First preamp what can I expect ?

maxman65 said:
I'm afraid I dont really know what balanced /unbalanced means.

If an electrical audio signal has to travel through a long cable run - for example you plug your microphone into a snake or something and it goes around 100 feet out to the console - the cable can act as an antenna to capture stray noise from various sources. An unbalanced line will have the signal conductor or "hot" wire and a ground. To balance the signal it needs to be duplicated to transmit through a second conductor, and the polarity of one of the signal wires is flipped out of phase. An XLR cable or other balanced line has the 2 signal wires twisted together with the ground going through a shield. So now you have the "hot" wire or "+" signal twisted around another conductor carrying the "cold" or "-" signal. If you were to sum the two signals together as they are in the cable they would phase cancel each other and all you would have is any noise picked up through the long cable run. When the signal reaches its destination (eg. mic preamp) it gets converted back to unbalanced. So the polarity of the cold signal gets flipped back to hot which puts the noise inducted through the cable run out of phase to the signal, therefore cancelled.

If you're not doing a long cable run you don't really need balanced lines. Most microphones have balanced output by default. An XLR to 1/4" TS cable is not balanced. That can cause things like a slight drop in signal level or the inability to use phantom power.
 
Sounds good...the tascam has XLR balanced.

for example my interface has unbalanced Line IN and it can benefit from a special cable when the source out is balanced.

the XLR on the V3 output is 600ohm, the XLR IN on the Tascam is 2.4kohm...

if you used the V3 1/4" unbalanced out to the Tascam 1/4" IN unbalanced its 10Kohm if switch is Mic/Line

basically you have the decision to use either Tascam inputs or V3 either outputs.
 
Excellent . I guess what I'm getting here is that a short 0.5m xlr to xlr is probably the way to go as it negates a drop in signal and is unlikely to pick noise along its length ?
 
What are you connecting? My example of a signal drop was when using a microphone with balanced output to a 1/4 unbalanced cable. If you're talking about the preamp to the 8 track I'm not sure it would matter with that short a cable run. What is the 8 track? Do both devices provide for unbalanced connection?
 
I've no idea whether balanced or not . However it's lewitt 440 pure ldc mic. Out into to Art v3 preamp. Out again to tascam dp008ex 8 track recorder. All via 0.5m xlr cables
 
You need to get a few basics under your belt, and then it becomes fairly simple - and the really important ones are to do with level.

Microphones generate 1000ths of a Volt - so really tiny. Your preamp or interface device has to boost this quite a bit - and will boost the wanted signal AND any noise that gets picked up. Every microphone worth using uses a balanced connection - so the audio travels on two wires, with a screen surrounding them - this offers the best protection from noise. You will hear people describe this kind of connection, using cables fitted with XLR 3 pin connectors as 'balanced'. Other people of explained what actually happens. They work. Cable length, until you get to silly lengths makes no difference whatsoever. A dirt cheap nasty XLR-XLR will sound just as good as the types made from Gold or titanium coated cable, with exotic outer covers and equally crazy prices. For good practice, look to the broadcasters and professional hire companies. You won't find, for example, the BBC worrying about boutique cables and exotic metals. They could afford them, but their criteria are for toughness and reliability - not sound quality, because that's usually snake oil, and embarrassing. Choose hard wearing and flexible cable if you want it to lay flat on the floor and be easy to coil.

Next level up is guitar level. Same basic physics as a dynamic mic, but a bit beefier - so instead of microvolts, we are talking milliVolts - so a thrash metal guitarist beating hell out of his strings might manage half a Volt maybe, perhaps more, but somebody finger picking will be lower. For some strange reason lost in time, Fender and Gibson decided balanced connections were not required - odd when you consider how prone to noise they are, but all guitars are unbalanced - one signal conductor surrounded by a screen that also carries the return audio to complete the circuit. Guitars are high impedance devices, so the thing to remember is keep cables short. A 10m guitar cable electrically is fine, but sounds dull! The higher impedance the guitar, the duller long cables are.

Next up are keyboards, synths and domestic audio kit like old fashioned cassette recorders, hifi systems and stuff like that. Again, unbalanced but now up to around three quarters of a volt. Not quite so high an impedance, so a little longer cables work OK.

Last in the level stakes is the true professional spec gear - usually just under a Volt and a half, and normally on balanced XLRs.

