Should I upgrade my preamps?

[Rickson Gracie]

I have a groove tube gt55 and an MBox. I know the Mbox has the focusrite preamps that are considered pretty good but will it really improve my recordings if i upgraded my preamps? i was looking at that blue robbie at guitar center. would it be better if i upgraded my microphone instead? i thought about getting a blue baby bottle mic because i head good things about them.


thanks

 

[chessrock]

You can always upgrade just about anything. Is there better stuff than what you have? Yes. Should you upgrade? Depends. . . on how serious you are about recording, how happy / unhappy you are with what you currently have . . . and how complex your recording needs are at this time.

Upgrading for the simple sake of upgrading isn't necessarily going to do anything for you other than feed your gear habbit. Which could also be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

 

[Hard2Hear]

The M-Box pre amps are pretty decent. You need to be looking at mics. Get a baby bottle and plug it in and you'll see how much better your pre amps seem to be.

H2H

 

[Rickson Gracie]

well, i really would like to attempt to make a pro recording in my house. i know its difficult and i know pro engineers have amazing skills that will be hard to replicate but i will try damnit!! if the preamps are in my way of doing this then i would like to upgrade.

will i really hear a jump in quality if i upgrade to a baby bottle mic rather than get a new preamp? i also use the sennheiser e609 for my mesa/boogie. Two MXL 603s's for the taylor acoustic and a groove tube gt55 for general vocals and stuff. so the baby bottle will just be for vocals i guess.

im using a p4 laptop thats a couple of years old. mayabe i should i upgrade that? the laptop seems to be working well though. no crashes.

thanks guys for your help. this is a great forum.

 

[Rickson Gracie]

oh yeah...and i have wharfedale 8.1 daimond pro monitors for mixing. they seem to do the trick.

 

[chessrock]

if the preamps are in my way of doing this then i would like to upgrade.

They may and they may not. There's just so much more to this than just worrying about your mic pres. There's monitors (Wharfedales may or may not be the envy of the audio community). . . room design and treatment . . . the list goes on.

will i really hear a jump in quality if i upgrade to a baby bottle mic rather than get a new preamp?

If the Baby Bottle is a better fit for your voice, then it probably will be. If it's not, and it turns out your voice sounds better on the GT, then you've downgraded. Whether or not your mic is an "uprade" is relative to how it reacts to your voice.

im using a p4 laptop thats a couple of years old. mayabe i should i upgrade that? the laptop seems to be working well though. no crashes.

I actually don't like the sound of a P-4 laptop, particularly on vocals. And I don't think they work very well with Blue microphones.

I'm just razzin' ya.

Honestly, though . . . and I'm just trying to help you out here . . . but it just seems like you're focusing a lot right now on gear, which is fun. It's a fun thing to get hooked on. But there's just so much more you should be focusing on right now if your goal is to get that ever-elusive "pro-recording at home." If you can't already get that (or at least get close to that) with what you've already got, then you need to keep working at it until you do. It's kind of like saying: "I'd like to play Guitar like ____ (insert name of Guitar hero) . . . what kind of guitar should I get?"

A wise step would be to upgrade your monitoring setup . . . and address the accoustical side of your monitoring. Then learn about accoustics on the tracking side of things and improve those. Become an expert on accoustics and train your ear. Then you might have an outside shot at getting those "pro" recordings you want. Or you could just spend your money on stuff that's fun to buy. Nothing wrong with that -- not that it will get you any closer to your goal, but it is fun.