Using a a single Mic preamp for Stereo mix?

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bsac109

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I have a single channel mic -pre that accepts 3-pin XLR and Hi-Z 1/4" inputs.

I was wondering if you could somehow route a stereo signal through this unit (even though it's only one channel for a Stereo mix?

Out-of-the-box thinking here, if you are up for it...
 
bsac109 said:
I have a single channel mic -pre that accepts 3-pin XLR and Hi-Z 1/4" inputs.

I was wondering if you could somehow route a stereo signal through this unit (even though it's only one channel for a Stereo mix?

Out-of-the-box thinking here, if you are up for it...
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I don't think there's a way to do that. In real time.

What I have done before - although it's been a while - and it is a PITA and not ideal - is to route and play each side of pre-recorded stereo tracks through a piece of mono outboard gear and then back to two tracks. You know.... just do one at a time. I never had any weird alignment, phase, or time issues. The rules are: there ain't no rules.
 
You would have to sum it to Mono on the way in - and split it to stereo on the way out - but you wouldn't get a stereo track - you would end up with two mono tracks that are exactly the same - so not stereo - what are you doing? Whatever it is it wouldn’t it be easier to play/sing the material twice - merge the tracks into stereo and then have at it - it wouldn’t be stereo but you would have a faux stereo track.
 
If you are thinking about sending the XLR to one channel, and the Hi Z to a second, then it will depend on your interface. Something like the Scarlett Solo, Audient ID4 or Presonus Audiobox are actually 2 channel interfaces with one mic pre and one line/Inst channel. Most purely single channel interfaces like the UA Volt 1 or Arturia MiniFuse will use a combo XLR/ 1/4" input. In those cases, it's a "one or the other".

If you tell use exactly which interface you have, we can tell you how it works.
 
I have a Motu M 4 audio interface and Millennia HV-35p mic pre with Hi-z AND XLR ins.

I'm on Win 11 PC
 
The HV-35P only has one route... you either go with instrument or mic inputs, and only one output.

What I don't understand is why you don't just use the Motu's inputs. It's not like they are bad preamps. The Motu is an excellent unit.
 
I just was thinking I could improvethe signal path for mastering a stereo mix
 
Im hopelessly confused. Mastering is an output process, the inputs are irrelevant, all your tracks are in the box. You just use the interface to direct the audio to your monitors, the end process. The ‘quality’ is done in the computer. Some people like to use processing preamps that do not have digital outputs, so they connect to a digital interface. One mic, one clever pre, into one channel of their interface. Not something I do, not convinced at all, but others love what these things do. You don't seem to be doing this, so what on earth are you up to?
 
Are you looking to add a little saturation from the preamp to your mix?

I suppose in theory you could take your stereo mix, split it to mono, and then run each channel through independently then recombine to stereo... but I'd want to print any VST instruments to audio first before doing this (ever-so-slight differences in something like a layer-based drum sequencer or any built-in humanization could make a mess out of your audio if the L and R channels suddenly had slightly different audio). I'd also probably want that to be a REALLY nice preamp before I'd go through the trouble of using it to "color" a full mix.
 
I'm confused as to how you would put line level signals through a mic preamp or an instrument input (TOTALLY different impedance and levels), and how in the world would that "improve" anything that was already recorded.

Unless your just trying to distort the signal intentionally, I can only see harm.

Your comments suggest to me that you lack some very basic understanding about electronics.
 
TalismanRich said:
I'm confused as to how you would put line level signals through a mic preamp or an instrument input (TOTALLY different impedance and levels), and how in the world would that "improve" anything that was already recorded.

Unless your just trying to distort the signal intentionally, I can only see harm.

Your comments suggest to me that you lack some very basic understanding about electronics.
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You'd have to knock them down to instrument level first - if your interface allowed you to swap, great, otherwise some reamping gear, maybe?

But yeah, if you had like an old Neve board or something I could see maybe wanting to put some work into figuring out how to do this, but for most part, this seems a lot of work for minimal upside. You wouldn't WANT to add much saturation at all to a full mix, and there are much simpler ways to do that in the box.
 
If you were working with a board of some type, or even a setup that came with line level inputs, it might make sense. A mic/inst preamp is the wrong tool!

Frankly I think all this "saturation" stuff has become a trendy fad. Everybody is wanting to add "saturation" and I would bet that 80% of them don't even know what real saturation is like. Now it's the magic sauce that "glues" everything together and improves it. In a lot of cases, it's another way to take the life out of the recording. Homogenize it, saturate it, boost it. Now it's got punch! If you're lucky you can get the dynamic range down to about 30dB and get a couple of percent of 2nd harmonic distortion. Why the heck do we buy a preamp that has 0.001% distortion+noise and 130dB S/N just to add it back?

And yes, there are much easier ways of achieving it. There are dozens of plugins that will add distortion and harmonics, and compress the signal.

.
 
TalismanRich said:
And yes, there are much easier ways of achieving it. There are dozens of plugins that will add distortion and harmonics, and compress the signal.
Click to expand...
I'm appreciating Magma BB Tubes. That's a lovely effect.
 
TalismanRich said:
If you were working with a board of some type, or even a setup that came with line level inputs, it might make sense. A mic/inst preamp is the wrong tool!

Frankly I think all this "saturation" stuff has become a trendy fad. Everybody is wanting to add "saturation" and I would bet that 80% of them don't even know what real saturation is like. Now it's the magic sauce that "glues" everything together and improves it. In a lot of cases, it's another way to take the life out of the recording. Homogenize it, saturate it, boost it. Now it's got punch! If you're lucky you can get the dynamic range down to about 30dB and get a couple of percent of 2nd harmonic distortion. Why the heck do we buy a preamp that has 0.001% distortion+noise and 130dB S/N just to add it back?

And yes, there are much easier ways of achieving it. There are dozens of plugins that will add distortion and harmonics, and compress the signal.

.
Click to expand...
I think saturation tools are awesome for what they are, but you're right - use it for a specific purpose, either a sort of dirty subtle compressor or an intentional "grit" effect, but don't slap it on EVERYTHING unless you have a specific reason.

Just like any other plugin, really. 😆
 
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