NTK + (insert mic pre here!) = good listenin'

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ChickenBall

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What Pre would you recommend for around $1000 to go with the NTK. I will mainly be recording electric guitars and vocals, and would appreciate any first-hand opinions as to which mic pre would best suit my needs.

I've been doing quite a bit of research on this, I have searched a lot of posts (here and elsewhere), and have read a lot of different opinions on mic pre's.

My problem is I live 5 hours away from any music store that carries mic pre's. So trying out, or A/B'ing this equipment is not all that easy for moi.

Thank you in advance for your help.

P.S. - I use Pro Tools for my recording.
 
NTK + (What you like and what best suits your purposes because there's so damn many of 'em out there and no one but yourself knows what works best for you and your situation) = good listenin'
 
Thanks for your quick response, but if you had read the entire post, you would have realized that I don't have any pre's readily available for me to try out and form an opinion on.

I'm not looking for someone to tell me which pre to buy, but rather to direct me to a few suitable choices from the criteria outlined in my post. This would allow me the opportunity to find out which stores I should check out when I eventually make the 5 hour trip to look for a pre.

By the way chessrock, I just read your glowing review on the new Safesound P1, why couldn't you have just recommended I try one of those out?
 
ChickenBall said:
By the way chessrock, I just read your glowing review on the new Safesound P1, why couldn't you have just recommended I try one of those out?
Click to expand...

Because I don't know if it's what you're looking for or if it will fit your needs. You didn't say you were looking for a compressor and/or limiter to go with it. You see, if someone just asks for a mic pre, it might be overkill for me to recommend an entire channel strip. :D If you are looking for that, and that's part of your criteria, then by all means -- I don't think there's a better option availabe even close to that price range.

If you ask more specific questions, you'll often get more specific answers. Like it might help some of us if we knew what kind of music your're doing . . . if there's any specific sound you're shooting for (like what are your favorite bands, and what kind of sound quality are you striving for?)

You did say you're doing guitar and voice. Is that guitar as in Steve Vai, Slayer, or Sharon Isbin? :D Is that voice as in Chris Cornell, Christopher Cross or Kriss-Kross? :D
 
First off, thanks for your patience with me, I appreciate it!

I am looking for a 1 or 2 channel mic pre, not a channel strip.

The guitar tones I record with are comparable to early Metallica,
- Kill Em' All era. Now Metallica is not the type of music I am recording, but that's probably the closest comparison I can give as to what's coming out of my amp. So we'll just say hard rock as a style of music.

As for my voice, well that probably also sounds like the chainsaw buzz coming from the guitars on Kill Em' All. In all honesty, I've never compared my vocals to anyone else. I can just say that they are less than stellar. I am listening to a song I've recorded right now, trying to think of a comparison, but nothing comes to mind. My voice does lean towards the lower/bassy side of the sound spectrum. Hope that helps you help me!

Once again, thank you.
 
Sounds like you're just trying to rock out. :D That at least narrows things down a bit. You might get in to something that you can overdrive a little for some added grit / girth. For that, I'd be looking at some of the Neve clones out there like the Great River MP1-NV. I also recently got a chance to attend a mic pre shootout where I was really impressed with the Old School Audio API knockoffs -- particularly the Vintage style ones. ( www.oldschoolaudio.com ) Those basically just rocked balls, so if you're in to that kind of thing and have a grand burning a hole in your pocket, that's kind of where I would start looking.
 
Ive had OSA pres and I have to say they sound distnctly bad on vox. Great in guitars, beautiful on drums, very fine on bass but awful on vox. Theres this midrange hardness to all their pres thats extremely nonmusical and that doesnt go away with EQ. This was with otherwise scooped LDC's. If I can generalize I would say they do well with dynamics on instruments. Depending on your goals as far as tone emphasis, I would go with the great river, sytek or an RNP. If you have a dark voice, the NTK will brighten it and the RNP will further bring out the upper mids and top with a slight scoop for smoothness. The GR is more even throughout the spectrum, big sounding and tight. It smooths out the NTKs upper mid and 4-6k? peak. The sytek is the most neutral of the 3 but the NTK is colored enough. It is noticably smoother, as in more even than the RNP above 2k, not as flattering but more flexible.
 
here is a NTK and a Sytek BB channel...guitars and vox on the sytek..guitars on the clean channels and the vox on the BB channels...

Not mixed or Mastered...

 
Thank you for the replies. The Great River pre always seems to be recommended or mentioned for affordable, low budget studios.
This will definately be at the top of my list when I get out shopping.

Thanks again!
 
I got a GR mp-2nv a few weeks ago and it is amazing. Goes from clear to growling just by cranking the input and pulling back on the output. Check one out, they're well well well worth your money.

Also great on bass DI!
 
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