Supercreep
Lizard People
The answer to most grown-up questions remains "it depends".
More specific answers are generally reserved for more specific questions.
More specific answers are generally reserved for more specific questions.
antichef
pornk rock
Some things that drive cost on preamps (and mics) have nothing to do with how they sound directly, but rather:
1) how durable they are
2) how long the various components will last before failure
3) how well they handle extreme or other suboptimal conditions
4) how likely they are to flake out and not work right at any given point
5) how consistent they are from unit to unit in all respects (manufacturing tolerances)
6) other stuff I can't think of right now
(ok some of those do indirectly relate to sound, but you get my drift).
These sorts of things are likely much more important to you if you're a professional than if you're a home recording person. If you demand top marks in all those categories (especially #6), you're looking at some big nickel no matter what the preamp (or mic) sounds like.
1) how durable they are
2) how long the various components will last before failure
3) how well they handle extreme or other suboptimal conditions
4) how likely they are to flake out and not work right at any given point
5) how consistent they are from unit to unit in all respects (manufacturing tolerances)
6) other stuff I can't think of right now
(ok some of those do indirectly relate to sound, but you get my drift).
These sorts of things are likely much more important to you if you're a professional than if you're a home recording person. If you demand top marks in all those categories (especially #6), you're looking at some big nickel no matter what the preamp (or mic) sounds like.
Last edited:
cavedog101
Well-known member
1. The worth of anything is dependant on the the worthiness of the thing to accomplish its function or task assigned. Preamps, like all things mechanical, are priced according to their quality,which includes price of the components, cost of labor for construction, cost of engineering, number of units produced( this is most certainly relative), and marketability.
As far as the price range, the engineering alone runs anywhere from 'stolen' to genius.
2. There are no rules. Only users and their respective skill-sets.
3. Depending on the manufacturer and the design quality. We have all heard of the $5.00 preamp that sounds remarkably like a $2,000 preamp and has fooled many well trained ears. Most of the preamps in low-priced consoles will not exceed this number in cost/channel. The console has much more design needs than a stand-alone pre in that it will need to have no crosstalk between channels, will not sum each channel into the sub-buss or the stereo mains, the EQ will not critically skew the phase every time you turn a knob and routing that will incorporate a general usage need of any customer in the market.
About the mics.
1. I have a $3000 mic. I have recorded on more than a few of them also. As an investment, they tend to hold their value better than anything else 'recording'. There IS a big difference in sound quality to a cheap mic. That being said, there seems to be a point where this superiority begins to blur (choice word eh...) I'm not so sure its a price-point thing, but rather an ear training and general knowledge thing. A great mic is great at somethng other than simply being able to reproduce sources with quality, they also tend to train your ears for 'what to hear' when micing a source. For this alone, their value cannot be accurately measured.
2.You can get a pretty damn good mic for $100. Its not going to sound great on everything, but it will be an excellent tool on some things. The trick is to learn what these things are.
3.If I had $1000, I'd buy a Tour Pack with matching paint for the Harley.
O
omtayslick
New member
Absolutely. It depends on what you are recording. Acoustic guitar? Vocals? Drums? Tuba? Bagpipes?
A $100 dollar microphone can outperform a $500 microphone on some sources. And visa-versa.
Here's a place to begin your research: https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=53878
Armistice
Son of Yoda
If you are recording either tuba or bagpipes then please do it quietly, preferably in another country...
R
Richard Monroe
Well-known member
#1- Why does a Rolls Royce or a Ferrari cost more than a KIA, and is it worth it?
#2- It's more like- 90% of the money goes for the last 10% of performance. However, at
the races, that's the difference between the checkered flag and last place.
#3- Of course, or they couldn't sell them. Did every one of the pit crew show up for the
race driving a Countach? No. For some jobs, a Honda Civic or an F150 is the right tool.
To answer the real question, the average project studio doesn't have the budget to support 18, 24, or 64 tracks of top of the line preamps. There are some recording consoles that are built like that, and can cost $100,000 or more. What this usually means is that if we are lucky, we have a few top flight, or at least better channels for critical sources, and a bunch of cheaper channels for when we need a bunch of simultaneous inputs, which often is forced by drums.
