Preamps. What mic preamps are you using? Discuss them.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scott Baxendale
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TalismanRich said:
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That was nice.


As far as gear. It’s all tools, how one uses those tools determines the result. Give a master craftsman average tools and they’ll make a work of art for you.

Give a mediocre craftsman the best tools available and you’ll get a mediocre piece of work.

Not saying good tools don’t have their place, just saying the operator has more control over the outcome than the tool.
 
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TalismanRich said:
Scott, I hate say this, but the second two have so much distortion that I don't know if I'm listening to the preamps or what/how you were recording. Vocals sound distorted, guitars are heavily distorted, drums sound distorted. This is exactly the sound that I DON'T want in my recordings.

Of the three recordings, the 2nd one is probably my favorite, simply because it is the most natural sounding.

This is an example of what I try to get, especially with acoustic guitar/vocal stuff. It was all done with a Tascam 16x08, a Rode NT1 for vocals and M5s for the guitar. Guitar was my Taylor 310ce and I did all the vocals. Recording and mixing in Reaper.

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I do use quite a bit of distortion during mixing of a rock tune. I am not usually going for pristine in my mixes when I’m doing rock, blues or Americana. If I am trying to make a rock record I’ll spend time making things more distorted rather than less.

These might not be the best examples for you. These might be better for you?



 
……Or this one, which is just two acoustic instruments through vintage RCA preamps.

 
I see what you mean Rich (noice, BTW!)

Ha! Ha! You don't do an A/B test of two pieces of equipment with DIFFERENT sources and you don't TELL us what is going through which!

I am not in any way critical of high end pre amps such as the Camden 500 Ujn is getting. The built quality and facilities make such gear worth every penny. Gear made for such a niche market is always going to be expensive.
But the fact is the actual amount of electronics it takes to make a mic pre amp that works very close to physical limits, i.e. noise close to -130dBu is simple, small and cheap. $5.00 tops. Yes, you then have to put it in a case, add controls and a quiet power supply but it is these bits that tend to cost the money.

Dave.
 
I get the $5 preamp thing, and that always makes me think of the tiny Rane MS1b and the Steely Dan engineer who used them on albums... its like a chip and few parts in a little metal box. Today a booster can do the same thing cheaper and better built.

Having the gain, headroom and all that is really a luxury in some ways to own outboard. Preference afforded.
I went through 2yrs of preamp holy grail seeking with my paypal sponsored (with interest) and found nothing really.
Ok what I found was EQ and opto compressors sound great, and noise gates help a messy room.
But money aside and gear as a tool, sound aside and functionality as a machine....something like the ISA One is awesome as its a Swiss Pocket knife, huge gain without effort, impedance selections, a free DI, and I/O send/return and the big huge VU meters one of the largest VU meters in the business.

Can I match my mic+joemeekvc1qoptomeekqdesser sound with my interface preamp and a bunch of free plugins...yes...do I want to? not really. not always. sometimes you want some strange.

I assume most those who record bands want to bring it in clean and go FX on it later and having recall is a no brainier why even pro's are dumping consoles for ITB and then some go back after they get Mouse-itis...but that's not my business.
 
Scott those later examples are a lot better.
The first 4, I agree the # 2 was the best.

but what does it all mean, is that you could get equal product with mixing board pre's, and it doesn't have to be SSl4k....which probably also used $5 preamp chips and side parts.

That session musician guitarist who did the intro to Jackson Five, Last Train to Monkee-ville and Boster Skaggs was funny in when asked about the big change from his Fender Bass man to the Princeton Reverb wasn't a holy grail thing, he said the Bassman had four speakers and was too heavy to carry around as his work picked up after being in the Monkee's hit # 1....he was carrying his amp and simply wanted something lighter. lol
 
CoolCat said:
I get the $5 preamp thing, and that always makes me think of the tiny Rane MS1b and the Steely Dan engineer who used them on albums... its like a chip and few parts in a little metal box. Today a booster can do the same thing cheaper and better built.

Having the gain, headroom and all that is really a luxury in some ways to own outboard. Preference afforded.
I went through 2yrs of preamp holy grail seeking with my paypal sponsored (with interest) and found nothing really.
Ok what I found was EQ and opto compressors sound great, and noise gates help a messy room.
But money aside and gear as a tool, sound aside and functionality as a machine....something like the ISA One is awesome as its a Swiss Pocket knife, huge gain without effort, impedance selections, a free DI, and I/O send/return and the big huge VU meters one of the largest VU meters in the business.

Can I match my mic+joemeekvc1qoptomeekqdesser sound with my interface preamp and a bunch of free plugins...yes...do I want to? not really. not always. sometimes you want some strange.

