DIY mic pre

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royharper3220

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I'm thinking of building my own pre-amp. Does anyone have any links or book recomendations on building your own mic pre amp?
I dont need more than a dual pre. I just want something that is better than my crappy audio buddy.
and if anyone has built their own, how much would this endevour cost?
 
http://www.gyraf.dk/gy_pd/g9/g9pd.htm

I want to make some of my own stuff, too, but I don't know. It just doesn't seem real that something I would make would be better than anything I'll ever have. It shouldn't be that easy. Haha.

As least in my head it doesn't seem right.
 
Well I didn't mean it like that. I mean, it seems like it would only be available to people that do stuff like build preamps.

I'm saying that with this guide and whatever tools I'd be able to make a useable preamp?

I think that's pretty crazy.
 
And I'd have to see some more 'basic' stuff I could mess around with and build for practice before I would even attempt this.
 
Do you know how to solder, read schematics, and make pc boards or do point to point wiring? If not, you need to buy some kits to assemble before you tackle something like this.
 
Do you know how to solder, read schematics, and make pc boards or do point to point wiring?

no but im pretty sure my dad can.

any more info on these kits? i wouldnt mind starting off with a kit if its something useable.
 
I don't have any experience. I've been trying to dig stuff up on how to read the schematics and stuff.

This is something that I'd be interested in doing.

They've got a thing for making an LA-2A that looks pretty 'simple.' By 'simple' I mean I could probably do it with less than 50 mistakes.
 
I have been corresponding with benchmark about the mp-3.

It seams pretty basic you buy their preamps ($100 each), a psu, ($36) and build a case. They recomend putting the psu in another case (I'm not sure if I wand to get into that).

This isn't really doing it all yourself, but I figgured it would give me a little experience, confidence, etc. and if I like the project I will try one of the Hamptone tube pre kits when they come out.

As far as quality this is what the people from benchmark told me:

"Thanks for you interest in our product. The MP-3, quite frankly, is probably comparable to the 101, possibly a different "flavor", but certainly as good.
Building a unit is fairly easy. Buy a box with some cutouts or drill your own, add an XLR connector, a power input connector of your choice and a knob to the gain pot. The tricky part will be the power. We have a wall mount unit called a PS-1 @ $36 which would work well. It is a bi-polar supply. If you need 48volt phantom power, you will need either a different supply or add 5 9v batteries to the box and connect to the phantom pin on the MP-3 board. The batteries will probably give you many, many hours of use, and you can increase that by using rechargeable NickelMetalHydrides which have about 4 times the current capability of alkalines."

If this is remotely true then I would have a good set of pres for under $300.

http://www.benchmarkmedia.com
 
I like getting input modules from great consoles and racking them myself. Some are harder than others but for 500.00 I can build a two channel pre that really rocks.
 
nwsoundman said:
I like getting input modules from great consoles and racking them myself. Some are harder than others but for 500.00 I can build a two channel pre that really rocks.
Click to expand...

Everett? Yesssss.


Where can you get things like that?
 
Oh, the underestimations people make about DYI stuff… :rolleyes:

The “preamp” circuit, simple as it may seem, isn’t all there is to it. Nowhere close.

First, you’ll need a printed circuit board to put it on. So, you can either get some PCB design software and design your own, find a design already laid out for you (a few around at various web sites) or just bread-board the thing using a proto-board. If you have the layout software, you can send the proper Gerber and Drill files off to have some nice boards made for $30 - $100 depending on the size and quantities, or you can buy around $75(minimum for etching solution, plating solution, pc boards, developer, carbide drill bits that are $5 each and you will break several) worth of stuff to make your own. The cheapest route for a proto is the bread-board route, but it’s not an easy task to wire one up and if you make a mistake it’s an absolute nightmare to track down and correct.

Next, you’ll need a power supply. You won’t need a lot of current, but you’ll need to supply at least two positive voltages and maybe a negative voltage, depending on the preamp design you choose. One of the voltages needs to be +48V to supply phantom power, unless you’re only using dynamic or ribbon mics. The other voltage(s) need to be at what the preamp needs to run on – usually +/-15V to +/-24V. Plus, all the printed circuit board / proto-board design stuff described earlier applies here as well.

