tube pre necessary for drums?

[restland]

do you typically use tube preamps for drums?

i'm trying to decide if 2 audio buddies are good for recording drums, rather than buying say, 2 presonus blue tubes. i'm just starting out - with a delta 44, two SM57's and an SM58.

please correct me if i'm wrong - vocals would sound bad through an audio buddy and definitely need tube pre-amps. but do drums?

thanks!
restland

 

[tdukex]

I haven't used either of these preamps, but I suspect your drums and vocals will sound fine with either one of them. Why not buy one of each? That would give you some options no matter what you are recording. You may find one sounds better on kick and toms while the other sounds better on snare.

 

[maskedman72]

im with tdukex. if i were you i would buy 1 of each for more options. you dont have to have tube pres for drums either(or anything for that matter). that all depends on your presonal taste and what you are going for.
but for just starting out you are headed in the right direction with those pres.

and i wouldnt say that vocals would sound bad through an audio buddy and i wouldnt say vocals definently need a tube pre.
what i will say is that i have head and done plenty of great vocal tracks through non-tube gear(like the pres on a mackie 24-8).
try doing a search on this bbs of the pres you are interested in.

-jay

 

[t_chance]

Soundcraft

but

I would suggest that you get one with at least 8 inputs as it will be the hub of your system
A Mackie 1202 is another alternative

 

[James HE]

I usually end up running the kick through my ART tube MP and the rest through my Mackie board. I tried My M-Audio DMP-2 for drums and didn't like it compared to either the mackie or the Art.

Do you have a mixing board? Something like the Mackie 1402 would probably be more useful than a couple of low cost pre's for about the same price. You'll get a fist full of good sounding pre's plus routing/monitoring flexability. It's good to able to say, send out a headphone mix, monitor a click track, whatever you may need.

 

[Richard Monroe]

Don't get sucked in by the hype about tubes. The preamp to use for vocals, or drums, or anything else, is the best one you can afford. Many manufacturers have taken to putting a small tube in the front end of a preamp with variable control of the tube color (distortion). This is a hybrid, not exactly a tube amp. You know, some of the greatest vocals ever recorded were done with a FET mic and a solid state preamp without a tube in sight. Gee, the fact that the preamp cost $2500 bucks or more per channel, and the mic about the same may have had something to do with it.
So I have to use a tube preamp for vocals? I guess that old Neve just won't do.- Yeah, right. Well don't get me wrong. A good tube preamp is a lovely thing. So is a good solid state preamp. So is a good hybrid preamp. You get what you pay for, and the tube doesn't matter. The other thing is that tubes don't always equal color, and solid state doesn't always equal clean. I use a Joemeek twinQcs quite a bit, and I like it a lot. It's solid state, but it's precisely its color that I like, and it can be quite variable. If I use the built in optical compressor, I get color. If I use an RNC as an insert instead, it's a lot cleaner.
At any given moment, there's a piece of gear in a given price range that just seems about the best, and it changes every day. I don't happen to think the Blue Tube is one of those. It's just a matter of how much you want to spend. For cheap, the Audio Buddy remains unbeaten in it's price range. Logical steps up- Studio Projects VTB-1, then RNP/Joemeek VC1Q/Grace 101. The next horrifying level goes to Avalon/Pendulum/Great River/Davisound and many others. In the end, the quality of a preamp has a lot more to do with the quality and arrangement of the components than it does with whether or not there is a tube in it.-Richie