Looking for Mic Pre(s) Suggestions

jherman

I lurk, A LOT.
Jul 25, 2004
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Hey all,

I've been snooping around and doing some reading although I cannot seem to make a decision. I've been looking at a lot of UA products and was curious what your favorites are?

price range 1.5k-3k

Thanks!

-J
 
Converters would be those included in the digi 003 and Mackie 32-8 (which i'll be replacing both shortly)
mics are pretty standard studio stuff (Rode ntk, Sennheiser 421s, Shure Sm7b, 57, couple audix etc. no boutiques for me yet!)
I unfortunately have very little outboard gear, just a Focusrite ISA One, but, I'm attempting to change that!
 
You can buy my RME UFX if you want a new interface. As far as pre's go, Something like a A2D would step up your pre's and converters. You didn't mention how manny channels you want.
 
My favorite preamp options are the API 3124+ or API A2D and the Daking "The Mic Pre IV". Heard lots of good stuff about the Vintech preamps, but never actually used them.
The UA preamps are great for vocals and bass, but not so much on drums and guitars - imho. All the differences are just nuances really, I wouldn't consider really expensive preamps a must, even though they are nice to have. A rock solid and not so expensive option would be the Audient ASP008 (either with ADAT or without, depending on your future interface) or the RME Octamic II.

For interfaces, my choice was (and still is) the Fireface UFX. Depending on how much channels etc you need the UCX might be an option, both of them are USB+FW compatible.
Metric Halo interfaces are great, i.e. the I/O 2882 but it is for Mac + Firewire only. The Universal Audio Apollo interfaces seem great too, but you need Thunderbolt or Firewire.
Edit: Completely forgot the SSL XLogic Alpha Link AX, if you're using a tower PC or Mac. You'll need a PCIe interface (RME, SSL, etc) for that, though.
 
You can buy my RME UFX if you want a new interface. As far as pre's go, Something like a A2D would step up your pre's and converters. You didn't mention how manny channels you want.

+1

You can use the A2D's AD via SPDIF on your Digi003. But the best option would probably to get a new interface with some good stock pre's in it. Pres are quite overrated anyways!
 
I swear on my BAE 1073 MP preamp. It's a Neve clone that's build like a tank and sounds amazing. Drive it a little and you get that "Neve sweetness" easily. It also has a DI and a line input to "reamp" your tracks. Run all tracks through it to let everything sound like it has been recorded on a big Neve console :).
Particularily dynamic mics (like your MD421, SM57, SM7b) seem to benefit the most from the preamp.

But... what's wrong with your ISA One? The ISA One is a fine preamp and (AFAIK) can be retrofitted with A/D-conversion to bypass the converters of your 003.

And another option would be to keep your 003 and get an 8-channel mic pre with ADAT connection to plug into the ADAT-input of your 003 (which bypasses the preamps AND converters of the 003).
 
For ~$2k you can get a Seventh Circle Audio rack full of their A12 modules, which are API clones and sound every bit as good as the 3124+ for much, much cheaper.

Unlike the other guys recommending it here, I wouldn't suggest the RME UFX. I owned one for about a month and after numerous blind shootouts between it and my Saffire Pro 40, I ended up sending it back. For that kind of money, I was expecting a big upgrade, but the conversion was marginally better, the DIs were about the same and the pres were about the same, stability and latency on the UFX was WAY worse than my Pro 40 (weird for RME units, I'll admit), plus I lost 4 preamps. About the only thing I liked about it was the DSP.

Ended up selling the Pro 40 after buying an SSL AlphaLink and RME PCI card, that totally kills the RME in conversion and stability, has a lot more channrls, and cost me less money on the used market.
 
API 3124 and a Sytek MP4X would land around $3k or less. 4 channels each. You probably don't need 8 channels of the 'best' stuff, so I'd recommend getting 4 of something really good and filling out the rest with something simple, high quality and clean, like the Sytek.