PreSonus/AKG deal at Guitar Center

  • Thread starter Thread starter cephus
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cephus

cephus

Slow Children Playing
Package deal AKG Perception 100 and TubePre for 150

I am experimenting with some computer-based recording for demos and goofing around and have $150 burning a hole in my pocket. I have no preamp and have been recording with the band's stage mics (shure 57/58).

Is this package deal worth buying purely for the purpose of getting your foot in the door for home recording? I am looking for something that gets a better vocal sound than the shure mics. I have no intention at this point to outfit a complete home studio, but I'd like to get vocals sounding as good as the guitar and other instruments record with the 57.

A very poor friend of mine who does voice-over stuff has this preamp which he got in some other package deal and he said it made a big difference for him. I don't think his microphone is this good, but he was able to illustrate to me the difference between recordings he did with an old crap dynamic mic and his condensor with this preamp.

I am just looking to dip my foot in the pool and maybe establish first hand knowledge and preferences. Would this be wasting my money? Is this preamp especially noisey or the mic prone to damage or something?
 
What about one of these mics? WOuld it be better to get something like this and a better preamp (still getting it in under $150).

MXL 990
 
If you use the pre the right way it works,
You have to set the gain and drive to the same settings.
I have 2 of them and they get some use.

The PreSonus tube pres dont get a lot of love on this site but they can work.

Also check out the MAudio DMP3 pre. It runs around $150 just for the pre.
 
If you already have 57s or 58s you'd probably be better off just getting a two-channel preamp (like the aforementioned DMP3), as I doubt that AKG mic is any major step up from your Shures, and having two channels is always better than one.
 
I think that any condenser mic will be a big improvement from a sm57 or 58.
 
timboZ said:
I think that any condenser mic will be a big improvement from a sm57 or 58.
Click to expand...

Any condenser? No not nessisarily. Though I am no lover of the SM-57 by any strech of the imagination, (I have not owned one to date) I do believe there are far worse mics that you can buy. No I haven't tried the AKG Perception 100, (haven't heard of it either) but there are pleanty of condensors out there that could quite possibly sound worse than a 57. The majority will make an improvement on vocals but you really need to try the mic to know.
 
After a couple hours of googling it looks like $150 is a pretty good deal for the package. The 990 "looks" more like a real recording studio mic, and I have seen a couple people say they don't suck, but the cheapest you can buy that preamp and mic seperately is considerably more than $150.

I guess the gamble is buying the un-reviewed mic. I can use the pre-amp for something around here. What the hell. Happy birthday to me.
 
I was at GC yesterday, looking closely at the AKG perception 200, and inside the top grill I see the capsule that looks so similar to that used in many Chinese made LD condensor mics out there. Made me wonder if that particular capsule is standard in China.
 
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