no preamp vs cheap preamp

[distortedrumble]

so i guess i should hold out until great river, apogee, orion and the rest of the highend stuff to take their name off of it and sell it as a generic mixer that i can pick up at walmart! genius! lol.

 

[TomBo777]

Disease: Gearenvy

Im afraid you are hopelessly afflicted.

Symptoms: will not feel one can make a listenable product unless you have those highend brands.

Cure: None
Mantra:
If you spend it..it will be good..they will listen.......If you spend it..it will be good..they will listen....it will be good...If you spend it..it will be good..they will listen...it will be good....If you spend it....they will listen......it will be good.

 

[billmcdonald]

Thank you all for your imput, this has been an interesting read for me

 

[DJL]

Ive heard good and bad things about the cheaper preamps. I am not super picky, but I cant have things distorting and stuff. Most of the stuff I will be recording is metal. Is it absolutely necessary to have a preamp? If so, what should I get? Im on a budget (arent we all ) and Ive been looking at some of the ART preamps, and the Delta DMP3.

Also, would a "good" solid state preamp be better than a cheap "starved plate" tube preamp?

Do you guys think it would be worth it just to go without a preamp for a while and save up for something in the 6-800 dollar price range?

Any help/advice is appreciated.

IMO, you should get a M-Audio DMP3 now and start recording... later after you've gained a little more experience you'll have a better idea what more you want/need.

 

[apl]

An RME Quadmic is about $550.

 

[acorec]

Pre Amps are one of the most over rated pieces of gear...The Preamp is the holy grail on the recording message boards.............BS.......You will get great results with a mid priced pre amp. Save the big bucks for your monitors. There you will hear whats right or wrong with your gear or music.

The Pre Amps on the SoundCraft Folio are nice, even the Mackies and the Art stuff is not bad for those on a lower budget. You will sell your CDs if your music is good and most people will not know the difference. Hell most people cannot tell synth horns from real ones and most people don't listen to a CD as an only activity either in an anacholic chamber....more likely a noisy car or on a pocket player though $10 earphones.


For around $400 a channel you can get a good enough pre amp to avoid embarrasement if thats your worry. Look I met a guy in Branson who has a studio and he has (gasp) Behringer gear in his rack. YEp !

Heres the URL. http://www.nothm.com/equipframe.htm


Look at his equiptment and client list. Its not about the gear as much as the ear. Let the Elitists fight over $2000 pre amps. You dont need to get into that world. Those guys use gear in place of ears to attract clients and get the big wow from other engineers. Many clients just want a good clean recording and the gear availabel today to the masses is plenty good enough for that. The thousands of high dollar gear studios going out of busines is a testament to that. Think of it this way....A guy wears a Rolex watch for one reason...not becasue it keeps better time than a Timex..or has better modern technology...nope.......Peole wear those thingsto Impress.......That world exists everywhere and audio does not get a pass...People love to say they have a certain piece of gear only few would or could buy....There are diminishing returns in the audio world the more you spend. After all the end users are ripping your $2000 pre Amped recording into 128bit MP3s!!!!

Gary has some nice gear. But also some people on these boards would call garbage. He displays his "garbage" proudly and he is still in business while other "floating Modern Pro Tools studios with all the latest bells and whistles starve......Why? Becasue quality clients buy ears....not gear.

I use a Joe Meek VCQ1 and also have a couple ART MP'a and an ART VLA. I have been a gear whore for 25 years and of all the CDs I have produced and sold I never got a CD back becaue it did not technically sound quite right or I used a terrible pre amp lol .........content is another thing..LOL

I wish I had the quality/price ratio today you younger guys have....I have spent less time trying to get decent equiptment and noise from my studio and more time making music.............Guys on this board are making nice recordings with Octiva Mics and ART MP 's Check out the mic forum.

Do you need a $2000 pre-amp?
No.

Are expensive pre-amps over-rated?
No.

Do pro studios buy expensive pre-amps just to impress the client?
No.

You may never have recorded with decent pre-amps in a decent studio with other decent equipment.