Problems come plugging the wrong type together. Clearly, plugging a mic into an input expecting 1.4V from a pro spec device is not going to work. Plugging a pro audio playback device into an input expecting microVolts from a mic is going to distort badly - even though the connectors are the same. Plugging a guitar into an input expecting .775V usually works but is a bit quiet, but often workable, and plugging a CD player into a guitar amp usually works. Plugging a mic into a guitar amp might work if you scream into it, but will be useless. Oddly, the only exception are harmonica mics. These have a 1/4" jack plug and a guitar amp thinks it's a guitar, and works happily!

Condenser mics need 3 circuit cables with XLR connectors - because the powering voltage hitches a lift on the cable - no 3 circuit cable and no power!

Most gain controls let you go up or down one wrong level. My preamp is happy with a bodged up guitar going in the mic input if I keep the gain turned way down. It's wrong, but sometimes needs must. I can plug a guitar into an input on a hifi system - I just need to turn the amp up a bit. It's not 'correct', but works.

Warning - amplifier OUTPUTS are bad news for microphone inputs as may be expected. A mic input is expecting the voltage generated by somebody whispering at quite a distance, based on what people crazily attempt to do. Maybe 80V at considerable current, expecting to drive a 8x 10" bas cabinet is going to make your mic preamp VERY unhappy. Oddly, plugging the guitar cab into a mic input actually works! Sounds terrible, but does work.

Mic-Guitar-keyboard/line-proline-speaker. That's the increasing series of levels we deal with daily.
 
rob dropped a lot of good info....

i'll be curious if you get bit with the gear rabbit hole, as I was after my first decent preamp....it went on until trying a few upper end pro ones, for reference data. in hindsight I wish Id just loaner-rented a couple high end preamps and compared and got it over with faster than comparing 100 lateral moves as I did etc...
 
For the meantime I'm adopting a principle of law of diminishing returns. It's cheaper that way . Budget External mic and environment considerations 100pc improvement . Budget preamp 10/20 percent improvement . Now I've reverted to guitar takes . Not tight enough on double tracking on accent beats . Another 30 percent. Garbage song 1000pc but that's where things get a bit trickier
 
Before I left school, I was connecting a stereo to a tape recorder - nobody told me taking two wires from the speaker into the tape recorder input was bad - it actually worked fine when I kept the volume down. Now everyone has the internet and hundreds of well meaning internet correspondents who always advise WARNING WILL ROBINSON. I've never 'blown' anything doing these things, and I firmly believe that manufacturers know beginners will do silly things, and good products are protected against sillyness. The loudspeakers I monitor on are probably 30+ years old but I know them so well, I'm not changing for fashion.

I read things on here that are worrying to my ancient head. I understand I'm out of touch and some music genres are totally outside of my competence and interest, but that's great and normal. All my mics have unofficial labels on. Use for X, don't even think about it for Y, might be OK on Z, but we now have people spending large sums on products that other people say are good, or bad - and this is bad out of context.

I often buy multiples, as for my use, that can be handy. Try one, like it, buy more, but I know my EV RE320 and Shure SM7B will be one off purchases. I used the EV yesterday, simply because I could reach it from where I was sitting and the mic box was in another room. When you do jobs that need high mic counts, you look at what you have and make sensible selections. Back in the 1990s, I had two Rode NT1 mics - my first large diaphragm mics, and like people say on the forums, they were pretty bright. Most times I just used them and EQ'd them more mellow. Now we seem to want mics to be perfect out of the box with no EQ. My old head quite likes bright mics, AKG 414s and 451s feature in my collection and I'd rather use them and cut a bit than use a mellow mic and need to add more.

I hate it when people ask me for mic recommendations, because I buy what I like and don't give a toss for fashion choices. I'm hoping my band get back up and running because I've just bought 4 Neumann 105 mics because I bought one and liked it very much. I got a good price, so went with them. Since buying them, I've read the internet comments, and not seen anything bad.

We do seem very hung up in advice without context - X is good, Y is bad - and I can't subscribe to that. I like to read about what people did with them. They bough an X to record a particular thing, so I like to hear how it went, in case that instrument comes up for me. Sometimes we get simply dreadful instruments recorded with top notch mics, or awful mics doing a pretty good jib on a decent guitar - that's interesting to read. "You should buy a XYZ" when somebody asks for the best microphone scares me.
 
