What do you expect from your preamp?

  • Thread starter Thread starter PhilGood
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mshilarious said:
Except it's not your thread to end, and it's not a perfect response. For example, a transformer-balanced preamp will interact with a dynamic mic. A variable input impedance preamp can also do this. Therefore, by changing the load on the mic, sometimes in complex ways, you can change the mic's signal itself.

Unless you consider the mic's signal to be the unloaded signal, which is not a real world application.

Also, of course a preamp can add things that weren't in the mic signal. This is one reason people stick things like tubes and transformers in preamps. But then mics can have circuits too, sometimes with tubes and transformers, sometimes not.

There is nothing sacred about the division of the circuit between mic and preamp, except for the need to avoid signal problems in transmission through a suitably long mic cable. It is possible to design a mic that only needs power, and spits out a line level signal. It is also possible to rip out the transformer from a dynamic mic, and become even more reliant on a preamp for gain.

Thus, the opinion that a microphone can be designed to create various sorts of signal distortions (mostly, but not entirely, a result of the transducer itself), but a preamp can only aspire to be a straight wire with gain is an inappropriately limited view of a system.
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Goood points.

People talk about "color" in different preamps - if this didn't exist, then yes - maybe there would be a flatline plateau where the preamp simply boosted the signal from your mic perfectly, and garbage sounded like garbage, and great stuff sounded great... and then as you got cheaper and cheaper on the pre, the sound would degrade thusly.

However, this is not the case. Your mic pre might take a signal that is slightly off from sounding great and color it to sound just the way you want. So, as he said, it isn't as easy as aspiring to get a straight wire with a gain knob... however, for a lot of us with limited resources, that IS what we want, since we home recording enthusiasts usually need more all-purpose equipment... I use the DMP-3 on most of my tracks for that exact reason - it boosts my mic signal cleanly.

Since I can't afford a rack of pre's to the tune of thousands of dollars, I'll stick with the most useful tool I can find. Then collect some mics that do different things :)
 
mshilarious said:
Dude, it's the opposite. The lens is far, far more important to image quality than the camera, at least assuming the cameras are of the same basic type (meaning 35mm, medium format, large format). Even so, I'm pretty sure a photographer would choose a sharp lens on a 35mm Pentax K1000 over a crap lens on an 8x10 camera.
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Depends. In analog photography, the lens is just about the only thing that matters. It's 99% lens, 0% camera, 1% film. The camera has no effect on the photo quality unless it's in an auto mode, while the quality of film stock has comparable effect to the pres---good film stock won't make the image much worse, while bad film stock will.

In digital photography, the equation changes a lot because the film stock is replaced by an electronic sensor, which has lower resolution than film. Therefore, a small improvement in the camera quality can make a huge difference in photo quality, assuming a lens of sufficient quality to capture that level of detail. Thus, poor camera quality can make the image quality much, much worse. :)

That said, I do agree that pres are more like digital bodies or film stock, while lenses are more like microphones. If you really want the most optimal photos, you'll carry around dozens of prime lenses. They will produce the best quality photo for a given shot. However, because they are fixed lenses, you can't use one lens to get every shot. By contrast, most people use zoom lenses. They aren't as optimal for a particular application, but they are much more useful because they can be used on multiple sources.
 
mshilarious said:
Except it's not your thread to end, and it's not a perfect response. For example, a transformer-balanced preamp will interact with a dynamic mic. A variable input impedance preamp can also do this. Therefore, by changing the load on the mic, sometimes in complex ways, you can change the mic's signal itself.
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In a similar way, a digital camera taking a photo in RAW can adjust sensitivity to different parts of the spectrum, etc. The preamp still can't create something from nothing. It can merely choose what to emphasize. Even by increasing the loading, you are throwing away parts of the signal, and by decreasing it, you are moving closer to the actual, raw signal of the mic.
 
dgatwood said:
In a similar way, a digital camera taking a photo in RAW can adjust sensitivity to different parts of the spectrum, etc. The preamp still can't create something from nothing. It can merely choose what to emphasize. Even by increasing the loading, you are throwing away parts of the signal, and by decreasing it, you are moving closer to the actual, raw signal of the mic.
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Sure, but so does the transformer in the mic (if it has one). So does the circuit in the mic.

I have a Shure 315 with selectable output impedance. What is the "real" signal? Hi, Med, or Lo, or is it the signal off the ribbon? They are all quite different.

It's a pointless argument, because you want the entire circuit from capsule to converter (or whatever) to do what you want it to do. If we say that the preamp should only stay out of the way, that is an artificial limitation.

Also, from a practical point of view, it's nice to have a pre that can do many things, because you can minimize the need for mics to have redundant features. My main preamp is a tube/solid state hybrid with variable input impedance and selectable plate voltage. It has 0-70dB gain range, plus an attenuator on the output, variable high pass filter, and polarity reversal. Thus I never need pads or low cuts on a mic. Variable polar patterns are nice, but other than that, I can get one pre to do just about any sound I need.
 
mshilarious said:
My main preamp is a tube/solid state hybrid with variable input impedance and selectable plate voltage. It has 0-70dB gain range, plus an attenuator on the output, variable high pass filter, and polarity reversal. Thus I never need pads or low cuts on a mic. Variable polar patterns are nice, but other than that, I can get one pre to do just about any sound I need.
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Out of curiosity, what is your main pre amp?
 
Thanks to everyone involved. This has turned into a much better discussion than I had imagined. :)

Although I'm not sure if i should use Fuji or Kodak film with my Nikon U47 clone. :confused:
 
RightOnMusic said:
rule of thumb: don't take me too seriously.
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STFU you st00pid A$$

WE WILL TAKE YOU HOWEVER WE DAMN WELL SEE FIT
 
Oh! You DIDNT want us to take you seriously. Sorry, sometimes I get confused... where am I?
 
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