I agree in a bad ropom, with cheap equipment, an expensive pre-amp is worthless. But, if you have decent equipment and mics, then the expensive pre-amps become very worthwhile.

 

[SonicAlbert]

You think a Bentley is worth $100,000 more than a Chrysler? I dont.
YOu think a stainless steel Rolex is worth $5970 more than TIMEX? Not me.
You think a little man on a Polo Horse makes a T shirt worth $53? Not I.

These are opinions, not facts.

Many here, I am assuming have Home Studios and record their own music and maybe some friends. There is no need for the Big buck gear to do that. No one will know the difference.....its unfortunate for those who did spend a small fortune on Elite gear but its true.

It *is* indeed important to match ones gear to their goals and needs. However, there is a certain elitism in your attitudes that I find distasteful. It seems you are saying that if you ahve a home studio the quality standards are lower. I disagree with this. Good music is good music, good audio is good audio. Everyone should strive for the best they can possibly be. I don't want to set a lower standard for some than others. It is *not* relative, there are absolutes.

In the end its music on a CD that untrained and abused ears will listen to and either like the music or not regardless of what preamp was used on the lead vocalist. I would bet even A/B ing the same track they could not tell the difference......nor will it make a sad song better.

This is where you go WAY off in my opinion. Again, there is a certain arrogance to your feeling that no one can tell the difference. Like they are cattle unable to make judgements. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

While the general public may not be able to speak in technical terms about why something sounds better than something else, they certainly can *perceive* the differences as well as anybody. Of course they won't be able to tell you what preamp was used, or how much it cost. But if great care was taken with the recording, if quality gear was used well throughout, they will be able to hear the difference with that.

This whole concept that nothing matters is a disease. **Everything matters**.

A preamp will not make a bad song better, true. But it will make it better recorded, and that's what we are talking about.

 

[apl]

If 100 is perfect, most homreccers are happy with 80. If 80 costs $X, then 90 costs 10×$X. Most homereccers would be able to hear the difference. Once they got used to 90, and decided to go to 95, they'd have to spend 100×$X. Most wouldn't be able to here the diffrence between 90 and 95. Is it worth it? Well, once you've been exposed to 90 or 95 equipment it's hard not to want to upgrade.

 

[Altruist]

The cost of a product in my world has no real bearing on its quality...especially in such a subjective field as audio.........

I don't buy things based on what they cost. I do pass on buying things based on cost though. I do not blindly assume higher prices means better.
I need real proof of that...and then.. how much better.

You think a Bentley is worth $100,000 more than a Chrysler? I dont.
YOu think a stainless steel Rolex is worth $5970 more than TIMEX? Not me.
You think a little man on a Polo Horse makes a T shirt worth $53? Not I.

I do not believe that $3000+ Requisite Preamp is 5 times better then my VCQ1 aurally. But thats just me. .

Many here, I am assuming have Home Studios and record their own music and maybe some friends. There is no need for the Big buck gear to do that. No one will know the difference.....its unfortunate for those who did spend a small fortune on Elite gear but its true.

In the end its music on a CD that untrained and abused ears will listen to and either like the music or not regardless of what preamp was used on the lead vocalist. I would bet even A/B ing the same track they could not tell the difference......nor will it make a sad song better.

Thats a comfy little fantasy land you live in. If I a/b'd a behringer and a Great River I would be able to tell the difference instantly. I don't care what someones untrained ears will or won't hear. I make music for me and am a perfectionist. Nothing pisses me off more than the little whiny hiss of garbage in all my recordings. If I can get something that will get the job done better but happens to cost more, I will do so. I don't need your pity for doing so thanks. And behringer products are crap...noisy hissy crap..I have used a bunch of it and frankly I will admit I wasted my money. So why buy cheap and then buy again? Its like buying a diamond ring. When your cuban zarconia piece of junk is long gone. My Great River pre will still be ticking and sounding great and holding its resale value cause I treat it like gold.