Yes I agree . I think there's a lot going for modern fair priced budget equipment . We've come a long way in 40 years . Getting something to a decent standard of reproduction with some basic principles shouldn't be out of reach . (Though not easy )However I see youtube on various producer/ mixer tips some of which are invaluable . But I wonder sometimes that a one percent nuance here or there isn't sometimes masking the fact the material itself is garbage . There's a comfort blanket effect beyond a certain point with acquisition of toys which may detract from bigger issues
 
Last edited:
It's a balance I think . Being able to switch at the appropriate point to say I can tweak this with any amount of toys but what's under it has no real impact -and to go back to the drawing board accordingly . Or conversely to say this is pretty good but will never reach it's potential in a kitchen and a crappy built in mic on an 8 track . I think that's the crux of it . Ie am I approaching the right essential component of the problem . Perhaps that applies at any level. This is where things can become circular perhaps more particularly with your own material . The dialogue in your head . This sounds like garbage . No it's just recorded garbage . Err ..No it IS garbage . Ad infinitum . Getting an objective grip is hard and worth more than anything
 
Last edited:
"Before I left school, I was connecting a stereo to a tape recorder - nobody told me taking two wires from the speaker into the tape recorder input was bad - it actually worked fine when I kept the volume down. Now everyone has the internet and hundreds of well meaning internet correspondents who always advise WARNING WILL ROBINSON. I've never 'blown' anything doing these things, and I firmly believe that manufacturers know beginners will do silly things, and good products are protected against sillyness."

Well said Rob but I advise attention to the words "good products". The few schematics I have managed to get hold of for much budget gear show a worrying lack of basic protection such as input clamp diodes. Some gear even leaves out basic RFI protection.

Pre amps basically fall into two camps. The uber clean, low noise variety with enough gain for 7bs and ribbons and the rest!
The latter are a spectrum of circuits with 'attitude' aka "distortion" (sometimes dubbed "warmth")

The 'best' of the former will be those with the lowest noise and distortion and adequate gain. For the rest, you pays yer money.....!

Dave.
 
Pre amps basically fall into two camps. The uber clean, low noise variety with enough gain for 7bs and ribbons and the rest!
The latter are a spectrum of circuits with 'attitude' aka "distortion" (sometimes dubbed "warmth")
.

dos... its really in those 2 camps.

For Clean its pretty easily attainable these days, maybe for a dynamic add a Cloudlifter $150, but IC chip preamps/interfaces have great specs these days. It was amazing how little I could hear a difference in clean preamps vs my interface preamp.

For attitude... Ill take a compressor for that task over any preamp. A 1176 in dist mode or a LA2A type in dist mode gets that studio attitude. Preamps with IN & OUT transformers can be overdriven but thats about it. YMMV

I think some of the 10-20% heard is often a simple impedance difference or some natural eq going on in the circuit, some tone changing, transformer or tube in the path..

My first preamp DMP3 compared to a Yamaha MD8 preamp was pretty noticeable and then the following years of preamp comparisons were never that large since. Compressors too, but compressors outboard vs ITB, suffer a different dilemma compared more to ITB...and how you can save settings and have unlimited LA2A's units with plugins vs 1qty outboard with no recall. but I digress off topic...:D
 
dos... its really in those 2 camps.

For Clean its pretty easily attainable these days, maybe for a dynamic add a Cloudlifter $150, but IC chip preamps/interfaces have great specs these days. It was amazing how little I could hear a difference in clean preamps vs my interface preamp.

For attitude... Ill take a compressor for that task over any preamp. A 1176 in dist mode or a LA2A type in dist mode gets that studio attitude. Preamps with IN & OUT transformers can be overdriven but thats about it. YMMV

I think some of the 10-20% heard is often a simple impedance difference or some natural eq going on in the circuit, some tone changing, transformer or tube in the path..

My first preamp DMP3 compared to a Yamaha MD8 preamp was pretty noticeable and then the following years of preamp comparisons were never that large since. Compressors too, but compressors outboard vs ITB, suffer a different dilemma compared more to ITB...and how you can save settings and have unlimited LA2A's units with plugins vs 1qty outboard with no recall. but I digress off topic...:D

Just pointing out that the compressors you mention all have signal amplifiers and differential amplifiers and the software is modeled acoordingly(in general) so most of those "character" compressors have a sonic imprint that includes the same sort of harmonics saturation as a less clean mic pre. The 1176 with the compression turned off and just used as an amplifier is a great example of this and I use it that way on bass and drums often.
 
Back
Top