Preamps exist on a continuum from clean or transparent to colored or flattering. Some preamps tell the truth. Others are more like makeup. They are trying to make something sound *better* than it really sounds (often vocals). Doing either one well is what you pay for. If it makes something sound *really* the way it sounds, it'll probably cost money. If it makes it sound *better*, it'll probably cost money. To make things sound worse is generally cheap.
My opinion- Start with something that's fairly clean, with 2 channels. In the beginning, if you can only have one or two badass preamps, you need one that is versatile, and which is good for stereo recording. Then add a colored channel or two as an alternative for vocals or whatever. Remember that there are no preamps that are perfectly clean or colored, they all exist on a continuum. They all tell some of the truth, and they all lie as well.
A few years ago, I was asking the same question as you, while making an album. Based on consultations with my mixing engineer and folks on this board, I knew I needed a serious preamp. I was offered a good price on one, and wound up with an Avalon AD2022. I have never regretted buying it. What it does is subtle, because the things I like most about it are the things I *don't* hear- hum, buzz, hiss. Nothing. It's pretty seriously toward the clean side of the spectrum. For color, I like the Pendulum MDP-2.
In less expensive preamps, often cleaner pres are recommended. One, because as noted above, they are more versatile, and therefore a good starting place. The other reason is that *good* colored preamps are generally not cheap. I use a whole spectrum of preamps, ranging from dirt cheap (Behringer ADA8000, M-Audio DMP-3) to mid priced (Joemeek twinQ) to Ohmigod (the AD2022). In the end, 95% of everything I record goes through the Avalon or the Joemeek, The Joemeek is kind of my colored preamp, but it has an advantage. It's color comes from an agressive optical compressor and transformers which can be inserted into or deleted from the signal chain at the push of a button, so it can be configured to run pretty damned clean as well.
So is it worth it? That's the funny part. If you ask somebody who doesn't own a Ferrari if it's worth it, he'll almost always say no. If you ask the guy driving the Ferrari, he'll almost always say yes, and his supermodel trophy wife will agree. If you have the money, it's always worth it. If you don't, it's always *not* worth it. It's all about trying to make yourself feel better. If you can't afford it, it feels better to say that it's all just hype, and you don't really need one. If you own one, it feels better to believe you didn't waste your money. There comes a point where it gets ridiculous, though. If my $30 Timex loses 1 second a year, why on Earth would I shell out for a Rolex? Each of us has to make our own bang vs. buck call. As I said above, I have *never* regretted buying the Avalon, not even a bit.-Richie
mshilarious
Banned
On clean vs. colored preamps:
There isn't a compelling reason to own a colored preamp, other than maybe convenience. There may be a compelling reason to own a colored box of some type. Let's come back to that.
Here is a signal chain:
Mic-->Preamp-->Converter
Pretty simple eh? The basic goal of a basic studio should be to get the preamp/converter end of that chain as transparent as possible in the quantity required for simultaneous tracking.
Once we have something recorded, we can play around with it at our leisure. Compressors, EQs, de-essers, whatever you like. These can be transparent or colorful or anywhere in between.
The great thing is we don't need a ton of them, because we can process things one at a time, stereo channels, whatever we like.
OK, back to mic preamps. What is special about a mic preamp? It's an amplifier. That is not special, amplifiers are common to compressors, EQs . . . the "mic" part is special, because mic inputs differ from line inputs in a few ways: they need to be quieter because the incoming signal is potentially much lower, they ordinarily have a lower input impedance (although they don't have to), and they are usually expected to provide phantom power. That's about it, really.
Let's conceive of a preamp like this:
Mic <-- (phantom)
--> input impedance --> first gain stage --> other gain stages
The importance of the first gain stage is it has to be quiet, other than that it's pretty much like any other amplifier you'll find in a line-level box. The phantom should be a quiet supply too (low power supply noise).