 

[acorec]

Originally Posted by TomBo777
You think a Bentley is worth $100,000 more than a Chrysler? I dont.
YOu think a stainless steel Rolex is worth $5970 more than TIMEX? Not me.
You think a little man on a Polo Horse makes a T shirt worth $53? Not I.

A Bently is warranted for 1,000,000 miles.
A Chrysler is warranted for 6,000 miles. Give it 10,000 miles for chuckles.

a Bently will outlast 10 chrysler vehicles assuming that the chryslers die around 100,000 miles.

If a chrysler costs 10,000$, then 10X10,000 = 100,000$

There are far more running original Bentlys with 500,000 miles on them on this planet than there are original chryslers. FAAAAAR MORE.

A rolex will sell for damn near original price than any timex ever. Resale and collector value.

A $53 dollar shirt - well. I can say for sure that the 20$ tee shirts I buy FAR outlast those 5$ tee shirts. FAR better quality. It took me years to find this out. The cheap tee shirts look the same, but tear easier, colors fade in the wash after 2 washes, look old in every way after a couple of months.


Price does not always dictate quality, but quality always costs more than non-quality. You just have to find out what constitutes quality and learn by yourself. If you subscribe to the cheap side of life, you will end up spending far more than understanding quality and submitting to the fact that it costs more upfront, but in the long run costs less.

 

[Ptownkid]

This is such a ridiculous thread, if you're happy recording with inferior products and think that there is no audible difference, great, keep on trucking.

The poster asked for people's opinions, they were provided and you chose to debate them. YOU CAN'T DEBATE AN OPINION!!!

Price does not always dictate quality proportionally, but crazy analogies don't resolve or clarify issues that are COMPLETELY UNRELATED!!!

The things you refer to for comparison have one huge factor influencing the price, huge advertising budgets. Last time I checked, the most sought after audio gear units are made by companies that aren't household names.

Cheap preamps are noisy, period. If you can't hear (or care about) the difference i feel sorry for you.

Do you happen to work for Behringer?

 

[TomBo777]

While the general public may not be able to speak in technical terms about why something sounds better than something else, they certainly can *perceive* the differences as well as anybody. Of course they won't be able to tell you what preamp was used, or how much it cost. But if great care was taken with the recording, if quality gear was used well throughout, they will be able to hear the difference with that.

as compared to what?

The general public don't care! They are listeing to 128 bit compressed versions of songs and totally satified. Thats a fact not opinion. The Boom Boxes do not exactly reproduce subtities of a $2000 pre amp! Most home setups are not of audiophile quality....Im not even going to talk about the SNR in a car.

If you record for audioiphiles.or other for another engineer's kudos..well you better spend the money because they may hear the difference. The general public listens to music as background in their lives and on very inexpensive circuitry and speakers for the most part. Most Home Studios do not NEED to be loaded with "pro" gear. I know its hard for someone who just paid $3000 for a single piece in the recording chain to believe, but there are very capable and quality recordings made on prosumer equiptment by young musicians.

The number of Studios with top gear who are out of business, starving or going under is a testament to that. There is a cheaper alternative to good music reproduction and ithe gap between prosumer and pro is closing everyday.

There are other opinions that reflect unless you spend at least $2000 on a pre amp you may as well use the ones on a Mackie rather than anything that coast less than $1000 !! Incredable misinformation.

If one feels they have to have the absolute best (of course as recommended by others) for thier own sake...Well thats their issue and they are prisoners to that and it will cost them. If one is selling CDs at gigs or MP3 downloads on the net I do not think they need to get caught up in the disease I call Gearenvy......where one cannot comfortably record a song without certain pieces of gear. Theres no cure for that and no end to that road. If you get a record deal then you will work with better producers and equiptment on another"s coin anyway.

BTW a Rolex is definatly not worth resale what you paid for it. Pawn shops here in LAs Vegas are full of them. Nor is a Bentley you can find older ones all day long in LA for less than 1/4 of their value new.....terrible resale.

No one keeps a Bentley for 1,000,000 miles lol. Don't kid yourself. People buy that stuff for one reason.....prestige. I dont think audio gear gets a pass in that world on the recording side or the playback side. especially in the Home Studio world. People want what the "flavor of the week" and especially to keep up with the Jones. Its Human nature.

