Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

[ratherdashing]

I've got a Presonus Firestudio 2626 with eight mic pre's on it. It's a great unit with nice AD conversion, and the pre's are pretty good on the whole. However, after experiencing the glory of running UA and Neve pre's into the Firestudio, I do think that there are quite a few situations where I'd like to have something really cool, or at least different, to use as a mic pre in my home studio.

Here is the bullet point summary of my needs:

- one or two channel
- ability to handle a variety of mics (dynamic, condenser, ribbon)
- not heavily coloured, but not sterile either
- used primarily on vocals, acoustic guitar, and electric guitar
- phantom power
- ADAT out a nice-to-have, but not essential
- affordable, but not junky

If money were no object, I'd get a Chandler Abbey Road or a UA 2-610, but I don't really feel like selling a kidney right now.

What have you guys used?

[innerdreamrecords.co]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

I think there are some descent Neve knock offs, then there is Grace, Joe Meek (bang for buck), Summit

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/2BA221/

I have a MindPrint which is descent.

Believe it or not the Line6 Studio interfaces with their software emulations of Neve, API and others sound pretty damn good for software.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

Hmm, when it comes to bang-for-the-buck, I really like the Golden Age Project Pre 73. It is a Neve 1073 clone. I have two of 'em.

http://www.zenproaudio.com/goldenagepre-73.aspx

[trevorus]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

ART Tube MP Studio V3. Simple, easy, inexpensive.

http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp?type=79&cat=1&id=58

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

ART Tube MP Studio V3. Simple, easy, inexpensive.

http://www.artproaudio.com/products....79&cat=1&id=58

But not very good ...

[trevorus]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

But not very good ...

Eh, he said bang for buck. Truthfully, I'd go the simple, original Tube MP. Just a tube and a pretty quiet pre. I have a Behringer one, and it was pretty ok. If you are talking about nicer studio level units, there are a TON. Avalon makes some cool stuff.

[Hellion]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

Presonus Blue Tube

[ratherdashing]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

Hmm, when it comes to bang-for-the-buck, I really like the Golden Age Project Pre 73. It is a Neve 1073 clone. I have two of 'em.

http://www.zenproaudio.com/goldenagepre-73.aspx

You had me at Neve 1073. That's really cool. Thanks!

ART Tube MP Studio V3. Simple, easy, inexpensive.

http://www.artproaudio.com/products....79&cat=1&id=58

I had an ART Pro Channel for a while. I never really liked it much. The best application I found for it was to overdrive a kick drum. Since it had such low headroom it clipped quite nicely. Not exactly the kind of thing you want in a standard mic pre, however.

[Jolly_Rancher]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

You said "ability to handle ribbon mics" so I don't think anything listed so far has that ability (maybe the Golden Age has the gain?). I'd build some SCA preamps, but I don't know what your budget is, so I'm not sure if that's out of your price-range or not.

[ratherdashing]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

You said "ability to handle ribbon mics" so I don't think anything listed so far has that ability (maybe the Golden Age has the gain?). I'd build some SCA preamps, but I don't know what your budget is, so I'm not sure if that's out of your price-range or not.

Ribbon is low on the priority list. If the Golden Age is truly a Neve clone I'm sure it would do fine. In any case, there's always the Cloudlifter for situations like that: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CL1Cloud/

[Jolly_Rancher]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

Ribbon is low on the priority list. If the Golden Age is truly a Neve clone I'm sure it would do fine. In any case, there's always the Cloudlifter for situations like that: http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CL1Cloud/

That certainly looks like a handy contraption...

I'd use the term "clone" lightly as neve's are all about the perfectly manufactured components and all that jazz, and this golden age is made overseas somewhere with some unknown transformers. However, they're supposed to be pretty good for the money. Even better than that Pre-73 might be this:

http://www.zenproaudio.com/truesystemsp-solo.aspx

[GuitarStv]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

FMR Audio makes a preamp they call a 'Really Nice Preamp'. It's a solid quality 2-channel preamp that sounds very good . . . but doesn't have any bells and whistles:
http://www.fmraudio.com/rnp.htm

One of my friends makes beautiful classical recordings of local groups with it. It's ugly, but is probably the best bang for the buck preamp that I've heard.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

The Golden Age has 80 dB of gain; plenty for a ribbon mic. The True is a very nice piece, I have one, but it's very transparent. You cannot drive the input transformer like you can on the GA. To me, bang for the buck means you get MORE than $1's worth of performance from every Dollar you spend. The Real Nice Preamp is supposed to be quite good but I've yet to try one.

[everdrone]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

for vocals,
I used the Line6 Studio interfaces podfarm and got good results, I also like the plugin voxango voxformer for compression and tone
$100 for podfarm gx silver (on sale)
$40 for voxango plugin

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

FMR Audio makes a preamp they call a 'Really Nice Preamp'. It's a solid quality 2-channel preamp that sounds very good . . . but doesn't have any bells and whistles:

http://www.fmraudio.com/rnp.htm

One of my friends makes beautiful classical recordings of local groups with it. It's ugly, but is probably the best bang for the buck preamp that I've heard.

I have actually used and heard results from those RNPs - while I was taking Audio Engineering classes at Virginia Tech.

Our professor hated them, because they boggled him with how good they sounded and performed. He was big into every little detail of preamps, and he told us that he "hates the RNP because it causes tens of thousands of dollars of gear to collect dust."

He was not just a hack local engineer, either.