Well I did it.....bought Great River MP-2NV....now I need some advice.....

C

chadsxe

New member
Well I whipped out the old credit card yesterday and bought myself a Great River MP-2NV. Needless to say I am very excited to get this thing up and running. Because this is my first “Pro” pre I am going to be inclined to use it on everything for my up and coming project. This is what I am working with….

Delta 1010
Grace Model 101
DMP3
Mackie Mixer
Great River MP-2NV

So as you can see it most likely will be the go to pre. This is a metal project and the kick, snare, and toms will all be GOG’ed out. I am thinking of using the GR on Drum OH’s, 2 mics on guitars, vocals, and most likely bass.

First question, would you throw the Grace any were in the mix? If so were? I kind of want to use it as a supplement for my ride cymbal. For some reason I can never get a good clean loud crack on the bell of my ride.

Second question, for those of you who have the GR MP-2NV can you put me in the ball park with settings. From what I have read, you have some control of the amount of color you get with how hard you hit the input and output. I just don’t know what yields what. I am guessing I am going to want less color with my OH’s and more with my guitars. Any suggestions……

Thanks

Chad
 
I will be using a sm57 and e609 on the guitars, sm81 as oh'd, and ksm 27 on vocals. Like I said the drums are all going to be gog'ed so I am focusing more on get a good cymbal recording.
 
If you want the cymabls soft and blended the GR is the ticket, if pristine and clear, the Grace would be my choice. The guitars through the GR is a thing of beauty.

DMP3 or the Mackie for anything that sets back in the mix.
 
Middleman said:
If you want the cymabls soft and blended the GR is the ticket, if pristine and clear, the Grace would be my choice. The guitars through the GR is a thing of beauty.

DMP3 or the Mackie for anything that sets back in the mix.
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Does anyone ever use non-matching over head pres when tracking. The drummer likes to use his bell a lot to change the dynamics of the song. I really want to be able to have it pop out nice and hard. What about close micing the ride. I am guessing it would be kind of hard to get in phase with the other 2 OH's.
 
Crank up the inout gain on the GR and turn down the output a bit. You will get nice aggressive cymabals. Not at all what I would consider soft or blended. Mic and cymbal placement will determine how much of the ride bell you get more than preamps replacement.
 
xstatic said:
Crank up the inout gain on the GR and turn down the output a bit. You will get nice aggressive cymabals. Not at all what I would consider soft or blended. Mic and cymbal placement will determine how much of the ride bell you get more than preamps replacement.
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I was waiting for your reply Xstatic. Anyways, I am defintely going to use that as a starting point for my OH's. What do you recommend for guitars? I am guessing once again I am going to want to hit the input as hard as I can. Tell me if I am correct but the agression comes from hit the input hard and backing of the output, and the more "wire gain" clean sound comes from backing off on the input and utlizing the output. I am also guessing things would clean up even more if I used the insertion point and bypassed the output, correct?

I just tracked it via UPS and it should be hear today....god I can't wait.....
 
I would go ahead and use the output stage. The important thing is to really sit down and try some different stuff with it. On a crunchy guitar sound I might lean towards not driving the preamp too hard. Let the cab be your aggressiveness. Its really easy when you are pushing a preamp to accidentally let too much of the preamps fuzz thourgh, and then regret it later. Especially on an already distorted source where it can be hard to distinguish between the fuzz coming form the source and that created by the preamp. I love tracking seperate passages of vocals with an extremely driven preamp to use as a distroted vocal layer. I love pushing preamps hard on room mics as well. I tend to lay back a bit on them though when tracking guitars. I rarely ever purposely push a preamp too hard on kick or snare, but I do like to dig in a bit on overheads.
 
Seeing as everyone else is giving good advice, I'll just say congrats! :) Here's to kick ass recordings! Have fun.
 
http://www.greatriverelectronics.com/mpnv2.html

Download the PDF at the Great River site. It will give you some good tips and staring points on using the preamp. They discuss gain staging (the input/output knobs) and how it affects sound. They also provide info on the impedance and polarity buttons and some suggested settings for things like vocals. If I remember correctly, the PDF is the same document as the included manual--so by the time you read this, you should already have the info you need.

I have the single channel version and it's great! I should have bought two!
 
REVIEW TIME......part 1

Well i the UPS guy was at my door when I came home from work. Needless to say I rushed inside and opened it up. First thing I noticed was the weight of it. I would say it is at 20 pounds give a take a few. Though it is not as rugged as say my Grace it is still built like a tank. Sad thing about the whole experince was that I had no time to hook it up and about 1-2 mins to look at it. I am going to hook up today make sure everything works and is in tach. If time premits I will start A/Bing against my Grace. Sorry for the lack of review.....more to come soon.....
 
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You will find it much more "musical" than the Graces..I have used the Graces and the GreatRivers on drums w/SM81's.I have used the G/R on Kik and Snare and the Grace 101's on overs and vice versa..To me the Great River was better on overs by quite a bit..more headroom and more "depth" to the sound..If you are gonna 'Gog the drums IMHO I'd go for the G/R on overs and room mic with single Grace 101...Just Ideas ..good luck :)
 
Hear is a question for anyone who owns the Great River MP-2NV.....

First let me say I only had about 20 mins to mess around with it today. In thoose twenty minutes the only thing I got to do was look over the thing really good and check to see if everything is functioning, and then plug a mic in to listen to it through my moniters. In the 5 mins I was listening/messing around with a mic, I did a really quick a/b against my grace. The GR was with out a dought way warmer and more pronounced. I can already tell this is going to fill in a huge void in my recordings. Not to say the grace does not have it uses...

Anyways....

I am little crazy but I noticed a few things and I want to make sure everything is cool. First, on both of the XLR ouputs, the pin on the left (if your looking at it from the back) shakes a little. The reason I noticed this is because when I picked it up I almost freaked out when I heard a rattling. After I investigated I figured it was that left pin in both XLR outputs. It is really hard to get it to shack with you hand but when you pick the unit up you can hear it very softly. I am guessing this is the norm since it is doing the exact same thing, in the exact same spot of both XLR outputs. Can anyone else confirm this?

Second, when you power down the unit, do your lights blink like 4 times before it shuts off?

I will keep posting the more and more I play with this thing. I just need to find some time......

Thanks,

Chad
 
chadsxe said:
Second, when you power down the unit, do your lights blink like 4 times before it shuts off?
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My single channel GR preamp basically behaves the same way. At startup the meters move towards peak and gradually subside. At shutdown, I believe something similar happens including the blinking. I've always assumed this is just normal operating procedure
 
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