Favorite Pre

[DogpitStudios]

I have no experience with pre-amps. I can't even heard the difference between the good ones. In fact I can't hear the difference between the alright ones and the good ones. Only time I did hear it was between my audiobuddy and dmp3. This thread is for all of you to post your favorite pres, the pres you have, or just pres in general that I should maybe look at. I know about 7 different ones, and would like to jump into this a bit better.

Thanks guys

Ben

[Nicholas G.]

Whats your favorite note on the piano ?

[Nicholas G.]

I meant key

[Nicholas G.]

I don't think there is such a thing as a favorite or a best pre, the choice depends on what you're trying to achieve... assuming you're lucky enough to have the choice. And if you want to buy one it depends on how much cash you're prepare to spend, if it's going to be a pre used for everything, or mostly used for some particular task...
it depends also of what you already have...
Great pres are great pres
API are great (for drums and..lots of stuff)
Neve telefunken and their clones are great too.
Focusrite red, Amek, Hardy are rather all-round
Grace, Millenia, GMLare great in the clean section
tube tech, fearn, vipre, Universal Audio 610, ADL for tubes
sytek and JML, rnp, in the cheaper section
pheonix audio
Avalon...
MCI desks, Studer desks...
but then your signal is just as good as the weakest element in your recording chain, if your converters are crap your mic is shitty and you record in a bad-sounding room... and on top of it the instrument sounds awful or out of tune, and the player is not tight .... then behringer or mackie will be the wiser choice. because the fortune you wont waste on a boutique-pre will increase the sound of your recordings more significantly if spent on improving your room acoustics, your microphone collection...instruments collection. Ihave seen people complaining about the sound of their brand new avalon pre when they were recording an ovation piece of sh*t guitar, sounding like plastic, with lots of fret buzz. if it doesnt sound good in the room, its not gonna sound good through any pre... And the cheap pres are actually not that bad considering the price they cost.
you say "I cant hear the differences", but no one can if its through budget speakers in a non treated room.
on a single track.
but every one can hear the differences in a real world-class control room, with 24 tracks of the same pre stacked together.
Nick

[DogpitStudios]

Originally Posted by Nicholas G.

I don't think there is such a thing as a? favorite or a best pre, the choice depends on what you're trying to achieve...

If I was asking what the best pre was, then this thread would be called best pre. Rather I was asking what peoples favorite pres were that they have had hands on experience with and why. I understand that It is your opinion that there is no best pre and you have no favorites because they do different things. In fact in many ways this should be everyones opinion, but I'm sure plenty of people out there are gonna toss one pre on most applications rather than an other.

Good post though

Ben

[brandondrury]

Here are my thoughts:


<a href="http://www.recordingreview.com/artic...'s">Preamp
Fundamentals I Learned At Michael Wagener's </a>

Brandon

[dach]

I totally agree with Nicholas but let me say this.... Many of the albums I feel sound the "best" were cut on desks to analog tape... No racks of pres... just a console.... Now some of those desk manufacturers that were used on those recordings sell the separate components and some have had their desks chopped up and people made pre's/eq's/etc out of them. The two I'm referring to and have used alot are API and Neve. I have not had a lot of time with GML but when I did it was awesome... very different from the other two... I've used several of the others (and own a couple of them) but I feel the job can be done just fine with the same pre or using a desk. Siemens comes to mind as the coolest "pre" I've ever heard but I don't own any...

If I had to pick up some pre's for tracking a wide variety of things I would definitely go with the API 200-500 series or the Neve route (not 1272 though). I don't cut as much hard rock as you guys so I went the API route myself although many times I definitely want a more thick/slower pre.... but API has worked fine for me. When I want to change the way the API's sound, I'll plug it into an old limiter even if I don't need to ... (I have 1176's, 1178, LA4's) and they change the sound. I also have the UAD cards. The plugs are close to the real thing and much cleaner than my units but not decidedly better sounding. My unit's are definitey not laboratory grade so they may add a touch of "character" I can't get with the plugs...

