What Do PreAmps Do

  • Thread starter Thread starter JoeyPazera
  • Start date Start date
the foam is definitely a step in the right direction! you're essentially softening any high end reverberation with it, which isn't a bad idea when tracking instruments. however you're going to have mid/bass frequencies flying all over your room still (which can cancel each other out and make you mix songs differently than you would if you could hear everything). there are broadband absorbers which are typically 2-6 inch thick rigid fiberglass and they will help absorb the bass/mid reverberations.
if you don't feel like making them yourself take a trip over to gikacoustics.com, they've got fantastic products and a great attitude.
if you think the difference is night and day with that foam just wait until you get these!

and drum shields won't do anything good for recording, they're really just for softening the volume of drums in a live environment
 
You ask about preamps and you get Great white and Whitesnake. :rolleyes:
All good intentioned though. Maybe everyone's just trying to avoid the painfully beaten to death topic of what the real role and value of expensive preamps is. If you do a search, you'll see what I mean.
Preamps have one job, increase a mic's very small signal output to what we refer to as line level, while not introducing any noise or distortion in the process. That's a pretty simple design criterea, on the face of it, but it ends up being a contentious issue. Descriptors start to sound similar to discussions of wine, and indeed it is a case where the more educated the palet, the more the subtle differences become profound, to some. To others, it's not such a big deal, and the fairly recent advent of the standalone preamp evolving into this huge topic is viewed as somewhat of a fad. After all, until fairly recently the preamp was just a module in mixing desks that no one paid much attention to, and lots of great recordings were made without obsessing over which pre to use. The good thing is you have a plethora of choices, and volumes to read. In the mean time, remember that the most important thing is the sound you want to capture, and that no preamp is a magic box that takes a crappy sounding source/room/mic and turns it into gold. On the other hand, a crappy pre can turn a golden source/room/mic combination into mush. Fortunately there are few crappy mic pres around these days, and most meet the simple design criterea, with varying degrees of flavour.
 
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