should I max out my outboard Pre's input and than raise the mixers built-in pre?

V

videodrone

New member
I have a Studio Projects VTB-1 Pre going to my Digital Recorders built in pres,

Should I lower the Digital recorders Pre's to zero and raise the VTBs pre's so there maxed out and than slwly raise my built in recorders Pre's? Will this give me the best sound out of my VTB pre? Or should there be some kind of balance there that will keep floor noise down more and keep a great tone.

thanks!
 
You shouldn't be sending a mic pre into another mic pre. That's a bad idea. You should be going from the line out of the VTB to a line input on your recorder.
 
Many poarts and DAWs have no actual way to disable the mic pres, so he may have no choice.

The general recommendation is that you should have as a high level in each step of the signal chain as possible, without distorting anything.

This probably means that the mic pre should output line levels. That's what it's designed for.
 
thanks for eh advice guys,

Track Rat - yeah, im going in to teh VTB and than out to the ins on my Digital recorder, I cant turn off or bypass the Dig Recorders pres, I can turn them down to zero and raise them just alil and max out my VTBs input? which was my original question, does that sound like a good idea to you?

regebro - so you think I should "even out" all the knobs so there all about equal but still getting the highest signal without peaking, instead of maxing out teh VTB and than slowly rasing the Dig Rec's Pre to get teh same high level without peaking,

Thanks!
 
I'd have my levels between 75 - 85 % at my preamp and then adjust the input of the soundcard to the final level. Start with the soundcard at zero and adjust up from there. Most gear have a range that they perform well within. Most of the time, this range is in the middle of the maximum operating range. I try to avoid each extreme (lows and highs). If you can't avoid the pres in your soundcard, I would just avoid absolute zero as there is usually a noise floor in that range. A bit above and you get the benefits of the raised level above the noise floor.

What soundcard do you have?
 
I use a roland vs2480 with a vtb1 and dmp3, I turn my onboard pre's all the way down and use only the gains on the outboard pre's. It would be nice to bypass them, but it is not possible without going digital, which the vtb doesn't have, the vtb2 will.
 
videodrone said:
regebro - so you think I should "even out" all the knobs so there all about equal [/B]
Click to expand...

No. I think what I said above: That the output from your VTB1 should be close to the nominal line level of the VTB1.

I don't have a VTB1, but I'd expect that you tweak the input gain to the orange led starts blinking just a bit, meaning that you use nominal level internally, and that you then set the output to 0, meaning that you still use the standard line level (-10db) for output.
 
It matters what digital recorder you are using. Are the line level ins of your recorder looking for -10 (consumer line level) or +4 pro line level? I had that same problem using outboard pres into a Korg PXR4, and had to resort to a line level shifter (EB TECH LLS-2)
The line level ins on a lot of the less expensive standalones is meant to capture line level output from a CD or cassette player, which is -10. Even turned way down, an outboard pre will clip the crap out of the pres in the recorder. And I'd have to say that technobabble aside, you will get better results by using as little of the pres in your recorder as possible, and feeding them with a better front end. The outboard pre, if it's any good at all, will give you more gain with less noise. I have read the posts by the doomsayers who say that using a transformer to shift the line level will make terrible noise, but it basically doesn't, for practical purposes.
This apparent impedence incompatibility probably affects Fostex MR-8, BR532, and others. Anybody know more about it? I'm techno-challenged, but out here in the empirical universe, if you line level shift the +4 output of your pre to match the -10 line input on those DAWs that use them, it will sound a lot better, and you'll get virtually all of your gain from the outboard, and zip from the DAW. It seems that most of the higher-end recorders are designed to vary input impedence from line to mic level, so they can be trimmed to accept most inputs. I invariably get my best sound at line level, but the big box accepts+4 just fine, and I haven't turned up a single channel volume control on my Roland from zero (line level) in months.-Richie

BTW- the LLS2 changes 2 channels either way (also does -10 to +4), costs $50, is small, and requires no power.
 
Exactly right... sounds very much like gain structure mismatch.

Your first step is to find out what gain structures all your gear operates at, then you may need to use LLSs to mix-match....

The idea is to have a uniform level throughout the chain -- so send a known test tone through the chain, say -20dB and adjust input/output accordingly so that your levels read consistently across all devices. No one device should be boosting output or cutting input too much unless there's a gain structure mismatch.

Know also that using LLS units also introduce a small signal degradation since the signal gets passed thru another transformer, but many times the sacrifice is better than the problems introduced by the gain structure issues.
 
video, I have the VTB-1.

Connect a XLR microphone cable from the output of the VTB-1
to the XLR input of your digital recorder. (if it has one)
Make sure to keep the digital input at "unity gain".

Do any amplification with the VTB-1 as it's quieter than the recorder. The VTB-1 is capable of 72dB(!) of quiet gain, so you should be fine.

Chris
 
You should never use two preamps in a row unless you are going for a distorted sound. You may be able to get it sounding relatively clean but one gain stage should be plenty. If not something is mismatched like others have said.
 
Jake, he's routing the input into a standalone hard drive recorder, and all inputs are routed through the recorder's pres. Turning the variable impedence channel gain knobs on the recorder to minimum gain brings it to an input that is matched for line level in, but it's most likely -10, not +4. This doesn't bypass the pres in the recorder, unfortunately, but it does minimize their effect on the sound. Maybe you shouldn't have two pres in the signal chain, but that guideline doesn't count for shit when one of them is hard wired into the chain, and sucks.
I promise you this much- feeding almost any standalone from a better front end will vastly improve the recorded sound, and line level shifting the input for impedence matching helps. There is no way I could record the current project using the Roland's pres. I can bypass them completely by going in digital, by S/PDIF, but only one of my pres (DBX386) has A-D conversion as good as the 1824. Think of it as a mixer you just have to go into. Eventually, I'll upgrade to a straight hard drive recorder, but for right now, working around the weak points of a standalone is what I have to do.-Richie
 
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