If you have the same source and record it with different pres - you should hear the difference... unless you have room issues, monitoring issues, or are just learning how to "listen" to timbre/etc..... it may be frequency content, clarity, hardness, fuzziness, any number and combination of things... You can tell a huge difference when everything is combined but the difference is still there in the solo'd track... you won't however be able to tell shit after micing up a guy beating the shit out of his drums... or standing in the same room as a Marshall going full blast... always protect your ears so you can hear what's going on...

Brandon's finally seeing (hearing) the light... he's probably going to credit card himself to death in the near future!

So the summary of all this bullshit I just wrote is buy something that has a sound that's tried and true and works well with the music you work with.... Over time you'll see the value of using different stuff but you can't go wrong with the API/Neve stuff. I've been thinking about picking up one of the "big daddy's" from OSA to try and get what I'm missing because I'm sure as hell not going to spend $4k on 1 preamp that may need repair.

[brandondrury]

Yes, I do get the preamp thing now.

The preamp thing is subtle and huge at the same time. The biggest lesson I've learned thus far is that recording is not simply putting a mic in front of a band. It has a resolution of about 1,000,000 times that. In other words, every last detail has to be looked at an analized. When you get every part of the chain just right, you will hear magic.

The biggest problem that I think my mixes have had is a cloudiness. This comes from using a Vintech 1272 on nearly everything. That is NOT the kind of preamp that you want on everything. Wagener was talking about the Vipre preamp. He LOVES it on vocals, bass, and kick drum (with a subkick). He said that if you used it on everything, you wouldn't be able to mix the record. It would be just to much "big stuff" and nothing would fit.

We sat down yesterday. Wagener asked, "Do you think we should just go back to using a console for recording?". I said, "Why not? If the song is happening?". He said to assume that the great song is a given. He asked, "Can we improve a recording buy using certain preamps for certain tasks?". To me the answer is 100% yes if you have the time and resources to make that happen.

One last thing. I've been big into running off and on my whole adult life. Last summer (just before I started this site) I decided to really hit it hard and see how fast I could run a mile. The first day I started running, I was dreadfully out of shape and had to walk quite a bit. Over time, I got faster and faster and faster. Then I hit a plateau. I started figuring out ways that I could cut my time even more. I was stuck at running a mile in 5 min 50 sec for the longest time. Then I realized that I had the wrong shoes. I was able to get my time down to 5min 45sec. Then I figured out that if I run on cool nights, I could get down to 5min 42 sec or so. Then I figured out that if I could eat a little less on running days, I could save another second or two. If I ran with my shirt off I could save another second or two. THIS THE SAME WAY THAT PREAMPS WORK!! Every little preamp gives you a little something hear and makes a little room there. However, at the end the mix, you may be WAY ahead.

Brandon

[Ronan Chris Murphy]

For general stuff, I am really loving the A Designs MP-1 and the A Designs Pacifica a ton. I just had Terry Bozzio in my studio last week and we did the whole session with just A Design mic pres. For supper clean stuff I am a big fan of Millinea.

[brandondrury]

A Designs Pacifica

We liked this preamp on a number of things in our various shootouts. With Wagener's intimidating preamp collection, it never won for any one instrument, but it did some very nice things on most instruments. It scored well on just about everything.

My next pres are going to be GML. They are reallly clean, but they do SOMETHING to the sound that I like. They are very aggressive. They do something cool on drums as they are very fast, but did a great job on guitars too. I liked them alot. Compared to the other fast pres, these were the best on guitars and RMS type of stuff. Of course, for most RMS stuff the colored pres are the way to go.

For me, the whole pre thing is important mostly because of the relatively small space we have to cram all sorts of instruments into. If I was recording just an acoustic guitar and nothing else, I don't think the pre would be all that critical. Important, but not nearly as important as an acoustic guitar's pres in a dense mix. The idea is giving each instrument it's space in the mix and the pres help do that.

However, I don't think there are than many pres that will make or break a song. I had an idea to do a 30 preamp shootout on every instrument and then track the song with the best pres for each source and the last pres for each source just to see how the song turned out. There is a difference between a Pacifica and a Chandler TG-2. The difference is very subtle if you are not even sure you like the tone of the guitar in the room.

Brandon