My new preamp sounds like my cheaper one? HELP!

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hemmick reef

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I have just bought a Groove Tubes 'The Brick' preamp to improve on the Edirol preamps and HiZ inputs on my sound card interface.
So far I have tried The Brick as a DI with electric guitar & bass. I struggled to tell the difference in sound?
I believe that The Brick is a great preamp, especially after reading the great user reviews on various forums and in magazines, which is why I bought it over the TLAudio & Focusrite budget range of preamps.
I only have a small home studio but I was expecting to here a greater difference in sound?

Can anyone give some advice on this

Thanks
 
what soundcard are you using? and what is your monitoring chain?
 
I bought a couple of Brick preamps last year, then returned them because I couldn't find any significant audible difference between them and my usual pres. This is not a knock in any way on the Bricks - they sound great - but even though they use tubes and transformers, they are not the "personality" preamps that some people shop for. I tried them on vocals and on bass, and found that their sonic differences with my generic pres were extremely subtle.

Here are a couple of bass samples. This track was recorded by multing the bass through a passive DI into two separate channels, one using a Brick, the other using my SP828. There are differences between them, but the differences are subtle enough to be insignificant for my purposes. Your mileage may vary:





BTW, if you just listen over a pair of computer speakers, you're not going to hear any difference at all. Critical listening over a pair of good monitors or headphones would be required. And even then, the difference is small. Note that I've done no processing on these other than to make them equal in level. They are high bitrate MP3s (160K mono).
 
very subtle indeed, Gilliland

I think to mistake most people make when they buy their first pre is they imagine the difference is gonna be huge. Like a dry guitar signal to a guitar signal with a hall reverb on it...ya know?

You nknow when you've got a good pre not by noticing a huge change in the way things sound but by noticing how well multiple tracks recorded through a good pre stack together in a mix.
 
The Brick is a very clean sounding preamp, so I don't think that you should have expected to hear much in the way of difference. It does what it was designed to do, IMO. The noticeable difference (at least for me) is how the bass track sits in the mix.
 
true,
in the beginning i was looking for preamps with color cause i was never impressed with the natural sound.
now i learned that its GREAT to have a transparant preamp so you can record anything, and then you just change the sound with compressors and eq's,

the only difference i really hear between the preamps of
behringer, studiomaster, soundcraft, mackie
is how 'clear' or clean the signal is, you will always hear exactly the same bassguitar sound !
but then, if you start compressing the HELL out of it with lets say a symetrix 501 or dbx 160x you'll push the volume and hear the subtle details better.
and then of course like everyone says:
use the preamp in an entire song, record alot or all your tracks with it and then compare it with your previous mixes

when i was comparing my joemeek vc8 with my symetrix 528 it was clear that there was a big sonic difference but it was 'impossible' to tell what sounded BETTER,
after mixing five demo cds using those two (and my mixers) preamps i know the differences by heart

it will take some time and efforts, and then you'll automaticly hear the difference, its more like FEELING the difference,
like hearing a 40 hz tone, you don't know what direction it comes from but you know its there :)
 
Thanks for the comments. I have been a little disappointed as I was expecting some instant wow factor. Does this go for even the most expensive preamps?
I am thinking of changing it as the place where I bought may allow me to change it for maybe a TLA5060...at least of got a reasonable preamp + stereo compressor, if I'm not going to hear much difference (my budget cannot change very much).....

or would that be a big mistake?

(I also use a UAD-1 card & GT67 mic)
 
As Lemontree said, if you've got a decent pre, you'll notice how the tracks stack up much better - how well they start sitting in the mix. 60's guy made a similar statement about his bass track.

As I've purchased better pre's (my first ones), I've never been blown away by dramatic sound differences either, but can attest to the above statements.
 
hemmick,

FWIW I felt the same way you did when I bought my first mid priced pre amp (FMR RNP). Previously, I was using Mackie 1202 mic pres and a VTB-1. The difference was not light and day, though I heard subtle differences.

When I bought my first high-end pre (A-designs MP2), I noticed the difference immediately and there was much more of a "wow" factor.

I sold my RNP in favor of the Rane MS-1b (clean and fast like the RNP but w/o DI and much cheaper).

I suggest you stick to the low budget stuff until you can drop about $1000 on a nice pre.
 
hemmick reef said:
Thanks for the comments. I have been a little disappointed as I was expecting some instant wow factor. Does this go for even the most expensive preamps?
Click to expand...
At the level of the rest of your signal chain, you're not likely to get much of a wow factor by switching preamps. Some preamps will make a more noticeable difference, for example the JoeMeek preamp that Earworm mentions above - JoeMeek stuff is designed to have a sonic signature. But that's probably not what you should be worrying about at this point.

