Is a mic preamp worth it?

  • Thread starter Thread starter adriannav
  • Start date Start date
There is much to be said about using the tools you already have. I would give a $1500 preamp a 5% improvement on sound quality. Not really a cost effective improvement.

Room treatment, proper recording, and learning your tools (DAW,mixer, etc..) are way more important. Oh yeah, and that pesky performance thing. The old saying 'shit in-shit out'.
 
jimmys69 said:
There is much to be said about using the tools you already have. I would give a $1500 preamp a 5% improvement on sound quality. Not really a cost effective improvement.

Room treatment, proper recording, and learning your tools (DAW,mixer, etc..) are way more important. Oh yeah, and that pesky performance thing. The old saying 'shit in-shit out'.
Click to expand...

Come! Come! James! The correct term was Gi-Go.

Dave.
 
jimmys69 said:
It is actually saddening.
Click to expand...
wel-l-l-l-l-lll ....... if you're a performing/session player getting older it's a godsend actually.
I can't imagine I'd work as much at my age as I do if there were a lot of young, pretty people that can do what I do.

There will always be talented young players but that ability to instantly play anything comes from ear training and experience and a lot of that comes from having to learn everything by ear.
But in todays' world of internet available tabs, that's not the method most choose for learning songs since it's so much easier to go look up the tab.

SO I see young players that can blaze and make you gasp at their chops, but couldn't play something without knowing the song to save their lives ..... it's sorta similar to some classical players who mostly read everything they play.
I remember once in Baton Rouge at a 'Phil Brady's World Famous Blues Jam' ..... lol ..... it's a freakin' blues jam with the same 3 chord blues songs as every other blues jam.
Anyway there was this trumpet player who was first chair with the Baton Rouge Symphony so you know he had chops. But after watching players jump up and just play he asked me, "How do they know where to go?" :D
It was a 3 chord BLUES freakin' song!!
I see that quite a bit ..... a young player might get up and call his 4 or 5 songs and do them and sound good so he gets invited to stay but has a hard time with it.
Even though it's just another blues song with maybe an extra minor second in it ..... for him it's an entirely different song. He learned the other ones ..... didn't learn this one. :D

Thank God really, I gots to work 'till I fall over dead so I like the competition being limited in numbers. That way I'm always in the hunt for gigs.

Rambling here ....... anyways, the skill level overall does seem to be in decline with some exceptions .......
 
Similar story. I asked my wife's violin teacher to play something for one of my songs. She asked me for the sheet music. :facepalm: I told her I could probably write something out but it would be much easier if she just improvised it, told her it was in F#m and gave a copy of the MP3 with the chords charted. She couldn't do it; needed to have it written out. She spent 4 years at a music academy in Romania and didn't know how to do a little improvising. :(
 
jimmys69 said:
There is much to be said about using the tools you already have. I would give a $1500 preamp a 5% improvement on sound quality. Not really a cost effective improvement.

Room treatment, proper recording, and learning your tools (DAW,mixer, etc..) are way more important. Oh yeah, and that pesky performance thing. The old saying 'shit in-shit out'.
Click to expand...

Yes....garbage in, garbage out....though I think the better the performances, the more one appreciates and prefers the better gear.
I agree that a real small improvement may not seem all that important at home-rec hobby level, and it doesn't always warrant very expensive purchases...but if there's any commercial goal (even with home-rec setups), then the small improvements can add up....though there also needs to be enough experience to take full advantage of the better gear.
The newbs who are asking about a $2k mic pre and $1k microphone, but are clueless as to how even position the mic...are better off buying the inexpensive stuff first, and then as their experience and goals expand, they can consider buying-up as needed.

Chili said:
Similar story. I asked my wife's violin teacher to play something for one of my songs. She asked me for the sheet music. :facepalm: I told her I could probably write something out but it would be much easier if she just improvised it, told her it was in F#m and gave a copy of the MP3 with the chords charted. She couldn't do it; needed to have it written out. She spent 4 years at a music academy in Romania and didn't know how to do a little improvising. :(
Click to expand...

:D

I've run into similar situations at a few last minute band auditions....the players only knowing how to play that which they memorized...so I suggest we just jam out a bit and improvise without worrying about note-for-note songs....and I'm amazed at the blank expressions I get.
 
I think what happens is they don't really know music or ideas like "that's just a I, IV, V" ..... I think they essentially memorize the chords to the song in the order they come in and that's all they really know. And some of them even have trouble adding a verse or two for solos ..... they'll actually go to the ending no matter what is going on.

Also ..... I think that's why those guys can't transpose. There was this crap band I was doing some stuff for and they wanted me to sing 'I Shot the Sheriff' ... but they did it in Am and I sang it in Gm ...... they could NOT do it because to them, it was now an entirely different song that they had to memorize those chords to.
 
Yeah....I can transpose most any typical songs pretty easily on-the-fly as I play. I got use to doing that when writing originals. I would come up with a song in a given key, and then I would always try it out in 3-4 other keys, up/down from the original one.
Also, when I was in my early teens and playing my favorite tunes from various fake books....I liked to sing along to some the songs, so I would have to transpose them quickly to fit my voice. Once I got the hang of it in my early days...it just became second nature.


