Why use mic preamps

Thin or fat? An experienced recording engineer will use different microphones and mic preamps in much the same way a painter uses brushes, colors, and textures. Take time to experiment. Ultimately, it will help you to make better, more informed, artistic decisions. Want to record the occasional live drums, or maybe even an entire band? You can put together a range of rack-mount multi channel mic preamps in configurations from eight to 32 channels and beyond. As you become increasingly familiar with the sound and characteristics of any given mic preamp, you will begin to get a feel for which particular combinations of microphone and preamp can yield the best results for specific applications.

Most engineers have certain go-to combinations they will reach for first when recording a particular instrument or vocal type. The consistency of knowing what tonal colors to expect from different microphones through different preamps will help to guide your decisions and make you a better, more efficient, recording engineer.

In your mixing workflow do you tend to use subgroups, VCAs, or both? How do you tend to organize them, and what advantages are Using multiple time windows in a single measurement as a way to measure and optimize the response of a sound system in a room.

Understanding the various signal levels each component requires is key to successfully getting everything to "play nice" together within a system. Mute mixing, for lack of a better phrase, enables volume problems to be fixed, EQ oddities to be corrected, and the overall mix to Defining different protocols and looking at their advantages and disadvantages with an eye on the future of audio networking.

If we truly want every detail of the performance to shine through, there could be a different approach than the one we're typically using Increase your confidence and pick the battles you can win by getting actionable data without having to resort to ill-advised additional windowing or excessive Ribbon mics and other low output microphones sometimes require even more than 70dB, especially when recording very quiet sources, like acoustic guitar.

Better sound quality : The higher you turn that gain knob, the more apparent the limitations of your preamp become. Interface preamps sound okay if you boost only by dB, but lose quality at extreme settings. External preamps continue to sound great, or even add more interesting color as you increase their gain.

Specific sound or character creamy, airy, round, etc : These colorations are most likely why people buy external preamps. The built-in preamps in most audio interfaces generally sound clean and transparent, especially at reasonable gain settings.

Some external preamps simply provide pure, uncolored sound at any gain level, useful for purist recordings. Lower noise : Many modern interfaces have low noise preamps. Beware : Specifications can be deceiving. Manufacturers typically claim a preamp noise floor of around dBu. This is excellent, but only if that noise floor remains constant at all gain settings. Dedicated preamps typically have better specifications at their extreme settings than USB-powered preamps in inexpensive interfaces.

Design Quality : Since preamps do so much heavy lifting, each component, from the specific electronic components to the power supply design and shielding affect the audio quality. Inexpensive interfaces with preamps necessitate inexpensive components, while external preamps can provide higher quality parts and designs, usually with a considerable increase in price.

Compression : Not the least important, but often overlooked feature of an external preamp, is the ability to run the preamp into an analog compressor and maybe an EQ before hitting your A-D converter. This signal path adds color, saturation, and dynamic control in the analog domain before you capture it as a digital signal. Interface preamps rarely provide an analog insert point for patching in a compressor during recording. Cost Considerations A typical external mic preamp contains high-quality components, a well-built power supply, a durable enclosure, and quality switches, and connectors.

That price includes preamps, instrument inputs, a headphone amp, monitor control, A-D and D-A conversion, and packaging. That means the preamp itself probably uses only a few dollars in parts. Preamps in interfaces, therefore, are designed to provide relatively clean and quiet gain for not-so-difficult recording applications. While those preamps function pretty well, it should be easy to see the quality improvements that an external preamp will provide.

A preamp has to have inputs. Usually, they provide both XLR connectors for microphones and TRS for line inputs and instruments such as guitars and basses. If you use a line input or mic input for a passive instrument, the instrument may sound distorted, have a strange frequency response, or simply be too quiet.

Line inputs are used to connect line-level gear that do not need additional amplification, such as high output synths or guitar processors. If your interface has line inputs, check the manual to see if these inputs bypass the mic preamp. If they do, hooray! You can use external preamps with your interface. The most important function of a preamp is the gain.

As previously mentioned, the main point of a preamp is to bring a very quiet audio signal up to the full operating level. The quality of the mic preamp is most obvious at high gain settings. Once you go above dB of gain, cheap preamps start sounding more and more lifeless, and the noise level may also increase. Phantom power P48 is required by condenser mics. External preamps use volt wall power to easily create phantom power. The phase reverse switch is used to reverse the polarity of the signal.

An example is recording a snare drum with 2 mics, one from the top and one from the bottom. The mics are basically facing each other, so when the snare drum is hit, the bottom microphone sees the drum head moving towards it, whilst the top microphone sees it moving away from it. If you flip the phase switch on the bottom mic, the signal from both microphones will combine correctly, giving you a full, natural sound.

Some preamps provide a high pass low cut filter. This circuit removes low frequencies while allowing everything above them to pass roughly unharmed. Cutting these low frequencies is the most common way to remove rumble and unnecessary sub-bass frequencies. The pad switch is used to lower a very loud microphone signal before it has a chance to overload the mic preamp circuit. Pads typically bring the lowest gain setting of a mic preamp down to 0dB of gain. Beware that pads may slightly affect the sound of some microphones.

Types of Preamp Circuits An important difference between various preamps is their tone. Tube preamps These use vacuum tubes to boost the input signal. Solid-state Preamps These preamps use transistors or opamps to amplify a signal. Hybrid preamps …combine the best of both worlds, usually employing solid-state components at the input stage, and tube components are the output stage.

Which type of preamp should I use for my recordings? Classical music recording engineers tend to favor solid-state preamps for a pure, transparent, clean sound. Some tube preamps also fit this criterion. A thin source, be it a singer or a sax, can be fattened up using a tube preamp or a colorful solid-state preamp. However, many engineers prefer to capture a clean sound, so they go for solid-state preamps.

If you want your drums to sound fatter, go for a tube mic preamp, since the harmonic distortion will help in that direction. Its slight compression artifacts also add to that effect. If you want punchier, more beefy drums, go for a solid-state preamp to capture as much of the transient as possible.

Pad When recording loud sources, microphones may produce too much level for the preamp to handle. If your preamp is clipping your interface bring down the gain on the preamp. This is the pro option, because you can run a few Outboard Effects after the preamp. It will save you time and money, and give you great results. Cons: can't use analogue outboard effects, since signal will go straight to digital. This is a great and affordable way to get into the world of mic preamps - a step most producers will say is worth taking.

Another way do do things, is to plug your mics to a mixer , and then send audio to your audio interface. Most mics have at least or two dedicated mic preamps with phantom power and XLR input. Check out our blog on best small audio mixers HERE.

We stock a wide range of microphone preamps , to suit any budget - from the beginners to the pros! So please check them out and find one that's right for you! We try and find the best mic for guitar amp recording looking at options from the likes of Shure, sE Electronics and more Here are 11 of the best podcast microphones to get the best vocal performance for your show.

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What is microphone sensitivity? And what does microphone sensitivity mean? Find out here. The store will not work correctly in the case when cookies are disabled. Electric Guitars.

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