The preamp mystery

[miwrigh]

I've recently begun using protools after years of playing live, which has introduced me to the amazingly diverse world of preamps for mics. This may be a newbie item, so apologies if I'm farther behind than I thought. Three quick questions.

1. Are they worth the money? And why do they range from $30 to $3,000?
2. Does the 80% rule apply? (80% more money for 20% more product)
3. Are the mic preamps that come built-in to some mixers worth anything?

 

[Chibi Nappa]

1. Are they worth the money?

In the sense that you absolutely cannot use a mic without one, yes.

And why do they range from $30 to $3,000?

Parts, labor, production numbers, rarity...

2. Does the 80% rule apply? (80% more money for 20% more product)

In most cases, yes.

3. Are the mic preamps that come built-in to some mixers worth anything?

In most cases, yes. Again.

If you buy any interface at all, you are good to go with its built-in preamps for quite a while. More/different/expensive/colorful preamps are best held off until you have razor sharp ninja ears and know how to wring every last bit out of an arrangement. You really, really have to know what you are listening for to benefit from a pre-amp upgrade. Don't expect to plug a mic into a $2000 box and have it instantly sound better. You have to know what is there and play to it's strengths. That takes years of experience.

 

[bozmillar]

Agreed. Although, I'd call preamps more of a 95% rule (95% more expenseive with a 5% increase [or possibly decrease] in quality). If I were you, I wouldn't fret about it for now. If your recordings don't come out the way you are expecting them to, it's probably not because of the preamps.

 

[dintymoore]

1. Are they worth the money? And why do they range from $30 to $3,000?

Because they "magnify" the sound. If you think of a magnifying glass and the price difference between a $2 Kmart one and an electron microscope that's pretty much it. When you get into high end, sometimes the differences can seem subtle, but when you're in music zone, in a song, they can seem not so subtle.

2. Does the 80% rule apply? (80% more money for 20% more product)

I'm not sure. I have a $150 mic pre and a $2500 one, and I'd say each was worth more than I paid for them. Neither was a rip.

3. Are the mic preamps that come built-in to some mixers worth anything?[/QUOTE]

For sure. Mixers vary in price about the same as magnifying glasses, from maybe $40 to several million. Some cheap pre's are usable.

My main advice is generally: get your mic happening and then think mic pre. If you don't already love your mic, you probably won't love it through a better pre, 'cause it just gives you more detail (like a magnifying glass).

 

[Zeppe]

1. This depends on what your recording. The more expensive pre-amps have a certain sound to them and people will pay good money to get a specific sound. Most solid state pre-amps currently manufactured for a budget application are pretty transparent. Quality tube pre-amps can add 'warmth' to a recording but a cheap tube pre-amp will just add crap. I would argue that the microphone used is much more important than the pre-amp. The pre-amp is important because it is the first link in the signal chain, but sometimes I think its over hyped as the fix all piece of gear.

2. I don't think it can really be broken down that way.

3. Pre-amps that are built into a mixer can be the same quality as a stand alone pre. Some will argue that pre-amps in a mixer will add more noise because the signal has to run through a entire channel strip. But, many decent mixers come with a direct output that bypasses all those noisy electronics and acts as a stand alone pre-amp would.

IMHO Studio equipment importance.

1. Acoustics
2. Mic
3. Pre-amp
4. Monitors

 

[mshilarious]

I dunno. Optics are very very simple to measure. Nobody argues about which lens is sharper, they spend three seconds on a couple of tests and they have their answer.

Preamps are like that too, but nobody wants to believe it.

In photography, it behooves one to get the sharpest lens possible given the other constraints (speed, size, weight, cost, etc.). If you decide you need a less sharp image, you use a filter (or digital processing).

Preamps are like that too, but nobody wants to believe it.

 

[dintymoore]

I dunno. Optics are very very simple to measure. Nobody argues about which lens is sharper, they spend three seconds on a couple of tests and they have their answer.

Preamps are like that too, but nobody wants to believe it.

In photography, it behooves one to get the sharpest lens possible given the other constraints (speed, size, weight, cost, etc.). If you decide you need a less sharp image, you use a filter (or digital processing).

Preamps are like that too, but nobody wants to believe it.

Maybe it's because we are visually more "with it", in this society, than aurally. Anybody can see if a photo is realistic or fuzzy, but in music that "fuzzy" can actually be more musical than if it were clear, and since it for sure is cheaper, people accept it as ok.

Just guessing.

 

[mshilarious]

Maybe it's because we are visually more "with it", in this society, than aurally. Anybody can see if a photo is realistic or fuzzy, but in music that "fuzzy" can actually be more musical than if it were clear, and since it for sure is cheaper, people accept it as ok.

Just guessing.

There's no question about that, our eyes kill our ears in accuracy. But there's also an anti-science appeal, "we can hear things that can't be measured." Unfortunately, recording is a measurement of voltage over time. I can record and measure all kinds of things that can't be discerned audibly. I don't think the reverse is true; but if it is, it doesn't matter, because such differences by definition cannot be recorded.

 

[bozmillar]

I think it comes down to what people expect to hear and what they are told to hear. We have been listening to music that has been recorded on crappy gear since the beginning of time. Our ears are so used to hearing it that way that we expect the recordings to be crappy and we call it musical.

People don't want transparent because they aren't used to hearing transparent. If what we really wanted was accurate and lifelike, we'd only do binaural recordings and listen to music with headphones.

 

[TexRoadkill]

There's no question about that, our eyes kill our ears in accuracy. But there's also an anti-science appeal, "we can hear things that can't be measured." Unfortunately, recording is a measurement of voltage over time. I can record and measure all kinds of things that can't be discerned audibly. I don't think the reverse is true; but if it is, it doesn't matter, because such differences by definition cannot be recorded.

