preamp into a preamp trouble?

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jula

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i have a outboard preamp and a audio interface with preamp.

how can i track with the external preamp without suffer audio coloration from the interface preamp?

if i turn down all the interface preamp gain, this preamp won´t affect to the outboard preamp sound?

i´m not sure if you can understand my question...but i`ll wait 4 your answers!

cheers.:drunk:
 
You should come out of the outboard pre as line level then go into you interface as line level. Then you should be all set.



:cool:
 
moresound said:
You should come out of the outboard pre as line level then go into you interface as line level. Then you should be all set.



:cool:
Click to expand...

Yes but most interface preamps do not actually bypass the preamp completely just because you have the gain set at "line" or minimum. You would need an actual Line In that doesn't include a gain knob.

A lot of interfaces with 4-8 inputs will have 2 mic pres and then 2-6 true line inputs. But most of the 2 input interfaces will have pres on both inputs so you are out of luck.
 
jula said:
i have a outboard preamp and a audio interface with preamp.

how can i track with the external preamp without suffer audio coloration from the interface preamp?

if i turn down all the interface preamp gain, this preamp won´t affect to the outboard preamp sound?

i´m not sure if you can understand my question...but i`ll wait 4 your answers!

cheers.:drunk:
Click to expand...

What preamp and interface is it?

If there's an adjustable gain for the line input, then you need to find where unity gain is. Then, by correct gain staging processes, you should be gaining into your pre-amp until there's a healthy level in there, and then adjusting the output of the pre until the signal is healthy in your DAW
 
I have the saffire pro 40 as well.
That's how I run my external preamps.
The focusrite pres aren't particularly colorful.
So as long as you aren't providing any gain from the focusrite pre, I don't see it affecting the sound in any huge way.
I haven't heard my external pres through anything but the Focusrite's combo jacks, so I can't tell you whether or not they are definitely coloring the sound in any meaningful way.

But I can definitely hear the difference between the focusrite's preamps and my others, so the others are definitely useful for getting different sounds.

As far as I know, the gain knobs on the focusrite are at unity gain when they are turned all the way down. So just leave them there and set your level using the output knob on the VTB-1.

And remember that the first two inputs on the Focusrite (the two on the front) have switchable pads, so if you find that you are liking the sound you are getting from some certain combination of input and output gain on the VTB-1, but it's occasionally clipping or coming close to clipping the input on the Focusrite, you can engage that pad. This may end up changing the recorded sound ever so slightly, but it's a pretty neutral sounding volume attenuator in my experience.

Hope that helps.
 
I have the pro 40 as well, but I found that I don't get enough gain out of just my outboard preamps. I am using a warm wa12 that has 71 db of gain, so that shouldn't be a problem. So something isnt right, any suggestions.
 
You should have little trouble getting adequate gain with 71dB gain. What are you recording, and with which microphone?

Are your inputs peaking at up to -12dB FS, or are you gauging by what you hear?

Check that you don't have a pad engaged on either the Wa12 or on the Pro 40 since that would lose you 9dB on the Pro 40 and 20dB on the Wa12.

When you track, make sure that channel faders left at 0dB.
 
Yeah, I hadn't been on here in a while to answer. I did find out a few things about the focusrite, unity gain is at 3.5 for the op. Go up to 3.5 on the Focusrite, and I think my problem was in the cables I was using. I was using ts instead of trs. Which caused a lot of problems, stupid little things you aren't paying attention to such as balanced and unbalanced cables make a world of difference.
 
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