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

  • Thread starter Thread starter blue4u
  • Start date Start date

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
wow. Its easy to equivocate. and toss the ball into the "environment, musician, instrument" camp.


But I'm still going to stand up and say: "The microphone is 1000 times more important than any preamp, clock or A-D converter that follows.

And I'll be happy to supply objective quantification. Y'all go first if you believe otherwise. Cheers. M
 
I don't think that anyone is trying to avoid the issue here Michael. What I think people are trying to point out is that not every microphone is created equal and in being so all of the environment, musician and instrument factors do come into play.

I'm on the same train with you though. If you don't have a microphone to capture a source - the best preamp in the world is useless.
 
Well, after ignoring this thread for a few months, I'm going to weigh in and agree with Michael Joly.

Transducers--devices that convert from sound pressure waves to electricity or vice versa--have by far the biggest influence on the sound. This means that the two things having the most dramatic effect are microphones at one end of the chain and speakers at the other. Everything in the middle is relatively subtle compared to those two.

Now, to equivocate slightly, of COURSE the musician/instrument/singer have a huge effect but they're not really part of the recording chain. They're the source material and a good microphone will simply make a fairly accurate representation of that source, whether it be rubbish or brilliance.

A second slight equivocation is that this assumes a certain level of quality in the pre amp. No, I'm not assuming some specialist boutique pre here--just something slightly better than the cheap and nasty jack input on a typical laptop. The mic pre in a laptop will mess up the best Neumann mic you can connect. However, once you get anywhere beyond rubbish designed for Skyping, the mic's importance in the chain goes to the top.

But beyond those two caveats, the microphone is absolutely the most significant determining factor of the sound you record. It has to be. It's doing the initial transformation from sound waves to an electrical signal.
 
The final decision is subjective and if someone says they hear a greater/preferable difference when switching preamps, then that's their answer.

I struggled for a long time with a reasonable range of microphones. It wasn't until I upgraded my preamps that everything fell into place.
For me, the preamp has been much more important than the mic, and in my opinion, the environment is much more important than either.

The head basket itself is an influential acoustic environment.
To some extent my argument draws a parallel with a lot of your work, Michael.
 
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I often wondered if just removing the head baskets off of the microphones during recordings would be the way to go.
 
I guess it depends on if the manufacturers designed the basket to be transparent, or complimentary.

Obviously Michael's much better qualified to answer that, but i'm thinking in some cases the head basket may be integral to the desirable sound of a mic, and other times it may detract from it.
 
Some manufactures got it right and others tried to copy the design only to mess it up. :(
 
moresound said:
I often wondered if just removing the head baskets off of the microphones during recordings would be the way to go.
Click to expand...

Acoustically, that would be ideal. But its not possible in practice - the very high impedance capsule must be shielded from AC hum and RFI in the recording environment. I understand David Royer has done some recording in the Mojave Desert without headbaskets - no AC hum to pick up.

But removing the headbasket in a studio environment results in a sea of hum pick up.
 
MichaelJoly said:
Acoustically, that would be ideal. But its not possible in practice - the very high impedance capsule must be shielded from AC hum and RFI in the recording environment. I understand David Royer has done some recording in the Mojave Desert without headbaskets - no AC hum to pick up.

But removing the headbasket in a studio environment results in a sea of hum pick up.
Click to expand...



I guess we could though, Michael. If we all built Faraday cage vocal booths. ;)
 
Steenamaroo said:
I struggled for a long time with a reasonable range of microphones. It wasn't until I upgraded my preamps that everything fell into place.
For me, the preamp has been much more important than the mic, and in my opinion, the environment is much more important than either.
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Are the two facts mutually exclusive though?

The change of pre amps may have made the difference that made you happy but did it really make a bigger difference to the overall sound than, say, changing from an SM7B (dark and warm) to a C451EB (light, detailed and bright)?

I'm not saying that pre amps don't make a subtle-but-important difference but I've yet to hear a pre amp that makes as dramatic difference as, for example, changing from a large dynamic to an SDC.