I assume most those who record bands want to bring it in clean and go FX on it later and having recall is a no brainier why even pro's are dumping consoles for ITB and then some go back after they get Mouse-itis...but that's not my business.
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Plugging a drum kit through a api console just makes recording them so easy. No fuss, no muss. Slamming drums from the get go.
 
I really liked my tascam interface and recorded with it for year. I replaced it with a presonus, and then replaced that with Behringer 1820. The difference was simply the 1820 has less noise on higher gains. However, as i never throw things away, the presonus is now in the video studio and the tascam in the office. The office has a noisier environment and 5” speakers and I was interested in this, so got a measurement mic out to see what i was actually recording. The upshot was revealing a fault in the Tascam. Very narrow spikes in the frequency response and some narrow troughs. I had to try other recorders and mics to convince myself it was the interface. Ive been using it for years and my ears never noticed the fault. If i missed this, then clearly my ears and brain are not competent to make decisions on the clever preamps. My thoughts are that they have a tone and add nice distortion. Not one claims to be pure and have no distortion I note. What they are selling is nice sounding distortion. So, they are actually a processor or effect device. I have no need for this at all. Why has nobody ever designed a microphone that distorts? Put the distortion into the mic and use a clean preamp? We have mic modelling microphones now, so why jot a preamp modelling mic? The people who want minimal equipment could buy the mic, slap it into their computer and record without all the faffing about.
 
"The difference was simply the 1820 has less noise on higher gains."
This ^ supports my point Rob. When I got my Behringer BCA2000 I was astonished at how good the mic pres were in terms of gain, low noise and, AFAICT transparency. A few years later I had to repair one of the pre amps, an SMT IC had failed* I cobbled in an NE5543 on a wee adapter PCB. Fixed it and the exercise showed me the simplicity of the pre amps. Two 'chip' SMT transistors and an op amp. I suspect the pres on that 1820 are just a slight development of that earlier but excellent circuit.

*A very clever and versatile interface. Never been bettered IMHO at anything like the price but flawed by constant unreliability and crap drivers.

Dave.
 
TalismanRich said:
Scott, I hate say this, but the second two have so much distortion that I don't know if I'm listening to the preamps or what/how you were recording. Vocals sound distorted, guitars are heavily distorted, drums sound distorted. This is exactly the sound that I DON'T want in my recordings.

Of the three recordings, the 2nd one is probably my favorite, simply because it is the most natural sounding.

This is an example of what I try to get, especially with acoustic guitar/vocal stuff. It was all done with a Tascam 16x08, a Rode NT1 for vocals and M5s for the guitar. Guitar was my Taylor 310ce and I did all the vocals. Recording and mixing in Reaper.

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I really like the song Rich. How are you recording the guitar? I assume stereo pair, if so, what is the mic placement? I have the same mics (M5s and NT1) and I haven't tried a stereo pair yet.
 
Thanks RD.

That was a simple setup, 2 M5s set up to hit around the 12th fret and another aimed roughly at the pick guard. I usually set the mics up about a foot from the guitar, and blend to get what sounds most natural to me. The guitar is a Taylor 310ce with light gauge Elixers. I had finger squeaks.
 
Scott Baxendale said:
View attachment 139771View attachment 139774I’m a sucker for API gear, especially their mic preamps. I lived in the tascam world for years but when I first got a API 3124 rack unit I never looked back.
I have some other pres, such as a LA610 MK2, Tab Funkenwerks V78, and some vintage RCA pres, but I always come back to the API’s
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So API love.....have you done the API 312 v 512 vs WA12 vs BLA12 vs <enter other 312 designs> ?
 
CoolCat said:
So API love.....have you done the API 312 v 512 vs WA12 vs BLA12 vs <enter other 312 designs> ?
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My first api unit was a 3124. I couldn’t tell any difference between those and the 512c preamps. It’s all the same op amps.

Once I went api I could never use Tascam again.
 
Track Rat said:
I suppose what I hear in 1073's is the transformers.
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I would suppose not unless the input signal is getting close to -10dBu? The other reason could be that the transformers are very wee and cheap as ***t! I very much doubt that in a Neve.

I believe it is mostly the "Emperor's New Clothes" effect.

Dave.
 
ecc83 said:
Show me.

Dave.
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This track was recorded through the cheap pro-sumer preamps, and each track was manipulated to the nth degree to fatten it up. There are even some drum replacement samples added in this mix. Lots of midrange buildup.


This track was recorded through professional high end discreet preamps, Neve and API.



You can hear the difference, especially in the drums. These drums were tracked and then mixed with little to no further processing.

It’s basically the headroom that makes these professional preamps essential to good recordings.
 
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