The biggest influences on the quality of your recordings will come from the musician's abilities, the quality of the instruments, the character and positioning of the mics, and the sonic character of the room in which you record. The impact of the mic pres and the A/D converters will be small in comparison to those much more important factors.

BTW, before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusions on the samples that I posted above - I am NOT a musician. The samples above feature Michael Manring on bass. They are a very short excerpt from a performance of his that I recorded last fall.
 
I'm with mrbowes. You have to really get out of anything in the budget range before you hear an obvious difference.
 
Once again, I wish someone with both high end and good quality budget pres would post a comparison illustrating "how the tracks stack up better". I'm not questioning that they do, I just would love to move this from "everybody says so" to a thread where everyone listens and comments on it.
In a way it's kind of medicine show like. The naive townfolk doubtingly say "I don't hear a difference", and the snakeoil salesman says, with great flourish, "Of course you don't, don't you see? If you could hear it then it wouldn't be transparant, would it? Trust me, you'll love what you don't hear after you don't hear it for a while ;) . "Ooooh, I get it" say a couple of folk, and the others line up, money in hand.
 
Robert D said:
Once again, I wish someone with both high end and good quality budget pres would post a comparison illustrating "how the tracks stack up better". I'm not questioning that they do, I just would love to move this from "everybody says so" to a thread where everyone listens and comments on it.
In a way it's kind of medicine show like. The naive townfolk doubtingly say "I don't hear a difference", and the snakeoil salesman says, with great flourish, "Of course you don't, don't you see? If you could hear it then it wouldn't be transparant, would it? Trust me, you'll love what you don't hear after you don't hear it for a while ;) . "Ooooh, I get it" say a couple of folk, and the others line up, money in hand.
Click to expand...

Difference is we're talkin mic pre's, not snake oil and none of us are trying to sell you one or hustle money from you.
 
Robert,

Though I totally agree with you, having a track "sitting in the mix" better often necessitates multiple instances of that preamp being used on the track. A comparison of a one track performance(say, acoustic guitar or vox) between a low-budget and a low/mid-budget pre will yield sonic differences, but not much on how each preamp sits in the mix better.

The crux of the problem is that everyone is busy and it's a pain in the a-- to record lots of tracks using budget gear and then try to capture the identical performance using high-end gear (unless of course you have a mic splitter, which would greatly simplify the process).
 
the biggest difference is going to be in headroom and distortion.

that is why everyone says "you will hear it when you track a bunch of stuff and stack it up".

because the distortion builds....its tough to hear on one track but you can, if you know what you are looking for.

try plugging in a mic and recording some vocals. I can almost guarantee that if you listen for it, you will notice a difference in headroom and distortion.

of course I haven't ever tried either of these preamps, but I have been in the same boat with other preamps. even if you spend > $1000 you might not hear the difference at first. but its there. every piece of gear is different.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone.

I was worried I'd blown £350 on something that will be pointless for a home studio setup?

Any comments on changing it for a pre + compressor (eg, TLA, Focusrite Platinum)
 
The thing is, the TLA and Focusrite Platinum stuff is in the same range as the BRICK, basically. So you will just be making a sideways move. I really wouldn't do that, seems like a waste of money. Farview is right, you have to get completely out of the budget and mid-priced range before you can hear a really obvious difference.

You can definitely get a "wow" factor out a switching to a better preamp, but you have to go up to the really fine stuff to hear it.

As far as stacking, I do believe a good preamp helps that. But if you are comparing a budget preamp to a top end preamp you can certainly hear that on a single track with no problem.
 
I'd keep the Brick. If you want night and day, different (better) mics and positioning will give you much more noticeable differences in sound than swapping preamps. Even between hi dollar pres, the differences are there but comparatively subtle ( I have Millennia, Pendulum, API, A-Designs, Peavey and GT pres). The differences do add up in a mix and are less obvious on soloed instruments (I know, I know). In addition, some pres match up better with specific mics, so there is another variable to consider.
 
LemonTree said:
Difference is we're talkin mic pre's, not snake oil and none of us are trying to sell you one or hustle money from you.
Click to expand...

I didn't say anyone here was, or that good mic pres are snake oil. I've tracked with real Neve pres, and I know there's a reason why they are coveted. I passed on a job at Mellenia Media, have done consulting work for DBX, and have a solid background in analog circuit design.
I offered what I thought was an amusing analogy of plausable denial to the doubting Thomas, hoping someone would take the bait and work up an example of the stack effect. It's a lot to ask, I know. Maybe it could be done collaboratively.
 
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