As for the environment, yeah, it makes a huge difference but, even there, the mic is also a major factor. For example, you can mitigate a rubbish room by changing from a distant omni to an up-close cardioid. A nice sounding treated room is always better--but your choice and placement of mic in an untreated room can, again, make a huge difference.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Ahem.....You mean Faraday cage treated rooms right! :laughings:
Click to expand...

Something like this perhaps? Mwwahahahha!

Cage_de_Faraday.webp

Paul
 
Bobbsy said:
I'm not saying that pre amps don't make a subtle-but-important difference but I've yet to hear a pre amp that makes as dramatic difference as, for example, changing from a large dynamic to an SDC.
Click to expand...

No Bobbsy, you are right. Changing preamp wouldn't have as dramatic a change as going from sm7b to c451, but that's not what I'm saying, and it wasn't the Ops question either.

My experience is that mic A and mic B, no matter how different, both sounded crap through preamp A and great through preamp B.
In my experience, and opinion that has made the preamp more important.

I imagine Michael's evidence is probably mathematical proof of a mic change having a greater impact on a signal than a preamp change, which is fair enough, but irrelevant.
Greater change doesn't necessarily mean more important.
 
MichaelJoly said:
wow. Its easy to equivocate. and toss the ball into the "environment, musician, instrument" camp.
Click to expand...
No Michael, It's easy to have, and to express an opinion.


This is the original post.
blue4u said:
So, I have been thinking about how a cheap mic can be made to sound great with a great preamp and vice versa, a great mic can make an otherwise cheap preamp sound great. All things considered I have to think the preamp is more significant considering MANY great sounds are captured on 100 dollar mics through expensive, well-designed preamps like Neve, API, and SSL (think SM57). But maybe you disagree? Or, maybe you think they are equally important. Or, maybe you think it's irrelevant and the performance is what matters. Share you thoughts if you're so inclined....
Click to expand...
 
Eventually you will need both. Get a Real good pre bacause it also is important for your other instruments. $200 plus buys some really good mics these days. Rode NT1 or Studio Projects C1 for a few. Universal has broke the mould with the 710 twinfinty at $700.00.
 
Steenamaroo said:
"...I imagine Michael's evidence is probably mathematical proof of a mic change having a greater impact on a signal than a preamp change, which is fair enough, but irrelevant.
Greater change doesn't necessarily mean more important."
Click to expand...

Interesting couple of sentences. To the first - no, my evidence is not mathematical but rather a combination of electrical engineering physics, acoustics and meta-physics - all of which I've expressed many times, in words, without using math. And yes, my "proof" is relevant to a discussion about things we hear and feel.

Secondly - Interesting logic. First you mistakenly characterize my "proof" as mathematical, then dismiss it as "irrelevant" and then for good measure, (just in case I'm right) you say "greater change doesn't necessarily mean more important".

Look, I'll try to be as clear as possible - mics are lossy energy transformers with orders of magnitude more non linearity than any preamp. AND, they operate in 3D space subject to acoustical wave propagation, reflection, refraction, absorption and the cummulitive effect we call standing waves. The use of a ANY microphone can induce far more change to, and is therefore more important than, ANY preamp to the recording, transmission and reproduction of the acoustical energy of the source and environment.

Now if people want to keep believing their electric cool-aid acid vision that make them think preamps are more important than microphones that's fine with me. Because if that was true, guys like Georg Neumann and Harry Olsen would have had careers as amplifier hacks instead of as refiners of the condenser and ribbon microphone.
 
I'm gonna take MJ's side here.

By the way, one particular instrument, cannot be made to sound good with a mic alone. If the original source sucks, then it will continue to suck. A mic is not the end all to good tone. It relies upon what the source needs. If the mic is wrong, a preamp will not help. If the preamp is wrong, the mic won't help. If the performance sucks, nothing will help it. Only having experience with 'what' will work with 'whatever', will get anything close to 'what' 'is' 'good'.

LOL! It is all bullshit, unless one has enough experience to actually give their own judgement, as to what sounds good. The only way to know what is more important, is to actually use it.

Pre/mic importance, is directly relative to what the hell you want to hear. Once that is realized, this conversation has no relevance anymore.
 
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