Tube mic + tube pre - bad idea?

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espskully

espskully

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Does this cause problems? Are you better off with a solid state mic and a tube pre or vice versa? Will having both be tube based mess things up?
 
probably only if they are both very cheap. i'm sure an excellent quality tube mic into a great sounding tube pre would have no problems. but if the mic and/or the pre is crappy, well it's only gonna sound as good as the weakest link in the chain wether they are tube or not. and if both are crappy, then you can probably consider the damage to be doubled, but this is just speculation as i've never used an actual tube mic before.
 
I use a Tube pre and a Tube mic together all the time..What Zed said pretty much sums it up in my experience. Good luck :)
 
There's a very high possiblity of tube overload when using that combination.

I would personally advise against it for that reason.

Tube overload is what happens when the tube-osity rating of a given signal chain passes the threshold of maximum tube enjoyment and throws one in to all-out tube frenzy. Things have been known to get ugly from there.
 
chessrock said:
There's a very high possiblity of tube overload when using that combination.

I would personally advise against it for that reason.

Tube overload is what happens when the tube-osity rating of a given signal chain passes the threshold of maximum tube enjoyment and throws one in to all-out tube frenzy. Things have been known to get ugly from there.
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What if you use "Pro" tube gear, such as Behringer? :confused:

:D

-mr moon
 
Bad news for people running Pro Tools on a Univac

chessrock said:
There's a very high possiblity of tube overload when using that combination.

I would personally advise against it for that reason.

Tube overload is what happens when the tube-osity rating of a given signal chain passes the threshold of maximum tube enjoyment and throws one in to all-out tube frenzy. Things have been known to get ugly from there.
Click to expand...

I disagree with this. From my experience, I find that things get unusable only when I use a tube mic, going through a tube pre, going into a computer running on vacuum tubes. There's too much noise in the warehouse from the 523 air conditioners keeping the computer below 200 degrees Celsius. It's a very "warm" sound, though.

- Jerfo
 
You shouldn't- its a good question.

It just happened to inspire a lot of funny answers. :)

-Chris
 
jerfo said:
I disagree with this. From my experience, I find that things get unusable only when I use a tube mic, going through a tube pre, going into a computer running on vacuum tubes. There's too much noise in the warehouse from the 523 air conditioners keeping the computer below 200 degrees Celsius. It's a very "warm" sound, though.

- Jerfo
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It's called "hotnessssssss".
 
espskully said:
Now I definately feel like an idiot.
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No no no! It was a very legitimate question! I just couldn't resist the opportunity to add a silly response.

If using a tube mic through a tube console was good enough for the Beatles, it's probably good enough for the average Joe like you and me. It's not much different than any other mic/pre combination: some combinations are bound to work better than others. A U47 going through a Manley Mono Pre will probably sound nicer than a CAD tube mic going through a PreSonus BlueTube preamp. There's certainly no rule against going tube mic to tube pre, though.

- Jerfo
 
espskully said:
Now I definately feel like an idiot.
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Nah, it's a valid question that has been asked and answered here over and over. Just search the forum and you'll see! ;)

Basically, IMHO, I would stay away from the cheaper "toob enhanced" anythings (easily recognized as they *usually* have a "Toob Blend" adjustment of some type on them), because they are designed to color the signal rather than accuratly reproduce the source.

Remember:
1. to research the units you're considering (i.e. search for them here using the search feature) and,
2. that you get what you pay for.

-mr moon
 
As C7 points out in his own inane style, the effect of tubes and the effect of tube hype are two very different things. Once upon a time, all condenser mics and all preamps had tubes, because it was the only way they knew how to build them. The recording world did not come to an end. In fact, a bunch of great recordings were made that way, The tradition continued long after the development of the transistor, the FET mic, and the solid state amp.
Good mics and good pres sound better than bad ones, and with very few exceptions, good gear is more expensive than bad gear. If you plug a multi-thousand dollar mic into a multi-thousand dollar preamp, the odds are it will sound good, whether or not tubes are involved. At the current time, good solid state gear is cheaper than good tube based gear, so I usually recommend solid state gear to the budget-concious.
There are tube pres that are clean as hell, and generally they are expensive as hell. Tubes add distortion, which can be subtle, or outright nasty. There are good reasons why most folks don't sing into a Marshall stack. Subtle distortion, we call "warmth" when we like it, and "muddy" when we don't. Clean, we call "transparent" when we like it, and "flat" when we don't.
The attempt to recreate vintage sound has resulted in a bunch of hybrid preamp designs, using a small tube in the front end of the amp to create selective distortion. By and large, they suck, but it allows the markering guru to tell you it's a tube amp. There is nothing I would like better than to own a good tube mic and a good tube pre. That is currently several thousand dollars out of reach right now.-Richie
 
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