPA Gold.
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I may be the king of the budget pres...but I can second these suggestions--both of em. I've got 4 channels of the 302 and it's clean even cranked up enough for my SM7b. And the ART Gold is a nice touch of color at the same level. I use the art with my 57 for micing amps. (Though in my last session I used it with the SM7b for a bit of color on vocals and it turned out quite well.)

BTW--I have no experience with the Firepod pres, so the other posters may be right when they say these are no better; I just can't make that comparison.
 
dgatwood said:
The Behringer mentioned is a starved plate design, with most of the gain coming from op amps. Unless your goal is to have a very colored sound, you don't want that.
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I've tried a lot of preamps over the past four years starting with various ART and Behringer pres and ending up with some pretty good ones in the past year from companies like Avedis, Langevin (Manley version) and OSA with others auditioned along the way from companies like Universal Audio, A-Designs, Joe Meek, Mackie, Chameleon Labs, Safe Sound, Rane, Soundcraft, M-Audio and I'm sure I'm forgetting some others. The point I'm getting to is that the T1953 was clearly my least favorite of all of them. I tried several other Behringer preamps-- the ones in the Eurorack mixers, the ones in the Xenyx mixers and one in a Voice Processor strip and I would definitely recommend any of those over the T1953. I would also recommend just about any ART pre over the T1953-- definitely the ART MPA Gold, which is a great value pre, but I also much preferred the TPS pres and even the MP pre. If you're looking to use the pre with an SM7b as you stated, the DMP3 is an excellent suggestion-- perhaps better than the Brick due to its limited gain.
Again though, IMHO, I absolutely hated the T1953-- it made everything I put through it sound harsh. YMMV.
 
I'm still in the budget range, myself. I can say that the ART MPA Gold (or in my case, the Digital MPA) is a good match for the SM7b - this because it has variable input impedance. When I use the SM7b with the MPA, I turn up the impedance pretty high, and it sounds very full and good.

I also use the pres in my Black-Lion-Audio modded MOTU Traveler for a lot things. They sound fantastic to my ears in most instances, particularly with instruments. However, when I use the SM7b with those pres -- even though they have noticeably more gain than the ART (which has plenty of gain, btw), it feels like I'm fighting the mic/signal chain some. The same seems to be true for me with the DMP3, but I haven't used that as much.

If I could use an analogy (which may be more confusing than helpful - forgive me if so) the SM7b with the high-impedance-set MPA is like pedaling a 10 speed bicycle in 9th or 10th gear, but with the others it's like pedaling in 2nd or 3rd gear.

But if you have the money for a higher end preamp, by all means, have a look at those -- I guess I would encourage you to look at units with variable or switchable input impedance.
 
I found that I had to change the tubes, too -- I wanted mine to be matched as well as I could. I think I'm using standard issue Groove Tube 12AX7s. Either that or some Czech made ones of fairly recent vintage - nothing fancy or expensive. I tried some older RCAs and GEs that I have; individually, these were the best, but I couldn't get a good match.

My stock (Chinese non-branded) tubes were sizzly and weak-ish sounding, with a tendency to overdrive too soon (and in a farty, not good way). In this application I'm not looking for any tube distortion, good or otherwise, which means I need good strong tubes. OK, maybe a teeny bit of even order harmonic accentuation is nice.

QC in those Chinese tube factories isn't what we wish it was (yet?), which means merely that their output isn't consistent - it's possible to get nice tubes, although less likely to get two of them, I suppose.
 
antichef said:
I found that I had to change the tubes, too -- I wanted mine to be matched as well as I could. I think I'm using standard issue Groove Tube 12AX7s. Either that or some Czech made ones of fairly recent vintage - nothing fancy or expensive. I tried some older RCAs and GEs that I have; individually, these were the best, but I couldn't get a good match.

My stock (Chinese non-branded) tubes were sizzly and weak-ish sounding, with a tendency to overdrive too soon (and in a farty, not good way). In this application I'm not looking for any tube distortion, good or otherwise, which means I need good strong tubes. OK, maybe a teeny bit of even order harmonic accentuation is nice.

QC in those Chinese tube factories isn't what we wish it was (yet?), which means merely that their output isn't consistent - it's possible to get nice tubes, although less likely to get two of them, I suppose.
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Yeah I've got some Czech tubes of recent vintage in my amp--made a good difference. Maybe I'll go back to the source and get for the ART.
 
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