So all we have is input impedance to consider. In some cases, that can be complex (if the preamp has an input transformer). If our mic has a complex source impedance, that can interact with our preamp's complex input impedance to change tone in a manner that's tough to achieve after the fact. That is mostly limited to dynamic mics though.
What have we learned? Other than the interaction of complex impedance, once we have a quiet, solid, transparent mic preamp, we can obtain any possible color later in the chain. So I'd go with the best transparent amp you can get in the quantity you need, and shop for a colored compressor if you so desire. Or maybe if you're happy using plugs, save that money.
Why do people fill their studios with 15 colors of preamp? Two reasons: first, marketing; second, convenience. Convenience rules when the time saved is worth the money spent. It does require you know pretty well what you want up front, otherwise you will waste money and time. So the convenience factor definitely applies to busy commercial studios.
So what about you? Let's say you decide a certain color box is killer for drums, therefore you need 10 channels. Let's also say that you could get a transparent box for 1/5 the cost. If time is not of the essence, you'd buy one color box and nine transparent boxes, and run the nine tracks through the color box after you finished tracking.
Keep in mind that the preamp craze is only about 10 years old. Time was everybody just used the preamps in the console (which was expensive, and the preamps quite good). That demonstrates that a variety of colors in mic preamps has not been thought important for most of recording history. Most of the sexy vintage outboard gear that people crave are compressors--or preamps that have been ripped out of consoles and racked.
There isn't a compelling reason to own a colored preamp, other than maybe convenience. There may be a compelling reason to own a colored box of some type. Let's come back to that.
Here is a signal chain:
Mic-->Preamp-->Converter
Pretty simple eh? The basic goal of a basic studio should be to get the preamp/converter end of that chain as transparent as possible in the quantity required for simultaneous tracking.
Once we have something recorded, we can play around with it at our leisure. Compressors, EQs, de-essers, whatever you like. These can be transparent or colorful or anywhere in between.
The great thing is we don't need a ton of them, because we can process things one at a time, stereo channels, whatever we like.
OK, back to mic preamps. What is special about a mic preamp? It's an amplifier. That is not special, amplifiers are common to compressors, EQs . . . the "mic" part is special, because mic inputs differ from line inputs in a few ways: they need to be quieter because the incoming signal is potentially much lower, they ordinarily have a lower input impedance (although they don't have to), and they are usually expected to provide phantom power. That's about it, really.
Let's conceive of a preamp like this:
Mic <-- (phantom)
--> input impedance --> first gain stage --> other gain stages
The importance of the first gain stage is it has to be quiet, other than that it's pretty much like any other amplifier you'll find in a line-level box. The phantom should be a quiet supply too (low power supply noise).
So all we have is input impedance to consider. In some cases, that can be complex (if the preamp has an input transformer). If our mic has a complex source impedance, that can interact with our preamp's complex input impedance to change tone in a manner that's tough to achieve after the fact. That is mostly limited to dynamic mics though.
What have we learned? Other than the interaction of complex impedance, once we have a quiet, solid, transparent mic preamp, we can obtain any possible color later in the chain. So I'd go with the best transparent amp you can get in the quantity you need, and shop for a colored compressor if you so desire. Or maybe if you're happy using plugs, save that money.
Why do people fill their studios with 15 colors of preamp? Two reasons: first, marketing; second, convenience. Convenience rules when the time saved is worth the money spent. It does require you know pretty well what you want up front, otherwise you will waste money and time. So the convenience factor definitely applies to busy commercial studios.
So what about you? Let's say you decide a certain color box is killer for drums, therefore you need 10 channels. Let's also say that you could get a transparent box for 1/5 the cost. If time is not of the essence, you'd buy one color box and nine transparent boxes, and run the nine tracks through the color box after you finished tracking.
Keep in mind that the preamp craze is only about 10 years old. Time was everybody just used the preamps in the console (which was expensive, and the preamps quite good). That demonstrates that a variety of colors in mic preamps has not been thought important for most of recording history. Most of the sexy vintage outboard gear that people crave are compressors--or preamps that have been ripped out of consoles and racked.
Similar threads
