Alden_Sloe
New member
I bought the Fostex MR16HD to "break in" to home recording. From what I'd read I didn't expect the preamps to be terrific and figured on adding better units after gaining a little more experience. Initial use of the recorder has been primarily with vocals and with the MXL603 and the Naiant MSH-1 mics the the gain is sufficient (~2/3rds of max). With the MXL2001 the gain needs to be turned up a little more and with a cheapo dynamic mic the gain is somewhere between all the way up and not enough 
I know that with most home stereo amplifiers, the exception being really expensive units, the distortion starts to become increasingly severe the farther it's turned up. I'm wondering if this is true in general for preamps, only with cheaper preamps or not at all with preamps?
This is where I'm going with that question. A Roland MMP-2 showed up on the local Craigslist for a good price. These get pretty good reviews as far as the preamps go plus they have a bunch of effects/features that made it seem well worth the cost if only for the learning experience. First thing I learned is that turning the preamp gain on the Fostex all the way CCW appears to bypass the recorders preamp and work as a straight through or "insert" type connection. This makes sense as I think that position is labled "line" but I wasn't sure until I tried it. The next thing I learned is that the Roland preamps needed pretty much the same amount of gain dialed in to get the same signal levels as the Fostex. I don't have enough experience yet to say if the quality of the sound is better or not.
So, working on the assumption that the distortion and the fact that control over the levels (i.e the sensitivity of the knobs to the relative gain) becomes increasingly worse as the gain approaches 100%, does it make sense to use say 50% gain on the external preamp and then dial up the remaining gain to the correct level with the built in preamp on the recorder? Or is this a MAJOR No No ??
I know that with most home stereo amplifiers, the exception being really expensive units, the distortion starts to become increasingly severe the farther it's turned up. I'm wondering if this is true in general for preamps, only with cheaper preamps or not at all with preamps?
This is where I'm going with that question. A Roland MMP-2 showed up on the local Craigslist for a good price. These get pretty good reviews as far as the preamps go plus they have a bunch of effects/features that made it seem well worth the cost if only for the learning experience. First thing I learned is that turning the preamp gain on the Fostex all the way CCW appears to bypass the recorders preamp and work as a straight through or "insert" type connection. This makes sense as I think that position is labled "line" but I wasn't sure until I tried it. The next thing I learned is that the Roland preamps needed pretty much the same amount of gain dialed in to get the same signal levels as the Fostex. I don't have enough experience yet to say if the quality of the sound is better or not.
So, working on the assumption that the distortion and the fact that control over the levels (i.e the sensitivity of the knobs to the relative gain) becomes increasingly worse as the gain approaches 100%, does it make sense to use say 50% gain on the external preamp and then dial up the remaining gain to the correct level with the built in preamp on the recorder? Or is this a MAJOR No No ??
