microphones and preamps

[elementary]

I have an unusual question and its hard to place but I felt here was probably most appropriate.

I record drums with an Alesis multimix firewire 8 interface which has 4 mic preamps. I use four condensers (2 OH, room, high tom) and 3 or 4 dynamics (kick, snare, floor tom, underside snare occasionally).

I put the condensers in the four channels with preamps and then put the dynamics into the remaining channels straight into the jack inputs on the mixer via xlr-jack leads.

The dynamics all record well without a mic preamp. The level is good with more room to turn them up at the fader, the sound is good and there is no more noise than on the preamp channels.

Why should I bother to buy preamps when these work well?

I'm getting very good results.

 

[twostone]

If it aint broke don't fix it it's about performance and not what fucking gear you have. If the gear records what you wanna hear then spend money on drum lessons that's worth more then showing off some spiffy cool studio gear. At least with drum lessons is gonna enhance your playing style which in the end when you record all the cool new tricks your learned from the drum lessons will definitely spice up your recordings. Just a thought for you. I know I've been playing for over 25 years but still take lessons to bring something to the table when our band starts a new recording project.

 

[elementary]

Yeh man, cheers for the reply, you're just right I think, I just couldn't understand why it worked so well after everythign I'd heard about mics absolutely needing preamps

 

[mshilarious]

Yeh man, cheers for the reply, you're just right I think, I just couldn't understand why it worked so well after everythign I'd heard about mics absolutely needing preamps

Not all mics need preamps in every situation.

The level of a dynamic mic is very low, so it needs gain to produce the desired line level. But since you are using dynamic mics on very loud sources--1" from a drum can be as high as 140dBSPL, maybe more--you might not need gain, so plugging straight in works fine.

If you are using XLR-1/4" adaptors that use a transformer, that transformer may degrade high frequency response or increase distortion, depending on its quality. You are unlikely to notice either problem when close-micing drums, but if you used the same approach on a quieter source, you might not find the results acceptable.