pre-amp from mixer and soundcard?

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catsontracks

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I was wondering, if your soundcard has a pre-amp on every input channel(8) and you're recording some vocals through your mixingboard, using the (better) pre-amps. You end up using 2 pre-amps per channel. A good one and a less good one. In what way does it affect your sound? Can you disable the pre's on such card?

Groetjes,

Peter
 
Which type of soundcard are we talking about here?
It all depends on the card itself built-in if pre's can be disabled.

In general you would want a quality outboard pre that plugs into a line level input on your soundcard.

(typo's)
 
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prams

I'm concerned about this too: I've recently started thinking about buying a new soundcard and they all seem to have preamps in. If I want to use my mixer, there'll be two preamps in the signal chain! That can't be good!

I haven't read anything about the preamps in soundcards being swithcable.

matt
 
hmmm which soundcards are you talking about? It's quite normal that an 8 input soundcard has maybe 2 preamps (for excample on channels 1&2, but I know only few cards which have preamps on every channel. Check out the cards more carefully for example delta 1010. www.midiman.com

riku
 
Yes, but

It's true, some cards only have a couple, but the whole point of having 8 inputs is to use 8 inputs! If I'm recording 8 drum tracks, I don't want all of them going through 1 preamp except 2 which go through 2 preamps, it'll colour the sound.

The delta1010 doesn't have preamps, but it's not exactly the most budget concious of the multi io soundcards
 
Cakey2 name the card your thinking about? I'll check it out. I think most of those cards which have preamps in two channels have the linein in those channels too.

Riku

by the way check out the thread forum about the aardvark pres which is just now on this forum...
 
Ah

In that case I will swallow my words.

I'm thinking vaguely of the hoontech one and the terratec E3WGT thingy.
 
Wow..... first question on this board for me and I think its an interesting one.
I'm planning to buy the Hoontech/ST audio SystemIII package, problem is (or not) it has pre-amps on all analog inputs but I want to use my Mackie pre's.

Groeten,
Cats on Tracks studio
 
about the Hoontech I figured out you were talking about the c-port? http://www.staudio.com/products/staudio.html

http://www.staudio.com/cwb-data/data/ridi/STA_DSP2000.JPG

It has

2 x balanced (XLR) inputs with built in pre-amps (-24dB to +50dB) & switchable phantom power (48V)

and

8 x 1/4" unbalanced inputs

I'm not 100% sure but I think the micpres are only on those xlr ins and if you use the 1/4 ins they're are bypassed??? Someone else could comment this too.

Riku

I'll check the tErratec too
 
No, its not the C-port, that one has only 2 pre's. The system lll (with the DAC and ADC 3000) has 8.
 
I couldn't find the Terratec card you were refering to on their webpages are you sure about the model E3WGT?

sorry

Riku

Catson...

Why do you want to buy that card if you don't want the preamps? I think they have other models that don't have those.
Like the c-port for example... and the ADCIII has these...4 1/4" TRS stereo inputs (-10dBv). which I think are line inputs....???
Someone else could confirm this.
 
I'm pretty sure that all these cards only have the preamps when you use the XLR (i.e. Mic) input. You'll want to go
MIC (XLR)->Outboard Preamp input (XLR)->Soundcard Line in (1/4 TS or TSR) I use the Delta 44 which has 4 line inputs (1/4" balanced). Good luck!
 
I have the C-Port, and unfortunately the preamps are active in both the XLR and 1/4" inputs. I have yet to do a serious recording with all 8 at once (except for testing them all to make sure they all work at once).

I've been avoiding the pre-amp'd channels 1&2 and recording with 3-8 via my mixer's channel inserts. I'm hoping that if I leave the "gain" knobs down and send it a line level signal like the rest, that they won't noticibly color the sound.

I haven't found any way to disable the preamps on the card - and the preamps do suck - I'd be better off with Behringer pre's :)

Good question though, catsontracks.
 
Seanmorse79 said:
I have the C-Port, and unfortunately the preamps are active in both the XLR and 1/4" inputs. I have yet to do a serious recording with all 8 at once (except for testing them all to make sure they all work at once).
Click to expand...

That sucks man...

Thanks for correcting that.

Riku
 
The reason why I want the dsp24systemlll instead of the C-port is that the dsp24systemlll has better AD/DA converters onboard. They have XLR on all in- and outputs. Well........and it looks nice.

But unfortunatly no one could give me a good answer yet about using the pre's or better said, not using the pre's because I want to using other pre-amps.
 
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