Ableton Forum

Hi all I am looking at buying a versatile pre amp, mainly for vocal. I am looking at spending around $3000. Any recommends. Or what should I be looking for in a great pre amp. Unfortunately my local store owners arent keen in bringing in every pre amp for me to try.

Great River MP2NV

its actually 2 pre's, but why have one when you can have 2 at twice the price?

anyway, its the awesomest pre i've ever recorded with. look into it.

http://www.greatriverelectronics.com/pr ... =19&type=0

3000 for a preamp? mono or stereo?

most of the modern highend preamps are shit.. or lets say.. shameless overpriced..

I do rackings of vintage modules like some other guys.. if you want colour and charakter you are better of with one of theese original antiques.. because they keep theire value while any modern copy of a classical preamp design will loose value within 2 years by half.. the market is saturated with this "crap"

If you want to spend money .. a neve 1081 or 1073 comes at least with a good eq in the package and do a great job..

but.. because they are no secret tips you will have to use your budget on them..

however..as an industry highend standard they keep theire value..

and i highly recomend to stay with standards.. or go for rare vintage gems..

all the modern copys are on the longterm a waste of money..


I ve a single unit of a rare german germanium pre that sounds great... but as long i dont find someone that likes a single unit i have to wait to find find a second one of them...

such a unit racked with highend funk power supply would be maybe 900 euro in mono and 1300 in stereo

same applys to the neuman v476 pre.. actually one of the best mic pres ever build..
and especially good on neumann mics.. (what a surprise


nice are of cause the rare valvestuff ... everybody knows the v76...
some other are out there that are even better but i dont mention the names..

a stereo unit of such stuff with power supply and output attentuator.. (some like to drive them hot) is rather in the 5000 area for a refurbed stereo pair with NOS valves..

In case of vintage stuff its better to buy them original and let them service and rack by guys that know the stuff.. which are actually the guys you dont find with splashy web pages.. at least what i ve seen from the splashy webpage guys reminds often ti vandalism

problem with most of the refurbished vintage modules is that the guys that are doing the jobs are most of the time no sound engineers or knowledeged enough in vintage electronics and actually destroy the modules designed sound by using the wrong parts... or in case of valve modules destroing the optics of the circuis because they dont have acces to original parts.. they say that NOS parts can die any minute because they are old ... a valid argument.. however..theese old parts was designed to last forever..while the new parts are designed to last 3 years... and if one really like the old modules.. you allways can build a new component inside the housing of an old one just to keep the optics intact..

if you think this kind of action is not necessary? depends.. on a fairchild you bought for 8k and want to sell for 15 k it defenetly matters if the interia was vandalized or rebuild with LUV

a refurbishemnt has to rise the value of a module and not render it down.. so if its done wright it pleases the collector and the professional user.. while most of the refurbishments are done in ways where no collektor would touch the module anymore...

however.. buy a neve.. they are liked by all and because ther are no rare parts inside they usually surrive the refurbishment pretty well.. some decend clones are on the market too.. but an original is allways the better investment

Heaps to think about, thanks

i bought a sound devices 302 5 years ago and i use it as a pre-amp for my lynx soundcard.
some weeks later i purchased the usbpre from the same company.

unfortunately they didn't relase a driver for win7 64,only 32 bit,my usbpre was therefore some months in my cupboard.
some weeks ago i purchased a eee pc and i now i can use the usbpre with the win starter edition.
today my casecrown bag arrived and i'm happy to solved all my needs.
i can make professional recordings mobile or at home.

it's a great setup.

API, although they are very much a character pre, so if you want tonal neutrality look at something like Great River or Avalon.

Great River pres are big favourites of engineers at Gearslutz. Cranesong's Flamingo is a great pre in the price range the OP is talking.

I disagree that expensive pres are like crap - like anything else you need to do your research and try a few but there are plenty of excellent pres which do sound a cut above.

Mercenary Audio and Vintage King Audio are retail outlets to look at for higher end mic pres/converters/hardware compressors etc

http://www.mercenary.com/micpres1.html
http://www.vintageking.com/Recording/Mic-Pre

Go with the Behringer MIC800.





Hell yes I'm kidding!

Focusrite ISA series.

In your trials, don't forget to check the Manley Voxbox