Is a mic pre-amp worth it? (in my case..)

[16S]

Hi,

Because i record in my basement (and my Cubase machine is two floors up) i do all mic'd recording (mainly vox & guitar) into a portable ZOOM MRS-8 digital SD card recorder and then export all the resulting .wavs into Cubase.

Please could you advise me on the following: If i purchase a pre-amp such as an Art Tube Mp studio V3 or Presonus TubePre or SM Pro TC01 or something else around £100 and will my recordings benefit? The signal will still be going thru the ZOOM so i wonder if any quality gained from the 'out-board' will be lost once entering the ZOOM's input stage?

cheers \m/

 

[16S]

???

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I honestly don't know. I have a presonus tube pre and it really didn't improve shit. But then again how transparent are your preamps? Because in the $100 range I imagine the only benifit of an outbard preamp is coloring your tone. If you had a bit more money to blow I imagine it would be a different story.

Pic up a used cheapy preamp and try it for yourself.

 

[16S]

thanks,
in truth thats what i probably will do for the sake of 50-100quid.
However i guess my fundamental lack of understanding still begs the question:
With higher end recording rigs, is the sound card just a set of quality inputs and the pre amp comes purely from outboard gear?
Because if the answer is yes then it won't really matter what outboard gear i put in front of the Zoom. The cheap input stage will still take a crap on the signal ....right??

 

[Metaltastic]

Well the two main determiners in sound quality are the quality of preamps and the quality of A/D converters. Premium schtuff has killer converters, and in the case of, say, the RME Fireface, pretty good pre-amps as well.

 

[colonel kurtz]

honestly....running a $100-150 preamp into your little digital device and then into cubase probably won't give much of a noticeable improvement

 

[16S]

cheers guys
I am seeing sense now. Crappy Zoom + Cheapy pre map = crap
Problem is i am running Cubase with a crappy sound blaster input. Guess i will just keep trying to get the best sound i can with the Zoom until i can afford a better rig.

regards,

 

[Aaron Smith]

I can sell you my Presonus TubePRE for $100 if you'd like