beefing up my mics via the rack

[thedude400]

I know fairly little when it comes to rack gear and pre's. I know what you run your mic thru can be one of the key things when striving for good recorded sound. I've heard of tube pre's, sonic maximizers, and aurual exciters but i'm not too sure what they are really useful for and just how much they will change/improve the sound. I have a lexicon effects unit which is cool but I'm looking for something to really beef up my acoustic drums chiefly, but I would also like this unit/s to give a nice sonic boost and strong clarity to my guitar and vocal tracks too? Should I be looking at some rack mountable tube preamps? I'm not talking about eq, compression, gate, limiters, expansion and things of that sort but more of a beefing up of my recorded sound. I'm looking into a Mackie 1604 VLZ to use to mixdown. I have an aardvark card now which I hear has reasonable pre's. Will I hear alot of improvement with the mackie or should I look into something else to give my sound a little push? My budget is around 200-600 new or used.

 

[BigRay]

if you can save up 680 bucks...in terms of clarity and rich, BIG AS LIFE sound the DAV BG-1 preamp is world class. 2 channels of the biggest, cleanest most detailed gain i have heard....

http://www.davelectronics.com/bg1.htm it was designed by a decca engineer, and has been on scores of grammy winning records. Mark Knopfler just bought an 16 piece of them and David Gilmour just bought an 8pack.

if you are absolutely confined to 600...http://www.fmraudio.com/RNP8380.htm

but the DAV is nothing short of world class. In the words of someone I look up to very much, " I use the DAV BG-1 http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/davelectronicsbg1.htm
big - clean - smooth - seperation - focused - - fast, detailed, but not clinical..big , rich,sounds like a finished record , only professionals need apply..it is THAT good. "

both places will ship to your door.

 

[thedude400]

Cool I'll have to look into those. Unfortunately there's none on ebay used which would make it easier to fall into my price range. Any 4 channel recomendations so I can route the 2 overheads, snare, and kick?

 

[thedude400]

I get the feeling a good high quality 4 channel preamp is hard to come by for spacing issues. I may need to invest in two seperate units. I'm looking at the ART MPA 2-channel and a couple of presonus blue tubes. Anyone have experience with those pre's?

 

[James HE]

Check out Aphex 107. It's a 2 channel sort of "tube" pre. Tubeessence they call it. Can be had on e-bay for around $100. The 207 is the newer model, which I haven't used, but seem to be nice too.

 

[pikingrin]

I'm looking at the ART MPA 2-channel and a couple of presonus blue tubes.

IMO, stay away from the presonus. I have owned/used a couple of the TubePre and BlueTube units, and I was not impressed. *Just my opinion!!* Try and search around for more feedback on these, don't just take my word for it. Check out the FMR audio stuff that BigRay is talking about though, I have an RNC on the way, only $170.00, haven't used it yet, but there's a lot of great feedback on the unit for the price.