Need some help on which preamp to choose

[Roca_05]

Man...I had written a whole bunch on describing my problem and it got erased! Sorry for ranting...Here I go again!

Also I believe I'm one of many people that have a passive piezo pickup so you'll not only be helping me thank you all in advance!

My current setup:

Dual core 3GHz pc
X-fi Gamer (I know I know...I wasn't thinking about recording)
Epiphone guitar with passive piezo pickup
Cable with adapter to connect guitar directly to the x-fi

Results...Poor sound in pc, lousy graphs, and a very unhappy wannabe musician (me)

My main question is: Is there anything within a small budget that can be done to increase sound quality output from my guitar to the pc?

Help me choose from my preamp choices:

Choice A: ART Tube MP

Choice B: Behringer TUBE Preamp

Choice C: One of these

Choice D: M-Audio Buddy

Choice E: None of the above! Get yourself a good soundcard and a guitar with an active pickup even if that means spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

I really hope I don'g get choice E, but I will welcome all suggestions.

 

[Roca_05]

Alright, my bad. I take it you don't want to answer a noob question...Would a mod please move this to the noob section?

 

[Roca_05]

A entire day and not a single response???? Wow. I'm disappointed.

 

[CFox]

Hey Bro, its not often you will get someone owning many entry level preamps so its hard to draw a reasonable comparison. More likely is you get a response based on volume of owners of any particular product. There will be lots of Behri owners out there etc.

Now. If your sound card is shit what is a good preamp going to accomplish ?

Check out a combined unit. The Mackie Onyx Blackjack for example.

Or Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 this even comes with a voucher and Guitar Rig 4 Essential.

 

[mshilarious]

Now. If your sound card is shit what is a good preamp going to accomplish ?

The basic job of a preamp is to maximize possible signal to noise ratio, which it can do irrespective of the quality of the interface.

Also, with a passive piezo pickup (which I presume to mean there is no active buffer in the guitar, which is rare these days but I guess possible), you really need a very high input impedance amplifier, at least 1M but more is better. Those are usually found in dedicated piezo amps.

Of course you'd get better results with a microphone rather than a pickup, or at least a blend of the two . . .

 

[CFox]

The basic job of a preamp is to maximize possible signal to noise ratio, which it can do irrespective of the quality of the interface.

And if the soundcard has crappy AD converters ?

 

[mshilarious]

And if the soundcard has crappy AD converters ?

You tell me, you're the expert on everything right? What exactly are the deficiencies of a low-grade ADC, and how are those expressed in signal degradation? How are they related or not related to OP's issue? Specifics, please. Also, if you cannot rebut my response to your statement that a preamp cannot accomplish anything with respect to a low-grade ADC, you should admit that your statement was incorrect (which it was).

The basic problem is use of a piezo pickup perhaps without a proper buffering amp, and more importantly not using a microphone. Adequate results can be obtained with nearly any reasonable converter once those problems are corrected. Changing the interface without correcting those problems will still yield inadequate results.

Ethan Winer is fond of pointing out that just about any Soundblaster far exceeds the performance of the average cassette four-track a homerecordist would have started on c. 1990-1995 or so. Of course you aren't old enough to remember that, but it does happen to be true . . . and there are plenty of good-sounding tracks recorded on cassette four-tracks.

OP, shoot me an email with your mailing address and I'll send you a couple of widgets, and we'll see how that works with the X-Fi. I assume this thing has a minijack mic input? Creative's site is short on easy-to-find specifications . . .

 

[CFox]

You tell me, you're the expert on everything right?

Definitely not bro, in fact I stay out of more convo's than I join.

What exactly are the deficiencies of a low-grade ADC, and how are those expressed in signal degradation?

Not a huge fan of Tweak but in this instance a quote will do nicely

But the question now becomes how well is this conversion done. If the converter uses a clock that is less than perfectly stable you can guess that the audio will come out with errors, perhaps even audible clicks and pops.

Sure, take that risk if you like. Every cheap soundcard I have used has butchered the signal. Maybe I just got to get a nice soundblaster ?

How are they related or not related to OP's issue? Specifics, please. Also, if you cannot rebut my response to your statement that a preamp cannot accomplish anything with respect to a low-grade ADC, you should admit that your statement was incorrect (which it was).

I asked "what is that going to achieve ?"

Well, it will achieve a better sig/noise ratio into a possibly shitty soundcard. Implying the longview would be if the OP is still not happy with the sound, does he blame the cheap preamp or the soundcard ? Saving some stress, why not get a combined unit which has at least a minimum standard. A new audio interface was even mentioned by the OP.


BTW: I had already read the Ethan Winer thread

 

[mshilarious]

Not a huge fan of Tweak but in this instance a quote will do nicely

Just a couple of days ago you called him an idiot, essentially . . . but I think he died earlier this year, so let's speak well of him . . .

Sure, take that risk if you like. Every cheap soundcard I have used has butchered the signal. Maybe I just got to get a nice soundblaster ?

I would submit that dropouts are rare. I have never had such a problem, even with onboard sound. I would suspect some incompability with a host was the cause rather than the CODEC on the chip. Remember that people do use these for gaming and movies, etc., and the ADC and DAC side likely share a clock, and even average consumers would not find dropouts acceptable performance.

We have a technical term for unstable clocks, that's called jitter. We can understand the effect of jitter quite easily. I highly doubt OP's major problem is jitter.

Saving some stress, why not get a combined unit which has at least a minimum standard. A new audio interface was even mentioned by the OP.

Because, for the third time, a new interface is neither a microphone nor a high-impedance piezo buffer. And neither is an external mic preamp, for that matter. The instrument input (if the interface has one) may improve matters a bit for the piezo, but really a piezo buffer needs to be closer to the instrument--that is, ideally not across a long cable where it will suffer from capacitive loading.

 

[CFox]

Just a couple of days ago you called him an idiot, essentially . . . but I think he died earlier this year, so let's speak well of him . . .

Nope. That would be you paraphrasing again. Or distorting the facts entirely. I said I was not a fan of the redirects as some of the info was out of date, nothing defamatory. This has been discussed with a mod.

I would submit that dropouts are rare. I have never had such a problem, even with onboard sound. I would suspect some incompability with a host was the cause rather than the CODEC on the chip. Remember that people do use these for gaming and movies, etc., and the ADC and DAC side likely share a clock, and even average consumers would not find dropouts acceptable performance.

We have a technical term for unstable clocks, that's called jitter. We can understand the effect of jitter quite easily. I highly doubt OP's major problem is jitter.

Cool. Does this apply to full duplex recording too ?

Because, for the third time, a new interface is neither a microphone nor a high-impedance piezo buffer. And neither is an external mic preamp, for that matter. The instrument input (if the interface has one) may improve matters a bit for the piezo, but really a piezo buffer needs to be closer to the instrument--that is, ideally not across a long cable where it will suffer from capacitive loading.

NFI what you are talking about but it sounds convincing, so, cool.