Good Mic Preamp Under $1,000

[teleman78]

Hey guys, I have my eye on a Universal Audio Solo 610, any others I should be considering? I will be using this for vocals, acoustic & electric guitars. I record using the following mics: Audix i5, Audio Technica 2020 and SE Electeonics SE4400a through an Apogee Duet.

Thanks in advance,

 

[64Strat]

I have the UA 610 SOLO and its great! My vocalist has a Golden Age Project Pre 73, which is good but we both think the UA 610 SOLO is better.

You're on the right track with the UA.

 

[Geoff738]

Sytek (4 inputs), Daking. You might be able to get a single channel of one of the BAE models for about that.

In the made overseas cloneish stuff, there the Gap (Nevey) and Warm audio (Api-ish). I have not personally heard the Warm.

There's also the FMR one, which again, I haven't heard.

If you want to get into the 500 series form factor, there is oodles of stuff. Some of which might fall within your budget, particularly if you went for a one or two slot unit.

Cheers,
Geoff

 

[Old Cane]

The 610 is a great one. You can't go wrong with UA. I've been eyeing a 710. I have a Great River and love it. BAE/Neve is another one I've been looking at but I'd want the full eq so it's a good bit more for either.

 

[Fran Guidry]

Hey guys, I have my eye on a Universal Audio Solo 610, any others I should be considering? I will be using this for vocals, acoustic & electric guitars. I record using the following mics: Audix i5, Audio Technica 2020 and SE Electeonics SE4400a through an Apogee Duet.

Thanks in advance,

In what way are the built-in preamps of the Duet inadequate?

I absolutely understand the urge to buy "stuff." I've spent thousands of dollars on guitars, cameras, and recording gear. If the "stuff" I bought didn't address some specific limitation or function, it didn't contribute one iota to the result. I didn't play any better, get better pictures, or make better recordings.

Fran

 

[teleman78]

In what way are the built-in preamps of the Duet inadequate?

I absolutely understand the urge to buy "stuff." I've spent thousands of dollars on guitars, cameras, and recording gear. If the "stuff" I bought didn't address some specific limitation or function, it didn't contribute one iota to the result. I didn't play any better, get better pictures, or make better recordings.

Fran

I'm a music production student at Full Sail University on my last year. I want to be able to record more than decent vocals at my home studio. I want to be as self-contained as I can. I also know that great gear can't make up for the lack of a skill or talent. I honestly believe in my skills and talent this is why I'm investing in it. Just like people put their eggs on a specific basket and you wonder why? What didn't work for you does not mean won't work for the next guy. I disagree with you when you say better recording gear does not get you better results... Of course it does!! Unless you have a hearing problem it is just the way it is, better recording gear does get you better sound capture therefore better recordings. I understand that skill and talent also come into the equation and that is why I'm making the effort to improve my set up, if you have more skills and better equipment and on top of that you got the talent then you might actually create something special. This is where I'm at.

Regarding your question about the Duet being in inadequate, it is in no way inadequate however, for vocals, particularly for the vocalists I'm currently working with, I wish it could be warmer sounding. It is just an excellent transparent sound. I need the "color" for this purpose. That should answer your question.

 

[killer]

4400a + ua610 = warm and very clean sound!
Go for it

 

[teleman78]

4400a + ua610 = warm and very clean sound!
Go for it

Thank you! I got the 4400a mic yesterday. I went to Guitar Center and saw out of the corner of my eye that they had a 610 used for $599.00 I immediately grabbed it. I wanted to take it home but they said since it was just traded in by one of their customers there is like a grace period where they can't sell it, so I put a down payment on it and is currently on hold for me. I can pick it up on 11/21... I can't wait to try this new set up out.

 

[Fran Guidry]

I'm a music production student at Full Sail University on my last year. I want to be able to record more than decent vocals at my home studio. I want to be as self-contained as I can. I also know that great gear can't make up for the lack of a skill or talent. I honestly believe in my skills and talent this is why I'm investing in it. Just like people put their eggs on a specific basket and you wonder why? What didn't work for you does not mean won't work for the next guy. I disagree with you when you say better recording gear does not get you better results... Of course it does!! Unless you have a hearing problem it is just the way it is, better recording gear does get you better sound capture therefore better recordings. I understand that skill and talent also come into the equation and that is why I'm making the effort to improve my set up, if you have more skills and better equipment and on top of that you got the talent then you might actually create something special. This is where I'm at.

Regarding your question about the Duet being in inadequate, it is in no way inadequate however, for vocals, particularly for the vocalists I'm currently working with, I wish it could be warmer sounding. It is just an excellent transparent sound. I need the "color" for this purpose. That should answer your question.

Hey, I understand that you're experiencing gear lust, and that you've been told over and over that you must have magic boxes and magic mics.

But think about this for a moment. When you say you want a "warm" sound, what does that mean? How will you know when you have a warm sound? Do you have a mental image of what a warm sound sounds like?

OK - once you have that mental image, what can you do with what you have now to get that sound? Is it a bit of a bump at 400 and a little dip at 7k? Or is it a touch of saturation on the peaks? Maybe a bit of compression? Perhaps a combination of all those? Or simply different mic placement??

Whatever it is, you can achieve it with your existing gear and software, and when you do you will have added to your knowledge, your skill, which will be part of you whenever you record, wherever you record, regardless of the gear at your disposal.

I disagree with you when you say better recording gear does not get you better results... Of course it does!! Unless you have a hearing problem it is just the way it is, better recording gear does get you better sound capture therefore better recordings.

Obviously you can insult me again, and you can make assertions without supporting evidence, but I spent many thousands of dollars on gear as I was trying to learn about recording, I upgraded a/d converters and preamps and mics multiple times, I bought the latest flavor of the week magic box multiple times, and my recordings didn't get any better.

