Mic Pre questions

[HRdrummer]

So I've been looking around for a good multi channel mic pre and realized how uneducated I am on the subject with the exception of the big guys like API and Neve Designs.

It would need to be pretty versatile, as I will be using it for drums, guitars, bass, vocals, etc for now until I get comfortable and buy some dedicated ones.

So far the API 3124+ seems to be recommended by a lot of other forums and reviews.

What would you guys suggest?

 

[phisk]

buy clean ones like rme or avid and add nebula to it => maximum flexability

 

[Ihsahn1981]

Maybe try some 500 series stuff?
Very popular and if you dont like one particular module you can
always sell it and try something else.

 

[HRdrummer]

I guess I should have also added that right now im using a pair of Presonus Firestudio project interfaces. So it would have to be able to work with them. Ive thought about getting a lunchbox with some 512c pres. Other than the obvious cost, I also wouldnt know how to integrate them together.

 

[greyskull]

Avid or rme pres?? Seriously? Piss off .
There's a great divide between what you get built in to an interface and classics like the neve or api.
Granted however on a single track basis the difference is not huge, but its another 10%, which along with everything else can help elevate the quality of your recordings. Stacked up over a record the difference is noticeable.

A lunch box is a good shout as a way of slowly adding to your arsenal without spending too much each time.

However that being said, you don't necessarily need a huge variety of pres, just good quality ones. Heck gimme a desk full of neves and I ain't gonna complain that I want an api!

Depends what sound you want. Api is quite fast and quick sounding so is great on some drums. Especially love it on toms.
It's not without its shortcomings though.
You pretty much always need the pad engaged when recording anything even vaguely loud, and the pad seems to attenuate the high end a little too.

Can't go wrong with neve. Fat fat fat, although over a record that fatness can become mud if you aren't careful.
Great river pre is magical.
Tg2 is dark gritty, loads of character
Ua610 Is kinda dark and slow, nice on bass, or sources where the high end needs raining in
Shadow hills is a nice versatile pre. Lots of character
Isa428's sound like cheap pres that are built
Into an interface.
Manleys are phenomenal. Just beautiful.
Audients are just the right amount of clean.
Millennia are crazy clean. So detailed.

That's all I can think of for now.

 

[C-Martin]

You can't go wrong with API pre's, they work great on everything really. If you end up needing to sell later, those things hold their value really well and i never see them sold for much cheaper than the price new. Good investment.

If the cost of the API is too much there's some cheaper yet still good options around. Focusrite ISA is another that comes to mind, a 428 is great but if you only need 2 pre's the new ISA Two looks cool. The 428 though can have an AD card and the ISA Two can't, the converters are good so it's worth considering. Cheaper option still would be Audient Mico, at 600$ i doubt you'll find a better pair of preamps with builtin AD via S/PSIF. The converters on the audient would be better than the presonus ones.

What's your budget? And are you looking to use the pre's with the presonus converters or do you want a pre with built in AD to bypass the presonus?

 

[greyskull]

Ignore him ^^^^

The ISA's are toilet

 

[C-Martin]

Avid or rme pres?? Seriously? Piss off .
There's a great divide between what you get built in to an interface and classics like the neve or api.
Granted however on a single track basis the difference is not huge, but its another 10%, which along with everything else can help elevate the quality of your recordings. Stacked up over a record the difference is noticeable.

A lunch box is a good shout as a way of slowly adding to your arsenal without spending too much each time.

However that being said, you don't necessarily need a huge variety of pres, just good quality ones. Heck gimme a desk full of neves and I ain't gonna complain that I want an api!

Depends what sound you want. Api is quite fast and quick sounding so is great on some drums. Especially love it on toms.
It's not without its shortcomings though.
You pretty much always need the pad engaged when recording anything even vaguely loud, and the pad seems to attenuate the high end a little too.

Can't go wrong with neve. Fat fat fat, although over a record that fatness can become mud if you aren't careful.
Great river pre is magical.
Tg2 is dark gritty, loads of character
Ua610 Is kinda dark and slow, nice on bass, or sources where the high end needs raining in
Shadow hills is a nice versatile pre. Lots of character
Isa428's sound like cheap pres that are built
Into an interface.
Manleys are phenomenal. Just beautiful.
Audients are just the right amount of clean.
Millennia are crazy clean. So detailed.

That's all I can think of for now.

I agree with everything said here, especially the TG2, possibly one of my favorite pre's. I don't agree about the ISA pre's though. They're definitely nothing exciting like Chandler or Neve, quite vanilla type preamp, but i would take those over built in interface pre's any day. The features like variable impedance, HPF and AD makes it a versatile preamp to have in your studio. Impedance alone can do a whole lot to dynamic and ribbon mics. Granted i've never tried the newer ISA 428, don't know if there's any difference with the old VU meter ones. IMO they're good general purpose preamps, i woudnt want a full rack of them and i wouldn't chose them over API's but i wouldn't hesitate to use them instead of built in interface preamps.

 

[AEL89]

buy clean ones like rme or avid and add nebula to it => maximum flexability

are you being serious?!

 

[greyskull]

I agree with everything said here, especially the TG2, possibly one of my favorite pre's. I don't agree about the ISA pre's though. They're definitely nothing exciting like Chandler or Neve, quite vanilla type preamp, but i would take those over built in interface pre's any day. The features like variable impedance, HPF and AD makes it a versatile preamp to have in your studio. Impedance alone can do a whole lot to dynamic and ribbon mics. Granted i've never tried the newer ISA 428, don't know if there's any difference with the old VU meter ones. IMO they're good general purpose preamps, i woudnt want a full rack of them and i wouldn't chose them over API's but i wouldn't hesitate to use them instead of built in interface preamps.