In 10 years someone I'd bet somene somewhere will pay me what I paid for my Joe Meek VCQ1. It will be vintage and rare then.

I don't own Behringer, BUT I would not tell someone it's crap either if it is what they could afford. I wish I had ALL of todays Behringer gear back in the 70's when I first put my Home Studio together.

 

[Ptownkid]

You obviously have not worked with most of the Behringer stuff. From personal experience, the preamps in their gear are garbage, end of story.

 

[seveone]

While it is true most people in the US listen to mp3s, the majority were recorded in high end studios, then burned down to mp3. If you start with a recording that is not up to that standard (i.e. magority of home studio recordings), you're already worse off. Your taking lower quality sound and making it a little worse. Your crazy if you think that my 14yr old niece can't hear the difference between a song recorded in a run of the mill high end studio, vs one recorded in the run of the mill home studio - MP3 or not. She doesn't like the White Stripes, Hives, Strokes becuase they don't sound good - and thats a quote. Nothing about their music, which I think isn't horiible, but would sound much better with that type of production.

BTW - I don't own high end gear. I have a Eureka, RNC, Motu 828MkII, TubePre, Mackie board, Alesis32, Event TR-8s, G5, 23" monitor, TC Powercore, and I do own Behringer - a Composer Pro, works alright on limited stuff, and a BCF2000 which produces no sound. Would I buy more? not a board, or eq, or any preamp, or reverb, etc. I would buy the headphone amp, but not anything that goes to tape (disk).

I WILL in the near future buy a new board probably Soundcraft or A&H, because they sound better. I WILL be getting 2 more Preamp channnels at least. I want the cheapest I can get, I don't WANT to spend a lot. I don't care about the name, because nobody I know would care. They wouldn't know Behringer from Neve from Tandy. I want what SOUNDS better than what I have. If that means GT Brick - fine. If that means Hamptone, or Radio Shack fine. I want the sound it that generally costs $$. I KNOW Behringer sounds worse than what I have, and I'm upgrading.

 

[TomBo777]

You and I are on the same page.....except I think MP3 compression can actually hide issues with the recording. lol

Im not defending Behringer. I have no Beheringer gear. BUT I have used some and do know its affordable and is not as bad as one would think reading these boards. Someone with a limited budget can crate a nice little home studio with the lower cost gear. Much of which is quieter than most expensive vintage stuff if you really want to go by specs. (I guess vintage noise is good noise)

The way I decided on my Joe Meek VCQ1 was a true A/B. I was all caught up in pre amp and the costs. My ART MP was supposed to be junk so I went shopping and bought the Meek and a $2000 Avalon from GC. I made the same recording using both. mixed them down and burned a CD. I shuffled them and played them in various places...I let friends hear them and although there was a differance between them it was just that "a difference" not one better than the other. Some prefered one over the other. And this was actually listening to the song....My question had to be "was is the Avalon 4X as good since it cost 4X as much?"......My conclusion was no, not 4X better by any stretch. on paper maybe who knows. And thats how I buy all my gear. It takes tme and a few trips to the store or UPS..But in the end I get exactly what I need.
and have no second thoughts. I now can buy any gear I want and I still love that VCQ1. Maybe I'll buy a Grace to A/B with it for fun........nah.

You go to FMR and read the kudos major engineers give a $200 compressor.......The point is you can't believe anybody. you have to buy the gear and A/B it. You will come to your own conclusions.

You will save a ton doing that.........rather than pay too much for whatever then try to convince yourself and others you made the "professional" choice because it cost $1500.Demand it be 3x better than a $500 whatever and be convinced. Only then will you be forever content you made the right choice.

In the mean time for those who cannot afford the elite stuff.....make music with what you have..the worst of todays gear is still very capable and you will learn how to make it work for you. Dont trust exclusively what others say. Use the return policy of the stores and bring the stuff home and keep what you want.