Perhaps your experience will be different. I wish you all the best.

Fran

 

[teleman78]

Fran, didn't mean to offend you but I got a little irritated at the fact some people keep saying gear does not make a difference. Let me just put it to you this way, are you going to tell me that a $150 Squire piece of crap made in China sounds and plays the same or better than a $2000 Custom Shop strat? The same thing applies to recording gear... I had an Avid MBOX for a while, after comparing it to the Duet the difference is abysmal, the MBOX was a joke once I heard the DUET, so I can go on and on.. I just want to have the right tools for the job and it is up to me to make it work, bottom line. I guess it really comes down to the human touch. I offer you my apologies if I offended you it was not my intention. Thanks for your comments and wishes.

 

[killer]

Sure it is the UA solo610 tube gain adds some bass harmonics and do not sound like a focusrite isa one pre.
So that's what I meant for warm

 

[Old Cane]

I also know that great gear can't make up for the lack of a skill or talent.

Oh, you're going to go far. Some people never ever get there.

 

[Fran Guidry]

Fran, didn't mean to offend you but I got a little irritated at the fact some people keep saying gear does not make a difference. Let me just put it to you this way, are you going to tell me that a $150 Squire piece of crap made in China sounds and plays the same or better than a $2000 Custom Shop strat? The same thing applies to recording gear... I had an Avid MBOX for a while, after comparing it to the Duet the difference is abysmal, the MBOX was a joke once I heard the DUET, so I can go on and on.. I just want to have the right tools for the job and it is up to me to make it work, bottom line. I guess it really comes down to the human touch. I offer you my apologies if I offended you it was not my intention. Thanks for your comments and wishes.

Surely you recognize the fundamental difference between an instrument and a recording device. I certainly prefer playing my Martin, Wingert, and Kim Walker guitars over the Epiphone Masterbilts I keep at our vacation spot. But I never heard that amount of difference between my M-Audio DMP3 and my John Hardy preamps. So I sold the Hardy.

Since we're doing analogies, here's one. Spending more money on a race car gets you a faster car. It's fairly straightforward - speed costs money, how fast do you want to go. So far we haven't hit a limit and there's no reason why we should.

But recording is a matter of capturing the source with an accuracy that exceeds our ability to hear a difference. Human hearing (all human perception) has limits. These limits have been studied extensively for years. We know that humans can't hear 30 khz, or 24 khz, that only a few young ears can hear 22 khz. So designing a system that can capture 50 khz is absurd on the face of it. We know the human limits of perception of frequency response and THD. Once those limits are exceeded we've achieved transparency, and more money can't make things more transparent.

Now just to be clear, I'm not saying that more expensive gear is not worth the money. There are many reasons why high end gear is desirable, like reliability, feature set, pride of ownership, ability to impress clients. But if we're talking about audible differences ... not so much. And folks who claim that differences exist have not, in my experience, ever taken a moment to demonstrate the difference in an objective way. For instance, when you switched from the Mbox to the Duet, did you set up a same source level matched comparison which you then evaluated double-blind? Do you think that as an engineer you should do careful objective comparisons?

As for "color" pieces, what color do you like? Do you want everything colored the same? Is that color piece the only way to achieve that color?

Once again, I wish you all the best. I even hope that if/when you score your color preamp that it provides some magic for you. But these forums are read by many people - I searched and read and studied extensively when I was trying to figure out how to improve my recordings. So I'm hoping to leave a few breadcrumbs that point to a different way to approach things, to devote time and energy and money to optimizing the recording environment and the use of gear rather than constantly searching for the next magic box.

Fran

 

[Martin R]

Well, here's my two bits on gear making a difference...

We spent 8 months recording at home using a JoeMeeks 47, (not the 47a), into either an Alesis pre/converter or a FastTrack Pro. Acoustic guitars and vocals were recorded this way...an SM57 was used for electric guitars.

A friend of a friend loaned us a couple of hot-rodded ADK mics, some sort of bat out of hell ribbon mic and a Pendulum pre. We recorded some tracks using that stuff...same mic placement, same room, same talent, etc...

The difference was HUGE! We re-tracked 8 of the 12 vocals and 10 electric guitar tracks. It set us back a month but the final product was worth it.

Someone once told me that I could get 90% of a good studio sound fairly inexpensively but that last 10% would cost a fortune.

 

[Old Cane]

Give it up Marty. Fran knows things we can only hope to learn one day. According to him you can only make good recording with cheap gear and poor mic placement.

 

[teleman78]

We know the human limits of perception of frequency response and THD. Once those limits are exceeded we've achieved transparency, and more money can't make things more transparent.

Fran

Perhaps not everyone searches for transparency, maybe some of us look for a different sound character. As you seem to know it all there is to know about recording gear you should know that there are many ways in which you can achieve a desired result, as long as one is able to achieve the desired result, that in itself is what matters the most. Your way of achieving results isn't by far the only way to do it. Results take practice and experimentation and perhaps buying new gear which conduces to experimentation and a hands on learning environment, reading a suggestion in a forum is only half the battle. I'm sorry that great gear didn't work out for you, I know some has worked out better than expected for me, some of it not so much, but that is the process one must go through to be able to achieve a desired result and a signature sound.

Cheers!

 

[Martin R]

Give it up Marty. Fran knows things we can only hope to learn one day. According to him you can only make good recording with cheap gear and poor mic placement.

What's amazing is that I wrote that in the middle of the day after a couple of cups of coffee. I have no excuse.

(and btw, just got the first pass from the mastering engineer...wow!)

 

[Old Cane]

Nice.