is there such a thing as a good affordable mic pre?

B

boze

New member
i have a home studio setup with
a new mac g4 tower, a motu2408,
a yammy o1v,
event2020bas,
two AT4033's
and an sm58.

i'm producing lots of stuff but most of it dancy stuff with no recording involved- the o1v and the motu have been way overkill to this point. now i'm experimenting with recording vocals and guitar as a way to learn some more about tracking because i have a trumpeter, bassist, and maybe even a drummer available to do some free session work contributing to some of my nujazz flavored work.

am i just going to have bad results with no mic pre? will i need to track again in a proper studio later? can you get a good mic pre for less than $800? what are the good choices for a person who would drop the cash on a focusrite if they had it but wants to have a good signal chain in the meantime?

or maybe i'm just such an amateur about tracking that i'm assuming the mic pre is the missing link.

i'd appreciate advice on this. the music and the producer experience are important to me- i'm not trying to farm it out and just play, i want to produce and live instruments will always be a part of that (though not necessarily as big a part as with some genres).

thanks for taking the time to read this:) let me know if i'm way off base about any of the stuff i may be presuming about the process. i'll be happy to use the mp3 clinic shortly as yet another excellent resource to learn from the community here.
 
the FMR mic pre is gonna be cheap, but theres a long waiting list. The precision 8 is REALLY cheap, cost per channel wise, but its 8 channels so it aint exactly cheap as a whole.
Green series focusrite channel strips go for under 500 used. They arent the best of the focusrite line but they are great in their own right
 
thanks!

damn, you guys are fast!

okay, just for posterity here's a link to an sos review of the focusrite green dual

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1997_articles/feb97/focusritefeb97.html

and here's the fmr site's thing about their upcoming "Really Nice Preamp" or RNP:)

http://www.fmraudio.com/rnp/

so am i right in thinking that a quality mic pre is an essential part of my signal chain if i want to start tracking real instruments more as part of my daw stuff?

from what little i've said here does it sound like i'm doing the right thing by focusing on this particular piece of gear next?

thanks again everybody (and thanks for the quick reply, pipeline):)
 
Your Yamaha O1V has fairly nice mic pre's in it. If you don't drive them too hard, they're pretty clean. Seems like the gain isn't very high on them, but for the mics you have they would work well.

For additional flavours of mic pre's you can look into outboard pre's, and it seems like you've got a good jump on that.

You can shop around here:
http://www.mercenaryaudio.com/micpres1.html
but most of those are expensive.

You can also look around here for something that may be more along the lines of your budget:
http://www.8thstreet.com/

For reviews and info on this site, just do a search. ;)
 
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thanks!

so maybe i should just do the best i can with what i've got? are these focusrite Green series and the FMR's and such more for ppl with mics that cost way more than my at4033'?

thanks for the shopping links those look great-

damn this board is active as shit!
i got linked here from an emusic board called em411.com and i'm gonna have to go back and thank the member from over there for hipping me to this place.

i think i'll do a few simple guitar vocal things of me singing standards to get more of a feel for my hw as a next step.

it's not directly related to the nujazz project, but those are great old tunes and it'll let me get more personally aquainted with the gear i'll be using for the horn player and all that.

thanks again!!:)
 
So far I've not seen one person talk about the Summit budget preamps. They look pretty nice in the ads and are priced very affordably, but so far nobody seems to have one. Are they still vaporware?
 
Also check out the Peavey TMP-1 mic pre. It is, apparently, ALMOST a single-channel version of the VMP-2 that gets a lot of rave reviews. One of the differences, though, is that it only supplies +24v of phantom power, so depending on what mics you're using, you may also have to buy a phantom box.

Chris
 
littledog said:
So far I've not seen one person talk about the Summit budget preamps. They look pretty nice in the ads and are priced very affordably, but so far nobody seems to have one. Are they still vaporware?
Click to expand...

I'm really curious about these, too.

Anyone even have these in stock, yet?
 
michael- thanks again, those shopping sites are great.

gidge, thanks for the product names- i was looking at that all-in-one joe meeks thing. seems handy. i liked the xlr input and i liked the spdif output too- i could go straight to my soundcard or my o1v's lightpipe with that!

there's a ton of mic pre's to choose from though, i almost feel lucky that i can't afford any of them since i tend to aim high and try to give myself gear i can grow into as opposed to grow out of.

didn't see those summit pre's that littledog and chessrock were mentioning.

i would kinda have the hunch that the joe meeks couldn't be all that great since there's so much stuff going on in that vc1q for the price.

but then they call us newbies for a reason:)
 
I do DAW work exclusively, and use an Aardvark Q10 as my interface/card. I bypass their fairly decent pre's and use the more colorful JoeMeek stuff for vocals. However, one day (soon, I hope) I am gonna grab an Avalon.

Piece of advice. If you are gonna do a few days of SERIOUS tracking for audio, and you are WELL rehearsed, VERY accurately tuned, new strings, new set-up on the gtr necks, etc., etc., etc. I am assuming you know the ins and outs of making the basic track as perfect as possible, and know that the gear and instruments used to actually play the music is the MOST important part, then you can move onto mics and pre's.

In that case, I advise RENTING. Yes, you can rent awesome outboard for like $10 a day per piece, or less! I mean, top of the line. Quite frankly, this is usually the best way to go. Actually trying to buy such high end vintage gear fora home studio is rediculous. Just prepare well, practice alot, get all the ducks in a row, and RENT.

As far as pre's that are sweet, versatile, and contemporary (I mean seriously folks, vintage is getting clice' as hell and BORING), then I suggest Avalon. A tad pricey for we home users, but ooooh, so orgasimically tasty.
 
One of the problems with digital recording, sometimes, is that it is really clean. So if you don't like the sound you're getting, then a pre with character can help. I use a JoeMeek vcTwinQcs and a Sytek (with the Burr-Brown opamps on channels 3 & 4) for a little color. Various compressors also help. As does some form of colorful EQ. Mics all have their own sound in the first place, but combine that sound with another piece of colorful equipment and you have a more interesting sound.

But I think transparency is overrated, so take it for what it is worth...

If you are not happy with the sound of the equipment you already have, then a pre with a different color could help.
 
How about...

There is a new APHEX pre that is similar to its top of the line model. The new model is a 207 or something like that. the top of the line is, I believe an 1100. Whatever the model numbers, the reviews have basicalsy deemd it exeptional. Whereas the the 1100 is over 2k, this new model is under 1k and has many of the same attributes including something called mic lim that is some kind of automatic limiting function that prevents overloading. Check it out for yourself.

The oether new curious addition to the mic pre managerie is the AMPA by M-Audio. this loos like itg might be a very good pre for under 1k. you should check that out too.

Finally, one of my favorites but no really budget (actually not at all budget0 is the Universal Audio 2-610. It is great. For less money (around 1k) there is a mono version. Certainly check this out.
 
renting sounds like a good idea, as does that focusrite platinum- thanks natpub and roker.

and int, thanks for your comments as well. i gather there are different schools of thought about color vs transparency in a mic pre.

of course the at4033's aren't the best mic in the world so it probably depends on what they sound like by themselves to start with for different uses. sounds like a good strategy to have a few different signal chains available to suit each track best.

do you daw ppl have any good results from micmod- the vst plug? i guess that's a different thread.. nm:)
 
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