AEA TRP, The Ribbon Pre

  • Thread starter Thread starter SRR
  • Start date Start date
It's not a matter of the strength of the preamp. It's a matter of the strength of your input/source. If you've got a soft guitar or vocal, using ANY inexpensive mic and preamp is going to give you some background hiss. I don't care if you've got 75 db (or 100) of gain; If your input is soft, you will get hiss. The additional gain will just increase the floor/room noise. It's very simple, actually. I've used an AEA R84, a shiny Box, a T3 and C1 with a VTB-1 which has incredible gain, and believe me -- they all have hiss if you've got a low input source, aka finger pickin' guitar or soft vocal. Dont' worry about the hiss. If it's a good song, nobody cares -- and usually it isn't listened to at such a loud volume to expose that horrible noise we all hate. Get over it and get back to recording some good stuff.

Bodhisan
 
I don't necessarily agree with all of Bodhisan's comments. A cheap preamp could cause hiss if the cheapness is a reflection of selecting noisy components to construct the preamp but a cheap preamp could also be very quiet. My mackie pre's are pretty quiet. I recorded an acoustic guitar with them the other day and had no hiss problems. A soft source will not necessarily cause hiss but improper setting of levels will. Too low a gain will cause more hiss than high gain. A "soft" source does however somtimes allow more instrusion of room and background noise into signal, if hiss is part of the background noise then of course this could be a factor. If the average volume of the "soft" source is low with a few spikes then hiss could also intrude because of poor gain staging. If levels are set properly with a "soft" source and the preamp itself isn't noisy due to poor design then hiss should not be much of an issue. I'm also referring more to a digital medium as opposed to a tape medium which of course has can have it's own hiss problems!
 
Sorry I'm so late to the thread SSR...I've been on vacation until this week and have been busy in the studio making comparison mic clips on drums also (back in the studio tomorrow for the same thing) so I've been a little out of it but for good reason I hope.

I have not heard the TRP and we have not received one. There's tons of stuff that'll work great of course and work with condensors if needed but that's not to say the TRP might not be the bees knees. Having said that the Chameleon suggestion is DAMN good in this price range, as you not only get a great preamp / DI with phantom if needed but one of the coolest EQ's out there...period.

War
 
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