presonus tubepre on acoustic or piano?

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Kasey

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I'm doing a recording today of nylon string guitar and piano, and it has to be simultaneous. I have one presonus tubepre preamp, which instrument do you think it would be better suited for? (the mic for both instruments is the same - an audio technica pro37, a fairly bright small diaphragm condenser.)
 
I'd say the nylon. The best way to get a good sound out of the TubePre is to split the gain between the gain and tube drive knobs. So use the tube drive knob first to get most of the gain and then finish it off with the gain knob. Don't go too far past 12 o'clock on either knob.
 
Good call...use as little of the "TOOB" drive as possible but, if you rely upon the "Gain" control too much, you'll get a lot more of the inherent noise of the mic pre.

What mic's are your going to use? If they're nice-n-hot, you'll be able to keep the gain of the pre down. Close micing will help too.
 
punkin said:
Good call...use as little of the "TOOB" drive as possible but, if you rely upon the "Gain" control too much, you'll get a lot more of the inherent noise of the mic pre.
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Actually, this is what I found a little different about the TubePre. Using the tube drive for most of the gain actually got the best sound. It's not a highly colored unit at all, the tube drive is very clean. Splitting the gain about 60/40 or so with the tube drive being the 60 seemed to work the best.
 
I wouldn't put one of those Presonus tube thingies anywhere near an accoustic or a piano.

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chessrock said:
I wouldn't put one of those Presonus tube thingies anywhere near an accoustic or a piano.

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well its either that or the preamps in my yamaha mg mixer. I could be wrong, i dont know, but i figured the tubepre would beat those.
 
Oops...now there's a new bit of info...didn't realize you had something more to work with. I'm not familiar with the yammy pre's but cleaner is better in my book for acoustic stringed instruments. You can always add a little of that tube flavor later. Once you've run the signal through a coloured device, there's no going back.

What's your plan for mics?
 
chessrock said:
I wouldn't put one of those Presonus tube thingies anywhere near an accoustic or a piano.

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Click to expand...

I "feel ya" but it seems that this is what he's got to work with. I was just thinking of keeping my response within those boundaries. ;) Better gear would be a route worth considering.
 
I'd use the pres on the MG mixer for anything accoustic. I would imagine they might not be what most would consider "high end" or anything. But I would think they'd be a heck of a lot quieter, and more appropriate for the situation. On the other hand, I could see maybe using the Presonus on an Electric guitar ... maybe snare.

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Kasey said:
well its either that or the preamps in my yamaha mg mixer. I could be wrong, i dont know, but i figured the tubepre would beat those.
Click to expand...

You need to try both of them out and decide based on what you hear. There's really no other way to find out which will be better for what.

While the TubePre is certainly not a high end preamp, it can be very quiet if you are careful with the settings. If you just jack up the gain knob and don't split the gain between the tube and the solid state, then it will be hissy at higher settings. But by splitting the gain it stays quiet and sounds quite decent for a cheap preamp. It would not surprise me at all if the TubePre sounds better than the MG preamps.
 
chessrock said:
I'd use the pres on the MG mixer for anything accoustic. I would imagine they might not be what most would consider "high end" or anything. But I would think they'd be a heck of a lot quieter, and more appropriate for the situation. On the other hand, I could see maybe using the Presonus on an Electric guitar ... maybe snare.

.
Click to expand...

what he said
 
Yeah, I would use the MG pre's on the piano and acoustic. On a side note, I think that the TubePre does pretty well as a Bass DI.
 
The tubepre...

Sounds fantastic on an acoustic guitar. Lending one of mine out has sold two of these units to two acoustic guitarists. Granted, I have very nice tubes in them.

I actually go with about 10:00 on the tube drive and 8-9 on the gain...nothing much more as the gain structure on these units is pretty huge.

You'll get a nice, fat, evenly overtoned signal to your board.

Enjoy,
Jay
 
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