Next, you’ll need a chassis of some sort with the switches, gain settings, etc… marked on it to some extent, or else you’ll be reaching for the phase switch and accidentally hit the phantom power switch by mistake. You’ll have to drill or punch (I’d punch the holes as drilling ends up looking really amateur besides being a real pain) all the holes for line cord, mic in, pre out, gain, phantom power, and other switches you use.

Finally, you’ll put it all together just to find out you accidentally swapped the input and output wires, or the + and – power supply voltages, or something crazy like that. When you fix that, you’ll find it has a bad hum or something else wrong and end up working on that for another month or so because you can’t afford to lose the $$$ you have invested in it - only to find that you should have invested in the PCB design software and laid the thing out really well with a ground plane.

And at some point during all this, you (or in this case your dad) will be wishing you’d just went to Guitar Center and spent the $$$ it on a real nice one that already works.

I’m really not trying to discourage you (really, I’m not) but just trying to point out the facts of the matter. However, if you’re like me, a twisted, demented, pain lovin’ crazy person that likes to learn and doesn’t mind a few hard knocks, be my guest and wear it out! :p

Also here’s a great forum for do it yourselfers:
http://www.recording.org/cgi-local/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=6
 
VTB-1 preamp?

As was said earlier, building can be fun, but will require a painful learning curve more often than not. Unless you really want to get into building stuff as a hobby, i.e., you have several projects in mind, I'd just buy factory made. How about Studio Projects' VTB-1? Sells (new) for as low as $130; uses a 12ax7, which is blendable. (It works! - warms up your sound in a musical way.); decent quality detented controls; phantom p., of course. Great value pre. I use it all the time.
 
so maybe a DIY is a bad idea. I'm planning on getting an mbox probably in a month or so. I imagine its pre-amps are better than the audio buddy. How good are the mbox's pres anyway?
 
Let's not get too discouraging here. If you want to get into building your own stuff, you can start with something like this
http://www.hobbytron.net/CK151.html
or this
http://www.qkits.com/serv/qkits/diy/pages/FK652.asp
or
http://www.electronic-kits-and-projects.com/kit-files/1000/1024.pdf
for a minimal investment of time and money.

Then, if you still want to carry it farther, try something like this that may actually be useful for recording
http://www.paia.com/phantom.htm
or this
http://www.paia.com/tubestuf.htm#tubehead

When you've built a few of these, then you can start thinking of some simple DIY projects where you actually have to gather the parts yourself (which can be really frustrating and time consuming), hook them together into a mechanically and electrically sound circuit, and mount it in some fashion so that it is actually usable in the real world.

Then, if you really want to have fun you can start to design projects yourself, stealing parts of circuits from here and there, modifying and putting them together using a painfully superficial knowledge of electronic theory to make circuits that have never been seen before.

But always you have to remember that all the components work only because they have smoke inside them, and anything you do that allows this smoke to escape will ruin the project.
 
I heartily recommend kits for first timers, and here’s a couple of the few places with kits that’s worth investing in:

One is http://www.seventhcirclestudios.com/SCA/SCA.htm. Here you’ll find great copies of Neve and Jensen designs. They even guarantee a working unit if you buy their kit.

Another is http://hamptone.com/ where you’ll find kits of Scott Hampton’s FET and Tube pres found in Tape Op magazine.

Have fun!
 
royharper3220 said:
so maybe a DIY is a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Not at all. Building your own preamp is not a bad idea. But don't expect to get a pro preamp for nothing. :) The people who manufacture preamps can get the components for next to nothing, and work is cheap in China.

So you'll probably get more bang for the buck if you buy, and most certainly if you take the amount of work you do into account.

But that doesn't mean it's not fun! And after you learn more, you can build more preamps, and after twentyfive years you build something that kicks the butt of an RNP from the pieces you got from broken tube radios, and you are happy. :)
 
so if I've never built a pre-amp will I be able to do the PAIA tube mic pre-amp? is Everything i need included? like instructions :)
 
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