The point isn't that engineers hear stuff that can't be measured. It's that the non-linear response of analog circuits can be hard to define in a simple list of specs or frequency response curves.

When I went from a Mackie 1604 to a Soundcraft Ghost the differences in sound were dramatic even when just using the direct outs on each board. I haven't compared the specs on the boards but I would imagine they both look "almost perfect" on paper and their cost is pretty similiar.

 

[miwrigh]

Thanks for the advice

This info makes good sense. If I might ask a follow-up that I forgot to include: What part of this is played by the mic itself?

1. Is it totally insane to buy a $3,000 mic for home recording (demos etc.)
2. How much cash will get you a mic that is mid-range quality?
3. If you had $1,000 to spend, how much would go for a great mic vs. a preamp for whatever mic you bought?

 

[TexRoadkill]

I think it comes down to what people expect to hear and what they are told to hear. We have been listening to music that has been recorded on crappy gear since the beginning of time. Our ears are so used to hearing it that way that we expect the recordings to be crappy and we call it musical.

People don't want transparent because they aren't used to hearing transparent. If what we really wanted was accurate and lifelike, we'd only do binaural recordings and listen to music with headphones.

Photography and Audio Engineering are very similiar in that there are different ways of going about capturing the image or sound. You can go for realism, which works well for some subjects, or you can go more dramatic or impressionistic which works better for other subjects.

It's probably fair to say that the better the object being captured, a beautiful model or an amazing performance, the better it will stand being captured realistically. You have to work with what you have and often the goal becomes more about making things "interesting" when otherwise they might be a bit boring in a realistic setting.

Would impressionist paintings be better if they weren't so damn blurry?

 

[Chibi Nappa]

3. If you had $1,000 to spend, how much would go for a great mic vs. a preamp for whatever mic you bought?

I'd spend almost all of it on monitors since neither a mic nor a preamp are worth a dang without 'em.

Then I would spend what is left on a mic and use the preamp that already exists in my audio interface.



If I were just starting out and had no equipment, that is.

 

[TexRoadkill]

This info makes good sense. If I might ask a follow-up that I forgot to include: What part of this is played by the mic itself?

1. Is it totally insane to buy a $3,000 mic for home recording (demos etc.)
2. How much cash will get you a mic that is mid-range quality?
3. If you had $1,000 to spend, how much would go for a great mic vs. a preamp for whatever mic you bought?

1. Depends on how much money you have. But for most people it is insane.
2. You can get lots of pretty good mics and preamps in the $300-800 range. If you go with industry standard stuff it's hard to go too wrong.
3. Depends on the deals available and what you want to do. Generally you will get better results with a good preamp and a lesser mic then you would in the reverse situation.

Consider stuff like an RNMP or a DPM3 preamp and a Shure 57, 58 and a decent condensor like an AKG 414 or a good chinese mic. A pair of small diaphragm condensors for recording in stereo. It just depends on what you want to do. If you are going to be recording a lot of tracks at once it's hard to beat the per channel preamp price of a mixer.

 

[Zeppe]

I'm might be biased here because I'm a microphone nut.

1. No. If it fits in to your budget a good mic is a priceless tool.

2. I think about $500 will get you a good large diaphragm condenser which are pretty standard for vocals/acoustic instruments. There are some good mics for less just be careful buying something without hearing it just because it cost less.

3. 70/30 mic/pre??? All depends on what your recording.

 

[bozmillar]

If I personally had $1000 that I had to spend on microhpones and preamps, I'd get a nice array of cheeap condenser mics and a couple dynamic mics and use the preamps that are built into my interface. if you've ever heard a preamp shootout that has been done well, you will find that it is extrememly hard to tell the difference between a $30 preamp and a $3000 preamp. With microhpones, it's generally pretty obvious.

If you just buy 1 expensive microphone, you run the risk of getting one microphone that does really well on one thing. if you buy 10 cheap microphones, chances are one of them will sound good on any given source, plus you have 10 mics if you ever need that many at one time.

 

[TexRoadkill]

if you buy 10 cheap microphones, chances are one of them will sound good on any given source,

Or you could have 10 mics that sound crappy on everything.

 

[bozmillar]

Or you could have 10 mics that sound crappy on everything.

ha, people say that, but I've never had that experience. I have a couple MXL990s and I am fully aware of the fact that they are not the best sounding mic. In my opinion, they are quite harsh and in a lot of cases don't sound good, but there are a lot of situations where they sound great.

If I don't want a hyped high frequency response, I use my astatic mics that I got for $25 each. They are pretty much the opposite of the 990 in that they have a lot more midrange and soft on the highs and lows. Those work great on sources where the 9990s fail.

If I want a mix of the two, i use both mics, put a crossover filter on them and blend them together. With two very cheap mics, I have an almost infinite range of possibilities with them.

I'm not saying cheap mics sounds as good as expensive mics, but if you use them where they shine, they can be just as good, you'll just need more options to choose from.

 

[Zeppe]

if you buy 10 cheap microphones, chances are one of them will sound good on any given source

Some flawed logic here. So... say screw good mic positioning and phase relationships? Recording 10 mics per instrument... what a cluster fuck.

This isn't the lottery its recording for gods sakes man. There is an art to it.

 

[bozmillar]

Some flawed logic here. So... say screw good mic positioning and phase relationships? Recording 10 mics per instrument... what a cluster fuck.

This isn't the lottery its recording for gods sakes man. There is an art to it.

I didn't say put 10 mics on every source. I said if you have 10 mics to choose from, there is a good chance that you have one that can do the job at hand. Choosing one mic and hoping that it works on everything seems more like playing the lottery to me.