MR8 owners, do you use the pre's?

  • Thread starter Thread starter cellardweller
  • Start date Start date

Do you use the MR8 pre's?

  • Yes, it's all on the lil' red beast!

    Votes: 3 25.0%

  • The pre's suck, and let me explain why and what I use now.

    Votes: 9 75.0%
  • Total voters
    12
cellardweller

cellardweller

New member
So how many are using ONLY the MR8 pre's?
How many have upgraded, and to what?

I've always used my Mackie 808m's pre's, but they are weak. In addition to having only 12v for phantom!

Tax returns are coming, and I've managed to weasel a bit of money out of them from the boss...
 
I don't have any pre amps yet, so I have to suffer with cranking up the gain to get a good signal. I've been lucky so far, but I have to wait until I get some extra cash before I buy something better....
 
Rokket said:
I heard they were inexpensive! I didn't realize they were that cheap!
I may have to do some extra "special" favors for the wife..... ;)
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No kidding! Wow! $60!!!

There is a thread going ( i think in the rack forum) about Behringer stuff. The consensus seems to be that for the money you can't beat them, and they are great learning tools, but if you are buying for the purpose of eternally mounting them on your wall, you will outgrow them...

After I get better pre's for guitar (dmp3 I'm thinking) I might have to pick up one of these for drums, I've a lot of learning to do on drums :eek: ...
 
I have two pre's an M-audio Tampa (250 bucks), and a Joe Meek VC3 (140 bucks)...I really slashed out, but I definetively think a Pre could be a good investment...Maybe a Dmp-3, or A behringer Tube 1953, or maybe just a mixer...The new joe meek 3Q is supposedly good?
 
My lil' red beast has been lying dormant for so long whilst I finished mixing down the CD, not to mention, most of my major 'new' tracking had been done on the VF16 (which pre's are maybe a SLIGHT bit hotter than the MR8), so I'd forgotten what an effort it was to try and get a good balance with the mics...
Plus, with the addition of my AKG C414B XLS, the lack of any sort of phantom power really alienated it.

So... since there is a little left over from my tax return after getting my Hart's, I'm thinking about a little Yamaha MG series mixer... Since I'm playing V-Drums, I'm not too concerend with a plethera of channels, so probably an MG 10/2... But that little voice in my head keeps reminding me that outgrowing equipment seems to be my birthright, so I'm teetering about forking over a few more $$$ for the MG 12/4...

I'll let you know where the coin-toss lands... :rolleyes:
 
pres suck

they jsut arent hot enough, if you view the wav forms on the pc yuo can really see the difference
 
mr8 pre amps

I used them for a while but kept reading on here about how bad they are. I got a UB802 and noticed the difference immediately. Now I've read some who say how bad the pre amps on the UB802 are. I've already invested so much into things to "help" the little red monster, I could've bought a 16trk! Let's see, compact flash cards, mixer, new mic, new cables...Oh well! I get decent recordings about half the time. Most of my trouble is INEXPERIENCE or IGNORANCE. So whoever may read this: upgrading your equipment can't make up for lack of skill. Getting decent recordings, I am finding, takes SKILL! The only cure for ignorance is education. I have gotten a lot of useful advice from others on this board. Thanks everyone.
 
BentRabbit said:
, most of my major 'new' tracking had been done on the VF16 (which pre's are maybe a SLIGHT bit hotter than the MR8)
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I know nothing of the VF16, but a $400 difference seems a high price for a slight upgrade on the pre's. I'm sure that the effects are slightly better, there's the extra 8 tracks, and the 40gb hard drive, and the internal CD burner, and 3 band EQ with parametric high and mid...

gawd damnit... I should have saved my money :o :( insert rant of profanities here.
 
cellardweller said:
I know nothing of the VF16, but a $400 difference seems a high price for a slight upgrade on the pre's. I'm sure that the effects are slightly better, there's the extra 8 tracks, and the 40gb hard drive, and the internal CD burner, and 3 band EQ with parametric high and mid...
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"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
 
spariam said:
"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?"
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"... well.. aside from this Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play...?"

:rolleyes:
 
dave in toledo said:
they jsut arent hot enough, if you view the wav forms on the pc yuo can really see the difference
Click to expand...
When I mic my guitar or sing vocals, they are pretty small. But if I DI my bass, they are huge, same with DI'ing my guitar (which sounds like crap due to the effects).... :confused:
 
pre amps

I use the ub802 after not getting enough oomph out of the mr8 alone. And using minimal trim along with the mixer get some decent levels. But I can see myself already outgrowing this stuff. Just got a nice condenser mic and due to how much it picks up, I need to build some type of iso booth that can be broken down and set up fairly simply. Makes a world of difference on the vocal though. Pj
 
There's a problem with using two preamps in a chain though. That is how you make a distortion box. Seriously, distortion is made by driving one amp with another amp stage, so you are probably gonna be best off if you can get all your gain in one place.
 
I have the presonus tubepre, studioprojects vtb1 and the art studio v3. V3 has the most options for around the same price, they all have slightly different sounds, but not essential to have. I find that the cleanest sound, with the least amount of tube sounds better than dialing any of the cheap tubes in them, not sure if any of the tube sound is useful for anything. Except, as a pre for a SS amp, that works well for elec. guitar.
 
I've used the MR-8 preamps a couple of times, but they are not much good without phantom power anyway, so I got me an external two-channel phantom power for small setups. It works OK for my Røde NT-1A, but for a recent project - recording a real church organ for an overdub - I decided for the more polished solution of using the excellent preamps in my Alto S-8 mixer, primarily because I had better microphones at my disposal for the event. I could have brought my UB-802, which is smaller and lighter, instead, but I wanted to have a balanced signal at my disposal at all times, and the one thing lacking in the UB-802 is the balanced outputs present in the Alto S-8.

regards, Nils
 
Looks like I may end up with an "extra" hundred bucks. My B-day has coincided with tax returns (what's the saying about death and taxes? :rolleyes: ).

Anyway, I'd intended on buying a dmp3, and various odds and ends (new xlr's, maybe a M-audio 2496, maybe an e609) but since the addition of the $100, I'm considering the M-audio Tampa over the DMP3.

Seems most here use relatively cheap pre-amps in conjunction with the lil' red beast, which brings me to my question. Would I notice any difference between the two (tampa/DMP3) or would I be pissing the extra $150 for a compressor and little else?

I've never played with an "actual" compressor, only plug-ins (with little or no success). Would this be worthwhile as a learning experience, to break me into the wonderful world of compression?
I gotta say, being able to set my levels for vocals without the everpresent fear of clipping on the loud parts sounds nice...
 
I've never played with an "actual" compressor, only plug-ins (with little or no success). Would this be worthwhile as a learning experience, to break me into the wonderful world of compression?
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Cellardweller, you might want to take a look at this if you don't already know it: Jezar: How to use a Compressor

It taught me all I know about compressors today, and my sounds come out great!

regards, Nils
 
Thanx. I printed that to read/digest later.

I've read tutorials about compressors before, but either I'm too dense, or it's something that just can not be learned so easily...
 
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