Upgrade?? Korg D1600 pre's vs. DMP3 (or Octane)

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baumer

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I'm searching for some frontend pre's for my Korg D1600, mainly because the ones in the Korg are severley lacking in headroom (since I record in 16 bit in order to get 8 tracks down at a time). The lack of headroom is worse when it comes to condenser mics. I was horrified to learn that both overhead channels clipped repeatedly during the jam that I recorded this past Friday.

So, that be known, would the DMP3 be a worthwhile purchase to make? I don't want to get into a habit of buying more gear every time I encounter an obstacle, but this one is pretty significant. Clipping on anything is not cool, especially when it renders 90 minutes of jamming unusable.
 
What were the preamp settings on the Korg when it clipped? Having an external preamp alone won't help prevent clipping. The pre's on the Korg definitely aren't great, so an external pre with a decent amount of gain would be an improvement; but it won't by itself prevent clipping.
 
AlexW said:
What were the preamp settings on the Korg when it clipped? Having an external preamp alone won't help prevent clipping. The pre's on the Korg definitely aren't great, so an external pre with a decent amount of gain would be an improvement; but it won't by itself prevent clipping.
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The pre's were set to -45b. Thats at least how Korg has them labled - +4db being line level, and -60 being the other end of the spectrum.

I've noticed that when I use condensers with these pre's I don't get a signal until I crank the gain. The pre's in my Aardvark are not at all like this. With the Aardvark there seems to be more room to find just the right signal. With the Korg it's like "Dynamic or Condenser, take your pick asshole" Around 40db (according to these pre's) is when I start to get a usable signal, but usually its too quiet as compared to the guitar. After tracking I must add compression / limiting to get them to cut through a mix.

Hope that clears things up. I understand it was operator error as far as the clipping. I just wonder if the pre's in the DMP3 would buy me a little more headroom than what's in the Korg.
 
Yep, I had a Korg D1600 as well. The pre's are as you say--nothing up to 45-60 degrees and then sensitive as hell from that point on. An external may be the way to go, but even with the Korg pre's at +4, I've had to crank external pre's to get a signal. You may still need to raise the gain on the Korg pre's somewhat. If you can get an external pre to try out first (and return if it doesn't work out) that may be the best approach. I was using mine with a Soundcraft Spirit M12, and the pre's on that had trouble pushing enough gain into the Korg.
 
AlexW said:
Yep, I had a Korg D1600 as well. The pre's are as you say--nothing up to 45-60 degrees and then sensitive as hell from that point on. An external may be the way to go, but even with the Korg pre's at +4, I've had to crank external pre's to get a signal. You may still need to raise the gain on the Korg pre's somewhat. If you can get an external pre to try out first (and return if it doesn't work out) that may be the best approach. I was using mine with a Soundcraft Spirit M12, and the pre's on that had trouble pushing enough gain into the Korg.
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That's a bummer. It seems like using external pre's and raising the gain on the Korg pre's after that would be noisy as hell. What kind of results were you getting?
 
I actually got some decent recordings done with the Korg. I'm in a guitar rock band, so noisy pre's weren't that big of a deal. I was generally able to set levels to get a decent signal without clipping. At the end, I started using it with an Mbox, exporting tracks from the Korg onto CD and uploading them into Protools, then doing overdubs through the Mbox. Worked for me for quite awhile.
 
AlexW said:
I actually got some decent recordings done with the Korg. I'm in a guitar rock band, so noisy pre's weren't that big of a deal. I was generally able to set levels to get a decent signal without clipping. At the end, I started using it with an Mbox, exporting tracks from the Korg onto CD and uploading them into Protools, then doing overdubs through the Mbox. Worked for me for quite awhile.
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Thanks for your help dood. I don't know about you but I was totally trippin when I first messed around with the pre's in the D1600. I was like, "Is this right?"
 
I have a korg D1600 too. I never use the korg pres, by themselves. I have a joe meek pre and I go into it 1st (with no opti-compression or EQ), I just get a boost in the signal and it works fine. I just bought a VTB-1 pre, but havent tried it yet.

I agree, on the korg, with no external pre...you have to crank the trim up so high that barely adjusting it takes you from "not enough signal" to "clipping its ass off"

That is my only problem with the korg though...I love that machine.
 
I wish they had put a pad on the DMP3, because my condensors on my toms put out so much signal that I have to keep the gain all the way down. DMP3 definitely has plenty of gain for you, just don't overload your converters.
 
baumer said:
I'm searching for some frontend pre's for my Korg D1600, mainly because the ones in the Korg are severley lacking in headroom (since I record in 16 bit in order to get 8 tracks down at a time). The lack of headroom is worse when it comes to condenser mics. I was horrified to learn that both overhead channels clipped repeatedly during the jam that I recorded this past Friday.

So, that be known, would the DMP3 be a worthwhile purchase to make? I don't want to get into a habit of buying more gear every time I encounter an obstacle, but this one is pretty significant. Clipping on anything is not cool, especially when it renders 90 minutes of jamming unusable.
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I think with the Korg that you need to use the digital inputs to by-pass the Korg pre-amps. This has been covered before and shown by many users to be true. Do a search for a more in-depth discussion on this topic. Just turning the pre-amp gain to 0 or using the line-in does not by-pass the Korg's pre-amps.
 
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