RAK said:As a general rule of gain staging, it's best to keep all stages as mid-level as possible. So if you have two pre's. It's better to keep them both at 5 say, rather than one at 9 and the other at 1. That way you have equal amounts of room in either direction on both.
Ford Van said:Sorry, but this is very poor advice!
When you are talking preamplifiers, the idea is for the preamp to raise the level of a VERY WEAK signal up to line level as quietly as possible. Most do this quite well. But, the preamp itself generates some noise.
So, it makes no sense to amplify NOISE at the second stage. It makes more sense to achieve most of your gain from mic to line level as early as possible in the signal chain.
notCardio said:wouldn't I need a line level input on my pre?
The DMP-3 doesn't have one. Mic or hi-z instrument.
Crap.
RAK said:My advice was on general gain staging theory, and I was assuming you have half-way decent pre's with good S/N ratio. Of course it makes no sense to amplify noise.
SonicAlbert said:Except that he doesn't own the preamp yet, and he's only guessing that it won't have enough gain. It very well might have enough gain. He is assuming he will have a problem he doesn't even have yet.
If the Brick doesn't have enough gain, the way I would do it is get as much gain out the Brick as possible and then tweak it up a little after the Brick if necessary.
There would not need to be a line level input on the preamp. And if there were, you would *not* use it. The reason being that a line level input on a preamp would probably be a DI input, which would just knock the signal back down to mic level. The opposite of what you need to do if you are amplifying the signal further.
All you'll need from that second preamp is a very little more gain. Not much at all, if at all. Get the Brick first and see if it does it for you, then look into a second preamp only if it becomes necessary at that point.
SonicAlbert said:There would not need to be a line level input on the preamp. And if there were, you would *not* use it. The reason being that a line level input on a preamp would probably be a DI input, which would just knock the signal back down to mic level. The opposite of what you need to do if you are amplifying the signal further.
boingoman said:Your advice seemed to be more oriented towards not clipping anything at first, not really about gain staging.
notCardio said:But wouldn't putting a line level out into an instrument level in give you a pretty distorted sound? Would I need to buy a line level preamp?
notCardio said:but I've been told that it wouldn't have enough gain for that mic.