I'm probably more inclined to be bitter as the one I owned kept fucking breaking!

 

[C-Martin]

Ignore him ^^^^

The ISA's are toilet

lol to each his own i guess.

Granted, if i had the money to chose between all those preamps and the ISA, i'd probably chose a whole bunch of other preamps before i did the ISA. On a budget though, they're really not bad pre's.

 

[C-Martin]

I'm probably more inclined to be bitter as the one I owned kept fucking breaking!

Ouch, that sucks. Never had any problems with them, but i've never owned one either. Perhaps this is why they're often sold for cheap on the used market? I've never had bad results with them though.

 

[HRdrummer]

You can't go wrong with API pre's, they work great on everything really. If you end up needing to sell later, those things hold their value really well and i never see them sold for much cheaper than the price new. Good investment.

If the cost of the API is too much there's some cheaper yet still good options around. Focusrite ISA is another that comes to mind, a 428 is great but if you only need 2 pre's the new ISA Two looks cool. The 428 though can have an AD card and the ISA Two can't, the converters are good so it's worth considering. Cheaper option still would be Audient Mico, at 600$ i doubt you'll find a better pair of preamps with builtin AD via S/PSIF. The converters on the audient would be better than the presonus ones.

What's your budget? And are you looking to use the pre's with the presonus converters or do you want a pre with built in AD to bypass the presonus?

Budget for now about $2-3k and to be honest, Im a total n00b so I really dont know what to do as far as converters. I would assume that it would be better to just bypass the presonus all together and just use it as a means to get audio to my computer. Which is a macbook pro if that makes a difference.


Thanks for all the input by the way everyone!

 

[Studdy]

Take this advice coming from someone with experience stressing over preamps, I spent like 2 years obsessing over mic preamps when I should have been spending time making great music with what i had. Im not saying a good preamp isnt worth the money because it is. Once you have great songs, great skills, and a great ear a preamp is a great tool. A mediocre engineer most likely wont notice or benefit from a highend preamp because they are expecting it to be a magic box, if the the music isnt good it doesnt matter. I personally have a great river preamp that I do love, but I could make music without it. My skills do not surpass what a "decent" preamp can achieve. I can tell you that to be honest their is something to be said about an interface that has "decent" preamps. You wont have to worry as much about great cables connecting everything. And lets be honest it's not 1985 and cheaper mic preamps arent hissy garbage with no headroom, some of these modern reasonable priced preamps sound amazing, maybe not the exact character your looking for but nothing that would get in the way of making a good song. Are you going to spend 3k on preamps to record medocre sounding drums in a medocre room and then replace the sounds with samples? Kind of a waste of buying an amazing preamp. This mic preamp thing comes up so much. I don't agree with the first statement about "buy clean ones like rme or avid and add nebula to it => maximum flexability" but i can agree with the point of using what you have until you feel the preamp is limiting you. When i got my great river it was really nice to be able to use it on certain tracks to make them "stand" apart from everything else, for example when I first got the preamp I re tracked some vox on an old song, and instantly the vocals seemed to sit on top the mix. Im not saying it wasnt "magical" because it did sound great. But with out a great song it wouldnt have made a lick of difference. Kind of ranted and raved there but im trying to save you the hours of frustration I encounted when obsessing over mic preamps. Cheers, good luck with your purchases.

 

[AboutBlank]

The ISA's are toilet

FU

I like the ISA's, really good DI also.

And the first preamp I sold very quick again was the UA610
Really disliked the (imo) muffled, slow and cloudy sound.

Totally agree to the 10% thingy though(except the UA), at first I thought it would be a night and day difference but in the end there are other (more) important things in the chain...

 

[RevoltStudios]

HUGE lover of the ISA. I have an ISA Two here that I swear by. Very nice lows and a sheen I love. It partners well in any studio that has a more Neve-esc pre. Try the Classic API stuff too. Not a GAP Pre 73 lover though.

 

[heshian46]

So your going to spend $2-3k on pre's and then run them into a presonus firestudio? I'd look into converters before you start looking into pre's.

 

[The StabbinCabin]

Aurora Lynx + RME is supposed to be heaven. That's what I want.

Vintech, Daking, True Systems, Avalon, Universal Audio, Grace, Summit Audio, Drawmer and a few other Sweetwater pre companies all offer their version of the fat/aggressive/fast/clean sound- I'd browse through that and Vintage King and google user reviews.

Warm Audio, Black Lion, Hairball, Golden Age, CLAPI, Five Fish, Seventh Circle, Chameleon Labs... that list would go on forever but these guys all make 500 series pres that I know a lot of forum members here or on GS that would back these and say they all have their place in the studio.

I only own a Eureka, but a decent "vanilla" preamp like that made a huge difference with being able to add slight comp/eq and just cleaner signal just helps things sit better.

I'd probably experiment with 500 series in your position. It would be way more fun to buy different pres one or two at a time and see what fits for you.

 

[jipchen]

I'd look at the source first. Is the drumkit good, are the guitars+amps? If so, how about the room? Then microphones, monitoring and interface/converter, and only then preamps. Just imho of course. I even agree with most things said about the different types of "character" preamps, but you should know beforehand that these differences we're talking about are very slight. very very, in fact. That doesn't mean good preamps aren't worth buying - hell I love preamps and GAS hard for them all the time - but I think other things should have priority.

Had a Presonus FP-10, and the difference in sound quality with the RME Fireface was ridiculous (monitoring as well as recording, even the same pre's sounded a lot better through the RME), haven't had that effect with preamps yet.

 

[ArthurD]

I would go for Rupert Neve. I simply love those PRES