[Fletcher]

Pre's are all a matter of personal taste... our taste is going to be different than yours which will be different from _____'s, which will be way different from _____'s. Give a bunch a try and hear what works best for the way you arrange your music would be the best advice in terms of pre-amps... though the Germanium is indeed a damn good one... so is the Great River, and the Sebatron, and the Thermionic Culture, and the[list goes on for another 30 minutes].

We do a bit of rap stuff at our joint [actually, Adam does the rap stuff... he's younger than me and understands the genre better though I do mix the stuff every now and again]. Mostly he uses the Chandler TG-1 when it's coupled with the SM-7b and the Purple Audio MC-77 when it's coupled with a condenser mic [like the Brauner VM-1X or the Telefunken M-16].

Again, it's a matter of taste and the sonic arrangement of all the music but I will say Adam's tracks are usually exceptionally easy to mix, and don't often take a lot of fidgeting to get to sit in the track in a large and musical manner.

As always, YMMV.

Peace.