Great River NV1 or Mini-me? I'm torn!

CUSETOWN

New member
If any vets could weigh in on this I'd really appreciate it.

As of now I'm doing mostly voice over work.. I've heard the Nv1 has gets aggressivve when you push it.. which sounds great for radio imaging stuf.. Anyway, I'm currently using a groove tubes brick and a joemeek vc6q. Both i like for different things.. But I need a clean pre.

Reason the mini-me is in consideration is this. I record voice overs directly to a sony pcm d-50 portable recorder.. I'm thinking going digital and skipping the converters in that thing may be a good idea.. I'd also have to convert spdif to toslink optical through some $12 device (http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Optical-Toslink-Coaxial-Converter/dp/B000I98ZQY), I hate to throw something so cheap into the signal path.. Should I be concerned?

PS: the two main mics I use for voice over work are the C414XLS and the Studio Projects C1.. I know, opposite ends of the spectrum, but for different purposes they both work well on my voice. Anyway THANKS MUCH in advance.
 
Rane ms 1b clean and cheap
John Hardy clean and not so cheap
RNP clean and in the middle of cheap and not so cheap
 
ms1b seems too good to be true.. You're comparing it to the john hardy and the rnp and basically to the great river and the mini-me.. Seems crazy.. Have I been out of the loop too long? or are you indeed a crazy person? lol...

I mean that with the utmost respect of course. But seriously, I can imagine going from my joemeek & brick I'd immediately notice the difference with the great river or apogee.. But would I with the rane? I'm skeptical, no offense. :)
 
You dont know untill you try...Id suggest the Line6 stuff it has digital out and the same converters as the Apogee stuff and the tone of the Neve...API and Avalon stuff.
 
You are going from two very colored pres, you will notice a difference with any ofthe pres I mentioned. I gave you options at different price points. Grace is also pretty clean and somewhere in the middle
 
Honestly, for what you are doing, I think the Meek is fine. I had a VC1q cs and it was only colored when I engaged the compressor.

From an old Alan Hyatt post: "...the VC6Q is a chip based design. It uses the SSM2017 mic pre IC Chip. The warmth and color of that mic pre come from the compressor."

He goes on to state that you can get a cleaner more transparent pre with a discrete circuit. But I think, mic pre wise, you are about to spend a whole lot of money for marginally better results. OTOH, the converters on the Mini Me might make more of a difference than the mic pres. Also, your money might be better spent on a specific mic to achieve the sound you want.

If you want to try a cleaner sound, the MS1B, although chip based (I think INA 163), will be an inexpensive way to experiment.
 
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