Mic Pres...Crap and not-so-crap?

W

Wolfman140

New member
I see on mainstream sites (Musician's Friend, Music123, etc) there are lot of little preamps like Behringer or TubeAmp for 50 to 150 bucks...They stress that their sound mimmicks the sound of a tube mic for warmth, etc. I see the popular pre's that people are talking about (RNP, Presonus, etc) don't mention anything about tube synthesis. So...Are the cheap ones boasting about tube warmth just a load of bull? And do the more quality pre amps already contain plenty of warmth on their own without a Tube Drive? If none of you can tell, I'm quite a newbie and am asking 12 billion questions. Cheers.

-Kevin
 
Some higher end mic pre's use tubes, but most get their warmth from the transformers. I have a couple of different pre's, one of which is quite inexpensive and has a tube (ART DPS II), and another which is moderately priced with no tubes (Focusrite Voicemaster). It really depends on how much you can afford and what you're going to be using it for. I record mainly pre-production demos at home, and can't justify spending a lot on a high end pre/mic combination for that reason. Getting back to your question ... I don't find tubes in lower end pre's really add a lot of wamth, I would say they add a little character or color though. My 2 cents. :-)
 
Yea. The ART TPS has an orange light behind the tube to make look like it is glowing. Not down the TPS. I owned one and it work fine for a 150.00 pre.
 
actually those cheapo boxes are kinda cool, but not really in the way that they tell you that they are.

i played with that behr one, i liked it as a fuzz box DI. for microphone, it was sort of lacking in the meat, but had a lot of fuzzy face available. could be cool on some things. kick drum, bass cabs for example.

also i have a bellari mp105, which is similar, but probably the cream of the $50 tube pre crop. it is a "real" tube pre, in that the tube isnt "blended" in with an IC based gain stage, it actually provides gain for the entire signal path. unlike all the others.

it has a strange and colorful sound that i like. more useful than the ART and behr ones. the difference being that the bellari is similar to an "overdrive" effect, and the other ones are more of a "distortion" effect at high gain, and at low gain it is a weird slow and soft sounding pre while the behr is just a sort of mediocre normal sounding pre at low gain.
 
eeldip said:
also i have a bellari mp105, which is similar, but probably the cream of the $50 tube pre crop. it is a "real" tube pre, in that the tube isnt "blended" in with an IC based gain stage, it actually provides gain for the entire signal path. unlike all the others.

it has a strange and colorful sound that i like. more useful than the ART and behr ones. the difference being that the bellari is similar to an "overdrive" effect, and the other ones are more of a "distortion" effect at high gain, and at low gain it is a weird slow and soft sounding pre while the behr is just a sort of mediocre normal sounding pre at low gain.
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I was just reading about that on Black Lion Audio's website last night, because they had a mod for it that seemed mind-numbingly simple. All it really was is replacing the opamps and the tube. From their site:

Here’s what to do:

Replace U1 and U2 (BA4560 opamps) with a pair of Analog Devices AD826 dual opamps. They are socketed, so you don’t even have to do any soldering.

Replace V1 with the 12AX7 of your choice. Black Lion Audio has long been a fan of the EI ECC83, which is an inexpensive reproduction of Telefunken’s long-plate 12AX7, and the Electro-Harmonix EH12AX7.
Click to expand...

Have you tried or considered trying doing any of that? If so, what were the results? I'm just curious since the simplicity coupled with the price made me want to try to find an MP105 on eBay, but I didn't have any luck.
 
Yes they are bull. Preamps under $500 are generally a straight wire design, the tube is just a gimmick to fuzz things up a bit. Used in moderation, perfectly harmless.

Not even close however, to the sound of a real tube preamp like the Avalons and above.
 
woah... I thought just Behringer use put light bulbs behind their tubes...WTF is going on??--- Hey, which is the cheapest and usefull tube pre out there... I believe it starts on the Avalon... :eek:
 
The cheap tube pres are an effect. As an effect, I think it's a pretty good one. Note that they usually market these things as DIs and they're good for that.

I have an ART Dual MP I modded with BB op amps and vintage tubes. Much improved sound, but tube gain stage still adds a LOT of harmonics. The harmonics sound much better with the vintage tubes, and the BBs cleared up the odd harmonics generated by the stock STs quite a bit.

Some feel that the excessive harmonics generated by the tubes is a little silly. It's a matter of taste how far up you turn the knob. Clearly, you CAN use these things tastelessly, but that's true of any guitar pedal.

This ART unit has two IC gain stages, +20 and +10dB, and the tube generates up to +40dB, but is only usable up to +30dB or so without sounding ridiculous. If you A/B the +30dB of IC gain against +30dB of tube gain, the sound is dramatically different. Therefore it can't be said to just be there for 'show'.

Also there is no fake backlight for the tube, they do glow on their own, but you have to open the case and look pretty carefully to notice.
 
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