What's more important...mic or preamp?

What's more important...mic or preamp?

  • The microphone

    Votes: 99 51.6%

  • The preamp

    Votes: 24 12.5%

  • Both are equally important to the signal chain

    Votes: 69 35.9%
  • Total voters
    192
I acknowledged that changing mic will have a greater measurable impact on a signal than changing preamp a few pages ago,
but I also made an observation based on my experience with a limited set of equipment.

It is what it is and I'm not interested in debating it.
 
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I'll side with Michael J on this. No math or proofs, though, just an appeal to reason :cool:

With the obvious exception of electronically generated sound, the mic is the entry port into our audio "illusion engines". Everything else that happens prior to playback basically amplifies or attenuates (with as little distortion as possible, or as much distortion as desired) and stores the electronic representation of the acoustic event.

Preamps, amps, converters, multi-track tape recorders, etc are all necessary elements of the audio chain, but none of these are sufficient to capture acoustic energy and transduce it into an electrical energy. That is the singular role of the mic.

It seems a little ironic that the transducers (mics and speakers) are the largest contributors to distortion in the audio chain. But there it is.

A question for Michael J: How is microphone distortion measured?

Paul
 
They are both important but I will personally never skimp out on a good pre amp for my mic ever again. It's a lesson you only learn once! When you get that pre amp humm all up in your recording you will understand even the best mic will sound terrible.
 
the most important is the performance.

gear can help, but a magic perfomrance will sound awesome with the crappiest equipment....
 
studiodtk5 said:
the most important is the performance.

gear can help, but a magic perfomrance will sound awesome with the crappiest equipment....
Click to expand...

Better definitely, but I am not sure about awesome. Nothing can sound awesome without a good performance, not sure I would say crappy equipment can do much for even a great performance.

Guess there needs to be a threshold of what 'crappy' is. Laptop+laptop mic, will not make any great performance sound 'awesome'.

Just saying..
 
Well I see I wass a bit misunderstood on my comment. Basically what I was thinking about was some rock solid perfomrances from many years ago (1950s 1960s). If we all looked at some of those from a gear basis of today, that stuff they had pales in comparison to what is available now, even the low end equipment.

I know there was good equipment from thrn, but there were also tons of compromises when you take all of the equipment available as a whole.

For this topic of microphone or microphone preamp.....today the average microphone preamps are all quite capable. So the microphone itself will have the most impact difference on the recording between the twow items.
 
studiodtk5 said:
Well I see I wass a bit misunderstood on my comment. Basically what I was thinking about was some rock solid perfomrances from many years ago (1950s 1960s). If we all looked at some of those from a gear basis of today, that stuff they had pales in comparison to what is available now, even the low end equipment.

I know there was good equipment from thrn, but there were also tons of compromises when you take all of the equipment available as a whole.

For this topic of microphone or microphone preamp.....today the average microphone preamps are all quite capable. So the microphone itself will have the most impact difference on the recording between the twow items.
Click to expand...

Your point is not misunderstood, as it is quite valid. I would actually take it a step further and say that the song writing and arrangement is a little bit more important than a perfect performance, but that could be splitting hairs. As for the intent of this thread, it really should have been, “How do you find the Weakest Link in your recording chain?” I actually approached this discussion early on with the mindset of a limited budget and how to allocate those dollars between Microphones and Pre Amps.
Fishmed said:
Also from an economic view, I would rather buy one good mic pre and several different mics than buying one mic and several mic pres. If I am going to buy one mic pre, then it is more important which one I buy since there will only be that one.
Click to expand...
Once you get into the actual process of recording, then the choice of mic becomes more important. Of course at the point, you are limited to choose from what you have on hand. I do mostly do the engineering side, so beyond accepting the work, I have little say in the the writing, arranging, and performance.
 
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