SP C1 mic or VTB-1?

[cusebassman]

If you buy from a reputable site, you should be fine. I bought my DMP-3 from musiciansfriend.com, and it came perfectly fine. Sure, I'm in the states so it wasn't shipped internationally, but there wouldn't be much international shipping if it was so untrustworthy

 

[lppier]

No luck finding an online dealer that will ship internationally.. seems that there is some restriction on certain products.

 

[cusebassman]

Huh.

There's always ebay, I suppose. You could also post an ad in the free ads forum requesting that someone here buy one, have it shipped to their place for free, and then ship it internationally to you

What's sad is, it would still probably be a decent chunk of change cheaper than what it costs there

 

[lppier]

Ok. Most of my tracks are acoustic + simple soft percussion and I have a high , somewhat thin voice. Would you still recommend the DMP-3 for my style?
I read from a review that the VTB-1 smoothens the high-end of a mic. Does the DMP-3 do that too? Sorry I am pretty noob to preamps... don't want to buy the wrong thing.
The VTB-1 is also much more accessible to me at this point. Don't feel comfortable ordering from e-bay.

 

[jonnyc]

Ok. Most of my tracks are acoustic + simple soft percussion and I have a high , somewhat thin voice. Would you still recommend the DMP-3 for my style?
I read from a review that the VTB-1 smoothens the high-end of a mic. Does the DMP-3 do that too? Sorry I am pretty noob to preamps... don't want to buy the wrong thing.
The VTB-1 is also much more accessible to me at this point. Don't feel comfortable ordering from e-bay.

The dmp3 is a very nice preamp for the money. It's very clean and natural sounding, has a very good amount of headroom and I imagine it'd work very well with your mic. I doubt the vtb1 would "smoothen out" anymore than the dmp3 would. Here's a sample of the dmp3 in action. The drum overheads, acoustic guitar and keyboard were all used with the dmp3, all in stereo. www.jscstudios.com go to the sample section and check out the acoustic song by eric and maurice.

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

If you're not spending much on a preamp then you shouldn't be expecting it to do anything special, you just want it to boost the signal of your mic cleanly and with no fuss. The DMP-3 does an excellent job.

 

[lppier]

The recording sounds great, I'm sold. Obviously the playing has a lot to do with it as well

 

[dickiefunk]

Happy Recording!!

 

[Robert D]

The recording sounds great, I'm sold. Obviously the playing has a lot to do with it as well

As does the room, the converters, etc. But this is an excellent example of how that little unasuming preamp does one thing and does it very well, delivering clean unadulterated gain and otherwise staying out of the way (ie, no "smoothing out" or other coloration). Mine gets a lot of use, mostly on acoustic sources, and for that app I have absolutely no desire for an upgrade. I do have other more expensive preamps for other applications, but when I want to keep it real, the DMP3 is a no compromise workhorse, and quiet as a churchmouse.
Thanks for posting the clip Johnny. The problem with most clips of budget pres is that they are compromised by source, room, and other deficiancies so that you don't know what the preamp's contribution (good or bad) really is.

 

[lppier]

I really like the fidelity of that recording, especially the drums. They sound great.