Mic PreAmps... Any Suggestions?

[kingofficial]

I'm looking to build up my equipment to where my vocals sound crisp! So far i have : Event Studio Monitors, M-Audio Firewire Solo Recording Interface, & MXL V88 Microphone, & the 21.5 Inch LED 16.9 Widescreen iMAC .

Looking to get a solid preamp asap!

Any plugs?

[H20nly]

another poster recommended this one a couple of days ago.


http://www.amazon.com/ART-Tube-Studio-M ... B0002E50MC

he swears by it... and for the price you can afford to try it.

[invol]

For the money ART is hard to beat, especially the Pro MPA. You can get one new for about $250 and used for $150. They used list for $799 many years ago, before everything got cheap to build.

If you have some cash, then your options are numerous. Just decide what you want out of it - i.e., transparent, color, both, etc...

Give me a price range and more info and I can suggest something more specific...

[MacGuffin]

nice preamps under 500$ :
-Golden Age Project Pre73
-Focusrite ISA One


I also have an ART Tube-Pre but it's not very good. It can be fun on some sources, sometimes...

[memes_33]

yeah those ART preamps aren't that great- lots of noise. they aren't even really "tube preamps"- i think the gain is all solid state, then they throw a tube at the end for "color" and marketing reasons.

i've heard a lot of good things about the Golden Age Pre73- basically a very affordable Neve rip-off.

[invol]

Re: ART, i too would NOT recommend the one in the link above, but the Pro MPA is actually pretty good.

[agent314]

I've said it before, but the ART Tube Pre is hands down the piece of gear with the best price-to-quality ratio of anything I own - but really, that's pretty easy given that it's only 30 bucks. It sounds very decent for the price though - way smoother and cleaner than any of the $50 ones I've tried.

I wouldn't recommend it as a serious primary pre-amp for someone looking to outfit their home studio, but it sounds great for the cost, especially putting guitars/basses through it when using amp sims. I get significantly more picking dynamic with it than I do using my audio interface's built-in pres, which sound pretty good on their own.

Definitely gets noisy at high gain though (i.e. with the +20db switch on), but that could also be a factor of my electrical wiring.