Neeed help choosing a pre amplifier!

[Nathenn0]

I am writing a list of items to start off with for my home studio. I mainly am going to be doing a lot of fairly tasteful hip/hop. I am pretty set on a bluebird condenser mic. I need help choosing a good pre amp. Please help. Any tips or suggestions would be appreciated. BTW I'm trying to not spend more than 300 on the pre amp.

 

[JimmyS1969]

Do you already have an interface? If not, get one. Don't worry about an added preamp yet.

Take a look at the 'stickies' at the top of the newbie forum for insight.

Welcome to the forum Nathen

 

[Nathenn0]

What kind of interface would you recommend? I will only be doing vocals one at a time. I plan to get a keyboard as well but that's about it so I don't need many plug ins

 

[MrWrenchey]

Any preamp by itself for $300 probably isn't worth it.
Like Jimmy said, I'd suggest an interface. I hear a lot of good things about the Focusrite Scarlett series. I have a couple of their Saffire ones (mine are their higher end 56 and 40 ones) and those sound great.
Basically I'd suggest a Focusrite interface to start you off. The 2i2 Scarlett and I think the Saffire is like, a 24 Saffire? You can pick either of those and they should do just what you need.

 

[Ethan Winer]

I need help choosing a good pre amp.

I agree with the suggestions to get an interface that has a preamp. If you already have a sound card and mixer, the mixer probably has a perfectly good preamp. If for some reason you do need to buy a preamp, avoid anything that has tubes in it. Or buy a USB condenser microphone.

--Ethan