favorite mic preamp?

[puffpastry]

G series SSL pres

You know, those things are quite simple in terms of design, and fairly inexpensive. If you're the DIY type, you could build yourself a two channel G-SSL for around $200.

vipre is pretty neat as well

Not many people seem to know about the Vipre or the Peavey tube preamp (VMP-1 I think). They're very good and can often be purchased used for pretty cheap.

[lukedavo]

NEVE V-series, ohhh mama!

[Nubus]

Originally Posted by 909one

Those Syteks sound pretty awesome too. They are super transparent with nice fast transient repsonse. Pretty much the opposite of the UA. For the money those pres are the best you can get. I have used the Hardy's.... I know they are supposed to be good, but I just didn't like em. Something not flattering about them- I used em for drum overheads once.

That is the exact opposite of what i thought. I did an a/b with my friend Rachel between Sytek and John Hardy on Snare drum. The Hardy seemed faster and more clear to my ears. Go Figure!

[909one]

Yeah, I think the thing about the Hardy's that i didn't like was that they were too transparent, if there's such a thing. It could have been the source though, the room wasn't greatest.

[johnS]

I bet that's what a lot of us really want from our mic pres--not so much much "clean" or "transparent" but "flattering." Especially for those of us who don't record in studios, the room sound is something we don't necessarily want to pick up so much. Or if we do, we want it to sound good (the ideal we have in our heads) instead of realistic (the not-so-ideal reality of our practice spaces and bedrooms). Any pres come with a "flattering" circuit?

[puffpastry]

Any pres come with a "flattering" circuit?

It's funny--I had a conversation with John Hardy one time where he was telling me that people would complain that his preamps had no low end, because they were so flat.

When I think of a "colored" (flattering, even?) sound, I think of something that will accent the signal in some way, hopefully one that will be sonically pleasing. As you can imagine, there is always more than one way to skin a cat--there are different approaches to "coloration," so to speak. Often people lump transparent and colored into the "tube" and "solid state" categories, which isn't necessarily true. For example, I mentioned the API in an earlier thread--it's a solid state design, and it's definitely colored--in fact I would go so far as to say that the circuit is intentionally designed to create coloration.

In the opposite sense, I think of the Presonus-ADL mic preamp. That thing has got an incredible sonic image--it's hard to believe the signal is even mono because it presents such a dimensional sonic picture (no wonder it's 8 billion dollars).

[johnS]

Yeah, that PreSonus thing is lust-worthy.

Scope it: http://www.presonus.com/adl600designoverview.html

There's also the new Neve stuff, the Portico line. The preamp has a "silk" button that is supposed to apply some "flattering" magic to the high end. Rupert Neve is 80 years old now, so he probably can't actually hear much high end these days, but ya gotta believe he knows what makes it nice, circuit-wise.

[puffpastry]

Yeah, that PreSonus thing is lust-worthy.

That thing has headroom for miles. I figured out that it was something like 56dB of headroom, which is phenomenal for a preamp. Consider that most of the other "world class" preamps out there usually run around 30-35dB of headroom (or the mbox, which has a whopping 9.5dB). All of that comes at a price, I suppose.

[UuB Nijam]

Gimme Avalon or Focurite anyday and I'm in love yo!

[Whoopysnorp]

I'm wondering about the Focusrite Octopre. I wouldn't mind having 8 good preamps in a box.