As you obvioulsy know very well...when gigging and doing lots of cover variety, you develop that extended skill to be able to just jump into a tune quickly....than say, the guys in some band that just focuses on one flavor of music.
 
miroslav said:
Yeah....I can transpose most any typical songs pretty easily on-the-fly as I play. I got use to doing that when writing originals. I would come up with a song in a given key, and then I would always try it out in 3-4 other keys, up/down from the original one.
Also, when I was in my early teens and playing my favorite tunes from various fake books....I liked to sing along to some the songs, so I would have to transpose them quickly to fit my voice. Once I got the hang of it in my early days...it just became second nature.


As you obvioulsy know very well...when gigging and doing lots of cover variety, you develop that extended skill to be able to just jump into a tune quickly....than say, the guys in some band that just focuses on one flavor of music.
Click to expand...

Heh! I have had few occasions sadly to see my talented (well I WOULD say that wouldn't I? But tis true!) son play live but one sticks in my mind. I went to pick him up at about 1am from the remnants of an Irish 21st bd party. He was on guitar with a very pissed irishman singing "Danny Boy" and tracking him thru about 5 keys and GAKnows how many tempo changes!

Then he was with a very talented French lady who would keep on at him at band practice for not practising his solos (nothing on yer knees with teeth Chuck Berry. This was sort of French folk/ballad stuff) She was, commendably I suppose, a bit of a "let's get it dead right in rehearsal" freak but Steve would always say "I'll be good on the night" and he always was! But he was not a slacker. He did all the arranging and transposing and band parts.
He thus had a foot in both camps: Read well, knew his theory down pat but could busk with the best of them.

Back to mic pres! I agree that the noob should start with modest kit. Many are young and the recording bug might last but a year or less. an $80 Behringer mic might get you $40 at a pawn shop. A $2000 Neumann will look much the same to the shopkeeper!

Then, NO mic is ever a dead loss. There is alway SOME use it can be put too. Talkback or in my case clingfilmed and set in my garden picking up the birds. I pay between 5 and £20 for them and get up to six months.

Dave.
 
My wife asked me, "Does this dress make me look fat?"

I stuttered, "B-Better mics?"
 
hehe, that's great.
better mics.

any question.....

"better mics"
 
you need great mics, to capture how sh!tty your room sounds.
LOL
 
Considering I come from that classic background, maybe I talk about my experiences.

I wish I had the same problems you guys have. Whenever I write a song, yes, I do have improv sections, but I do write a lot of sheet music, and its so hard to find people who can read that. I would love to easily come across a viola player who reads well.

Now with that being said, improv is also a really important skill to have. Both is best imo. But considering where I come from and what I typically look for in hired guns, you shouldn't discount sheet music skills as an inconvienience.

(in most classical conservatories they don't teach improv, you get that in the more contemporary schools like Berklee)
 
Seafroggys said:
Considering I come from that classic background, maybe I talk about my experiences.

I wish I had the same problems you guys have. Whenever I write a song, yes, I do have improv sections, but I do write a lot of sheet music, and its so hard to find people who can read that. I would love to easily come across a viola player who reads well.

Now with that being said, improv is also a really important skill to have. Both is best imo. But considering where I come from and what I typically look for in hired guns, you shouldn't discount sheet music skills as an inconvienience.

(in most classical conservatories they don't teach improv, you get that in the more contemporary schools like Berklee)
Click to expand...
I majored in composition and played bassoon in symphony so I certainly read but it rarely comes up.
Most of the hired guns I know read also.
And I don't see how you can work a lot as a session player if you can't read.

But yes .... reading sheet music isn't as common a skill as it used to be. hard for me to imagine a viola player that doesn't read though ..... how can that be?
About the only music there IS for viola players is classical and all of that requires reading ..... :confused:
 
GONZO-X said:
BETTER MICS


is always the correct answer.
Click to expand...

Way WAY! Back in the days of (mono!) tape recording, the likes of Arthur Garret (contributor and BBC science reporter) and Hugh Ford (technical reviewer) would always advise noobs to buy a better mic in the Tape Recorder, later Studio Sound magazine*.

Tape machines such as the Ferrograph mk 3 etc used an input transformer and microphone recommendations would have been the Grampion DP4 for interview work and Reslo RB ribbons for music. If you were well heeled an AKG D202? Capacitor mics were virtually unknown outside pro studios and broadcasting.

For vox pop recording the Uher portable machine was the workhorse (or an EMI). Better was the Stellavox and if you were REALLY loaded, a Nagra IV! None of these machines had better than a two transistor mic stage(EF86 for the Ferro!) and nobody ever suggested buying a pre amp which in any case there was effectively none of!

*This was at a time when most audio periodicals were bastions of truth, sense and science!

Dave.
 
You've just reminded me--in the bottom of my mic box I have an old D202 I used to like a lot--but it suddenly lost all output.

I had a quick look to see if I could get inside to have a look and fix the (assumed) broken solder joint but couldn't see an obvious way in and didn't want to do more damage in a cack handed attempt. Since then, out of sight, out of mind took over and I haven't touched it.

Anyone know how to get inside a D202 without breaking anything in the process?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top