Hi-End Pre Recomendations for Hip-Hop Vocals

  • Thread starter Thread starter scarboro78
  • Start date Start date
scarboro78 said:
lol... sorry dude.. I personally like using the word "grit" better than "color".. lol.. But it seems to be the popular word around here..
Click to expand...

Now grit is something I can work with and understand. Color can just mean so many different things.

I also like the term "bite," and most of it has to do with matching the mic with the voice. Kinda' like when you listen to certain DJ's on the air ... some of them have a certain gravel or bite to their voice that comes accross really well. And it's just one of those things ... you just never know until you're matched up with just the right mic. And it may never happen, because some people just don't have as much to work with.

I'll have to listen again to some of 50's stuff. Admittedly, I've never really listened closely or tried to analyze his vocal technique or production.
 
We aren't throwing the "colored" thing around any more than you are throwing the "clean" thing around. My console has incredible "clean" preamps. That does not mean they are the best preamps for every track I record. All different preamps have different sounds that pertain to them. The trick is to find the right pre and the right mic to get what you want. In this situation I think the Avalon may be the right choice.
 
xstatic said:
We aren't throwing the "colored" thing around any more than you are throwing the "clean" thing around.
Click to expand...


Clean could be considered a color. Depending on what kind of clean you are talking about, if you really want to get technical. Do you mean clean as in neutral ... or clean as in bright / articulate? Free of distortion, or just free of the dirty kind of distortion?

Everything is colored. Even lack of color is a color.

I don't mean to be metaphore and syntax police here, but ya gotta' be more specific than just using that word. Some of you guys talk about it like there's only "one" type of color ... and like it's an all-or-nothing proposition. :D

"I can't possibly use this pre. It's not colored."
 
hey this may be a bit off topic, but I just got an MP20 with the socketed opamps and I was curious if anyone knew how different opamps would "COLOR" the sound of my pres. I've got one set of them on the way, but I am BRAND NEW to this idea. I mean, I'm still getting used to changing tubes out (I used to be firm in the "I like the way it sounds, so why try anything different?" mentality)

chess, so far your advice has been great :D yeah i'm a teacher's pet, but hey, whatever gets me some knowledge.
 
Maybe someone can make a preamp with a colorknob that goes all the way from "50 cent rap" to "Prince octave gay yells" and that would be it.

Of course, the knob don't have to do anything, the placebo could do the warming.

If you want vocals with attitude, lay them down. Pre has nothing to do with it. None of the pre's mentioned in this thread would ruin a otherwise killer rap track.
 
Obviously, most if not all hi-end pre's will sound good regardless.. but that wasn't my original question. What I want to know is what pre sound particularly good on hip-hop & r&b applications. So far it seems the only real answer I've recieved is the Avalon 737 and the Pheonix audio pre..
 
I guess the question is ... what makes a mic pre particularly well-suited, specifically, for rap or R&B? I mean does rap pose unique challenges / demands out of microphone gain? And how would rap and r&b differ? Do I want one mic pre for rap and another for R&B? Just like I have one for Country and one for Western?

I am asking this as a serious question, in case anyone was wondering. It seems to be a rather large concern for some people, I've noticed. :D I doubt I'll be able to sleep a wink until I get to the bottom of this one.
 
I don't think it's far-fetched at all that some mic preamps - just like certain instruments – lend themselves better to some genres of music over others. For the same reason that jazz guitarists tend to favor hollow bodies over Strats, and rock guitarists favor a Marshall JCM900 over a Roland Jazz Chorus. There are certain tools that lend themselves better to certain jobs – and mic preamps are no exception.

The Hardy M-1 is a great pre for close-miked acoustic music. It gives a clean, natural sound with a sort of unglossy "mat" finish on the source. Killer on acoustic guitars and traditional stringed instruments. But it's not going to make a particularly great pre for Hip-Hop and R&B. It'll work, but why not go with something more appropriate for the genre and the job. Something like the Avalon 737, on the other hand, while still being clean [ but sounding different because of the tube stages ] also has more of a "glossy" finish it gives to the source. It's a sexier sound with "sheen" which tends to lend itself better to Hip-Hop and modern R&B.

It's the same reasoning why Millennia HV-3 is the industry standard mic preamp for classical and critical recordings, because what the HV-3 does best is transparently capture all the resolution, imagery, depth and 3-dimensional space in a recording. [ And in a way that the M-1 and 737 does not. ]

I'm not makin' this stuff up.
 
Last edited:
scarboro78 said:
Very good input guys.. I guess the Avalon seems like the way to go.. Didn't really want to go into the $1500 and up range though.. =0/
Click to expand...


But it has a compressor on it too. :cool:


I suggest going to a place that has a bunch of stuff to try out. I bought a $1k preamp at one point and was less that happy with end result. My end results didn't seem to be $1k better IMO. Found out it was because my room acoustics just sucked. But it would have been nice to go test them out first. Even if that ment driving a few hundred miles to access them.
 
Dot said:
I don't think it's far-fetched at all that some mic preamps - just like certain instruments – lend themselves better to some genres of music over others. For the same reason that jazz guitarists tend to favor hollow bodies over Strats, and rock guitarists favor a Marshall JCM900 over a Roland Jazz Chorus. There are certain tools that lend themselves better to certain jobs – and mic preamps are no exception.

The Hardy M-1 is a great pre for close-miked acoustic music. It gives a clean, natural sound with a sort of unglossy "mat" finish on the source. Killer on acoustic guitars and traditional stringed instruments. But it's not going to make a particularly great pre for Hip-Hop and R&B. It'll work, but why not go with something more appropriate for the genre and the job. Something like the Avalon 737, on the other hand, while still being clean [ but sounding different because of the tube stages ] also has more of a "glossy" finish it gives to the source. It's a sexier sound with "sheen" which tends to lend itself better to Hip-Hop and modern R&B.

