tube pre-amp into audio interface

[rol123]

Hi

Anyone that wants to help please feel free.

I recently purchased a tube mic preamp to give my vocals a fuller and richer sound. This phantom powered signal then goes from the tube preamp to a balanced 'mic in' on my audio interface (phantom powered, with the phantom power off), and finally via USB to my pc.
Now, here's a simple question (hopefully for some). Since the phantom power on the audio interface is turned off, would the sound still be influenced by the quality of the interface during recording ? (I am using an slightly older m-audio mobil pre).

thanks,
Roland

[lividone]

Hi rol,

I've tried this before ,believe it or not, and probably pretty close to your setup.

I originally bought an M-Audio Duo some time ago ( 2003ish maybe? ), played around with it for awhile and quit before really mixing anything.

When I picked up recording again, and started getting into VSTi's (specifically DFH Superior) , I noticed the latency was way to high to trigger the instruments via MIDI real-time.

At that time I also had purchased an ART Tube MP single pre to try to **** up the stale sound of my bargain bucket consenser ( AKG perception 200 ).

Since the latency was such an issue for drum triggering I purchased an RME Multiface ( rock-solid at 64 and even 32 samples ).

Anyway, my setup went from an M-Audio Duo straight to Mic....to RME AD/DA to ART MP to Mic. At some point in between I did have the ART run to the M-Audio interface while still using the M-audio as the main interface before I bought the RME. After I bought the RME, at one point, I tried adding the M-Audio back into the chain between the ART and the RME.

In the end, the differences were EXTREMELY subtle.

In all honesty I couldn't be sure that the differences weren't due to mic placement or just performance in general but it did seem like having the extra pre ( with phantom off ) smoothed it out a miniscule amount..not necessarily in a good or bad way.

Point is, even if it does impart some small character ( and I mean small ), it can easily be remedied at the source with different mic placement, changing the source (i.e. amp settings,etc) or giving the EQ a bit of a notch.

It may have some effect on transients and harmonics, but if that's the case I didn't hear it. ( Or maybe I just suck? ...pretty likely )

And for the record my higher quality interface had minimal, if any, effect on the overall sound. I only kept it for the speed and stability.



( P.S. So I guess W-A-R-M is a naughty 4 letter word now? )