 

[SonicAlbert]

The way I decided on my Joe Meek VCQ1 was a true A/B. I was all caught up in pre amp and the costs. My ART MP was supposed to be junk so I went shopping and bought the Meek and a $2000 Avalon from GC. I made the same recording using both. mixed them down and burned a CD. I shuffled them and played them in various places...I let friends hear them and although there was a differance between them it was just that "a difference" not one better than the other. Some prefered one over the other. And this was actually listening to the song....My question had to be "was is the Avalon 4X as good since it cost 4X as much?"......My conclusion was no, not 4X better by any stretch. on paper maybe who knows. And thats how I buy all my gear.

So your friends pick out your studio gear. Don't you buy it based on what YOU hear, on what YOU want? What about YOUR musical vision? Don't you have a concept of how you want your music to sound and then buy gear that helps you achieve that?

In all honesty, I find the approach that you took to be totally lame. Seems lost. Sorry.

Maybe I'll buy a Grace to A/B with it for fun........nah.

Yeah don't bother, your friends won't be able to hear the difference.

The point is you can't believe anybody. you have to buy the gear and A/B it. You will come to your own conclusions.

Okay, you say this, but that is not what you do. In one sentence you say you let your friends pick out your gear based on if they can hear a difference, then later you say you will come to you own conclusions. This last point is in my opinion correct, but you are wobbling all over the map here as far as what you are saying. Which is it?

Ultimately, the artist and engineer has to have a *vision* in their mind, a concept of how they want the music to sound. That vision needs to occur before the music is recorded. The gear in the studio needs to be the right gear to further that vision. Without the vision you are lost, hoping someone else can tell the difference between A and B. And even if they can tell the difference, who cares, because do they know your vision and do they know how to achieve that vision in sound?

 

[heroics321]

the problem is not the gear, it is people on message boards who simply repeat what the owner of preamp X said, without trying it. that is where the hype comes from. there's no point in making extremely finite generalities, because once you get to a certain point, as we have seen here, its all about taste.

that said, i have already outgrown the preamps in my behringer ada8000. with low-end gear, there is a certain trick that companies play on buyers... like taking a pre, hyping 4-16khz range and getting people to perceive that as "transperency", while completely lacking in the meat department.

i plan on some significant upgrades, because i feel like i am having to overcompensate for gear in the mixing stage, band-aiding everything. am i happy with the end result? yes. am i happy with the frustration between tracking and that point? yes and no... it's a pain, but if i put as much work into a mix with higher end gear as i did with my not so great equipment, i'll end up with an outstanding product. bless the b-rated gear for getting me started, and bless the better for saying "i'm here when you're ready," like a classy hooker with all of her shots waiting for you on your 18th birthday. behringer is to awkward first girlfriend as universal audio is to julia roberts in pretty woman.

 

[distortedrumble]

i dont think he can be reasoned with....so I'll just say for the record that i WANT a soundcraft M12, a pair of wharfedale monitors and a couple of delta 1010s...i NEED none of it. my recordings sound just fine using my less than $300 products. i WANT a better sound for ME and i would LIKE a better sound for the people that pay me to record them.

 

[PinkStrat]

This is good stuff cavedog. I agree with your categorizations, but there are other factors.

What if the hobbiest really wants to sound better, for example? If someone has $600-800 to spend on a preamp, is that better preamp a waste of their money? I really don't think so.

It is wonderful to read posts from people that want to sound as good as they can and are willing to spend more of their hard earned money to do so. That to me means that they are becoming educated in this stuff. That maybe some of the advice that I and others are spreading about "quality geaer matters" is taking root. And that they are listening to their ears and something is telling them it can be better.

It seems a little callous to say that if you ask a question here at homerecording then better gear won't help your sound. The whole point of places like this is to educate oneself and to find help and advice for studio related issues. And I think that asking a question and taking that advice *will* possibly help ones sound. At the very least, when the higher quality preamp is taken out of its box, plugged and heard for the first time, it may provide an epiphany of sorts, where the advice gets connected to the ears.