It's the same reasoning why Millennia HV-3 is the industry standard mic preamp for classical and critical recordings, because what the HV-3 does best is transparently capture all the resolution, imagery, depth and 3-dimensional space in a recording. [ And in a way that the M-1 and 737 does not. ]

I'm not makin' this stuff up.
Click to expand...

DOT... you took the words right out of my mouth (and made it sound better).. :D

So is the Avalon the only pre that sorta lends itself to hip-hop? The Avalon sounds like the way to go but I really didn't want to spend over 1k on a single channel pre.
 
Dot said:
I don't think it's far-fetched at all that some mic preamps - just like certain instruments – lend themselves better to some genres of music over others. For the same reason that jazz guitarists tend to favor hollow bodies over Strats, and rock guitarists favor a Marshall JCM900 over a Roland Jazz Chorus. There are certain tools that lend themselves better to certain jobs – and mic preamps are no exception.

The Hardy M-1 is a great pre for close-miked acoustic music. It gives a clean, natural sound with a sort of unglossy "mat" finish on the source. Killer on acoustic guitars and traditional stringed instruments. But it's not going to make a particularly great pre for Hip-Hop and R&B. It'll work, but why not go with something more appropriate for the genre and the job. Something like the Avalon 737, on the other hand, while still being clean [ but sounding different because of the tube stages ] also has more of a "glossy" finish it gives to the source. It's a sexier sound with "sheen" which tends to lend itself better to Hip-Hop and modern R&B.

It's the same reasoning why Millennia HV-3 is the industry standard mic preamp for classical and critical recordings, because what the HV-3 does best is transparently capture all the resolution, imagery, depth and 3-dimensional space in a recording. [ And in a way that the M-1 and 737 does not. ]

I'm not makin' this stuff up.
Click to expand...



You're still talking about relatively miniscule differences that just don't apply, in any meaningful fashion, to the average Joe home recording guy with a Digi 002 or M-Audio in his basement studio.

If you were to record two takes of a legitimate rap vocal ... and one of them used an Avalon and the other a Millennia ... with all other things being equal so it's a controled comparison with the only difference being the mic pre ...

... and you were to post it as a 16-bit audio file for download, I would bet a thousand bucks that no one would find any meaningful differences to where even the most experienced of ears would be able to say: "Sample A sounded like a much more appropriate mic pre for hip-hop was used. It has more of a glossy finish to it. Sample B, while having greater 3-D imaging and realism, just doesn't have the appropriate sheen necessary for this hop-hop track."

More than likely, there will be very little to no difference detected ... so people would start treating it like the MP3 clinic and critiquing performance variables ... or they'd critique the beat or the amount of reverb used. :D
 
chessrock said:
If you were to record two takes of a legitimate rap vocal ... and one of them used an Avalon and the other a Millennia ... with all other things being equal so it's a controled comparison with the only difference being the mic pre ...

... and you were to post it as a 16-bit audio file for download, I would bet a thousand bucks that no one would find any meaningful differences to where even the most experienced of ears would be able to say: "Sample A sounded like a much more appropriate mic pre for hip-hop was used. It has more of a glossy finish to it. Sample B, while having greater 3-D imaging and realism, just doesn't have the appropriate sheen necessary for this hop-hop track."
Click to expand...

Well someone must be hearing a difference because it seems most Hip-Hop studios have a preferance towards the same type of preamps. It's like DOT's analogy towards different instruments, different sounds lend themselves to different types of music.
 
scarboro78 said:
Well someone must be hearing a difference because it seems most Hip-Hop studios have a preferance towards the same type of preamps. It's like DOT's analogy towards different instruments, different sounds lend themselves to different types of music.
Click to expand...

I've seen Les Pauls and Strats used in just about everything from easy listening to jazz to death metal.

But that's not really even the point. You're comparing source to signal processor (not really even that -- more like source to gain), and in that respect the source is God. The analogy isn't as relevent as you think.
 
scarboro78 said:
Well someone must be hearing a difference because it seems most Hip-Hop studios have a preferance towards the same type of preamps. It's like DOT's analogy towards different instruments, different sounds lend themselves to different types of music.
Click to expand...


Do you have a serious set up? Like is your room acoustically treated? Do you have an iso booth for these vocal to get tracked in?

I only mention this becuase you are setting yourself up for a serious letdown if you don't but you go ahead and drop a G on a micpre.

Just trying to give you first hand experience. :D

There are a lot of people on this forum that prop things up to God like status when in reality there are a hundred other factors that must be met first.
 
For rap, I would use a Neve 1073, going into an Avalon 737, using JUST the compressor on it.
 
I just went through this a few months ago and I got a Great River and don't regret the purchase for a minute....It works great for me. Its the only pre I have used in the previously mentioned so that is all I can really say.
 
Altruist said:
I just went through this a few months ago and I got a Great River and don't regret the purchase for a minute....It works great for me. Its the only pre I have used in the previously mentioned so that is all I can really say.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the sraight answer Altruist, what kind of vocals do you work with?
 
Neve preamps and comp. are widely used in hip hop as well. My best advice would be to visit your local music store (Guitar Center,etc), and hear the differences because its really based on the sound you are trying to achieve in hip hop.
 
scarboro78 said:
Thanks for the sraight answer Altruist, what kind of vocals do you work with?
Click to expand...


Nothing but Rap comes out of my room....I use a Re20 for the mic or a cheap Beyer Dynamic and I like what I get out of it...But again I have never used the avalon, phoenix or neve soooooo...Grain of salt...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top