Upgrade mic pres?

I

IanW-UK

New member
Hi guys, I have a question which is probably somewhat subjective. Here's a little mp3 of my acoustic recorded with a meek mq3 and a 414b-uls.
Do you guys think I would be able to get a significantly better sound if I upgraded my pres? From what I've seen and heard there is a big difference between the budget pres (my meek etc) to stuff like the great river nv pres, vintech, brent averill etc . Unfortunatelly for me most of these pres are not directly available over here so I can't try em. Hence my question, do you think it would be beneficial to my sound to shell out $1000 or so for a decent pre? (I am currently making some api clones so I'd be looking at the neve style pres for colour) worth the cash?

Cheers,

Ian.........
 
If you're tracking with just the 414, one clean channel should be fine. Consider Grace Design 101. Closer to $500 than $1000. If you want to spend that $1000, and want compression, EQ, and 2 channels, consider Toft ATC-2. Very similar preamps at the basic level, either will do justice to acoustic. All the acoustic on my current project was done with a single C414B-ULS into an Avalon AD2022, which is a bit beyond your budget. Half of the vocals were done through a Joemeek twinQ, the other half through the Avalon. The meek was not used for guitar. -Richie
 
IanW-UK said:
Hi guys, I have a question which is probably somewhat subjective. Here's a little mp3 of my acoustic recorded with a meek mq3 and a 414b-uls.
Do you guys think I would be able to get a significantly better sound if I upgraded my pres? From what I've seen and heard there is a big difference between the budget pres (my meek etc) to stuff like the great river nv pres, vintech, brent averill etc . Unfortunatelly for me most of these pres are not directly available over here so I can't try em. Hence my question, do you think it would be beneficial to my sound to shell out $1000 or so for a decent pre? (I am currently making some api clones so I'd be looking at the neve style pres for colour) worth the cash?

Cheers,

Ian.........
Click to expand...

I don't think you will get a "significantly" better sound than you have now. I think you could pay more attention to mic placement though. A better pre will change your sound for sure. Whether it changes it for the better is anyone's guess and an expensive test. But, if you want to spend the $$$ I say go for it. You can always find an application for it. Unfortunately, trying the pre out in your system is really the only way to find what you want.
 
You could spend the money on a new pre, and you'd probably hear an audible difference, especially if stepping up to an API or Neve.

I've done a few things here: http://media.nowhereradio.com/cgi-b...r/www/mp3manager.htm&aid=1656&alid=-1&errors=<li>Add%2fUpdate%20successful<%2fli>
with API's and Neve-esque pre's. Anybody'd be lieing to ya if they said your pre won't make a difference.

But a common mistake made is to throw money at the chain, and neglect the room; which is a BIG part of where your overall sound is comming from.

"Cruz", while a darn good performance in its own right seemd to me to lack some detail and depth in the mid-range. It also seemed just a tad bit bass-heavy.
That would suggest to me that it was recorded in a typical room with 4 walls and carpet on the floor.

If you have $1000 to spend, take at least half of that and look into some acoustic treatments for your room. Maybe start with some bass-traps. Experiment with they're placement. Run some modal response calulations on your room. Check the RT60 of your room at different frequencies. In other words, get your room sounding as good as it possibly can before you throw money at your chain. For most people that's where their main deficiency is.

A few hundred dollars spent on some well placed O.C. 703 is a helluva lot more sexy than a new pre in the rack too!

By the time you're finished tuning your room, you will have saved back up enough to replace the cost of the treatments, and THEN you can go for that hot new pre-amp.
 
Thanks guys, I'm actually in the process of treating the room now. I've got 18, 2' x 4' sheets of rockwool rw3 3" thick. I have 6 made as broadband absorbers and the first 2 bass traps made. 10 left :) 6 more bass traps and 4 more absorbers on the ceiling. Then I'll be putting some wood laminates down on the floor. I think I will go with a new pre as It can't really hurt at this point I think. Any improvement is good :)

Top on my list are the phoenix audio drs-1 and the great river me1-nv.

Cheers,

Ian.........
 
Could you post the same track without reverb? the highs on the reverb are a little distracting
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top