I know what happened the first time I spent more money than I wanted to on a truly high quality piece of gear. It was truly eye-opening, and I was never able to turn back from that, either. There are still old message board posts from me in my "prosumer" gear days. Posts where I passionately argued how my Roland blah-blah was just as good as the esoteric and expensive super blah-blah. Now that I've used, heard, and owned some pretty high end gear, I know what I was missing before. And as cavedog says, you really don't know what you are missing until you *hear* what you are missing.

An example: I needed to track my Steinway last year for a film score. Using Shure KSM32 mics, I started out going through my TASCAM DM-24 preamps. Good, clean, perfectly usable. i had a pair of Presonus TubePRE's at that time that I was reviewing for SonicState. So I recorded some test tracks through them as well. The same: good, clean usable tracks. Then I hooked up my Grace 201 and did some test tracks there as well. HUGE. Big gigantic *gorgeous* sounding piano tracks. Night and day, no comparison to the budget preamps. The point is, the budget preamp tracks sounded fine until I heard the Grace 201 preamp tracks. Then that really put the others in their place.

The thing about this stuff is you need to hear it in your own setting, on your own voice, on your own instrument. That's what makes comparisons hard.

But I will have to say that mic preamps are one of those things where money does buy quality. At $800-1,000 per channel and up you *are* going to get a stellar preamp. We are just talking flavors at that point.

A while ago I bought an FMR Audio RNP/RNC combination as my first "good" preamp rig which was a very good buying decision because the FMR stuff sounds GREAT. Previous to the FMR gear I had also gone through a period of using the ART crap (and all those kind of "starved plate" type of cheap mic pres) and now know that scene all too well. Well, two weeks ago, I added to my preamp rack a Universal Audio M610.....WOW, now this thing is a real MOFO!!! NIGHT & DAY from the FMR Audio (which I still LOVE BTW). Yeah, it's at about a grand a channel where the magic starts to happen. I agree 1000% with you here! The UA M610 and the RNP are 180 degrees apart from each other and also compliment each other very well too. This UA M610 is ROCKIN' my world now while the FMR Audio is ROLLIN' the other side. Beautiful man! The UA stuff kicks major ass!

 

[TomBo777]

So your friends pick out your studio gear. Don't you buy it based on what YOU hear, on what YOU want? What about YOUR musical vision? Don't you have a concept of how you want your music to sound and then buy gear that helps you achieve that?

My concept of what I want can be had with what I have....

If people who are NOT in the business of writing and recording music cannot hear the difference Im not paying for it. Its pretty simple.And thats all I really want. I have what I want, thats the thing, I know ownwers and have access to better studios . I know the gear available. I'm satisfied with what I have in relation to what I do with it.

I will charge a band $600 for a 10 song CD including mastering and Art work. $200 for vocals only. They sell 40 CDs and their recording expenses are paid for. Everybody is happy. I can do that all day long because I don't have to keep up with the latest and greatest and more important the less monied clients are happy. I still give them a product they are satisfied with and can make money on at their gigs. I don't advertise, all referral. There is seemingly no end to people and bands that want to record on my less than optimum gear at that price/quality ratio. Unfortunatly Im on the road for 5 months at a time and cannot do it full time nor do I really want to. I like helping young acts and making a few dollars on th side as well.

I don't record myself for me. I don't listen to my own CD endlessly. I sell it to others. They are satisfied with it so why should'nt I be? I want a good clear sound...the VCQ1 gives me the most bang for the buck in the pre amp stage. The $2000 piece was not 4X better in my opinion and the difference to worse ears than mine negligable. I track through Mackie pre Amps.....yep Using he Meek on Ac GTR and Vocals. Simple and fast.

I am an advocate for those who cannot afford the top gear and be the lone voice in the darkness that says You don't need it to make a decent CD or money recording others. There are WAY more start up bands and individuals that have $500 to make a CD than bands that have $50,000 to make a airy, more transparent, less colored or what have you product LOL. Im catering to a group of people that have few options to record I help them buy gear to do it themselves as well. Its a different segment.