[EliasGwinn]

My advice to anyone considering this: TRY IT!!

It works just fine, and can be great for adding some girth to a track.

Here's why I do it: Testing a wall of mic-pre's is a quick way to get the artist impatient, restless, uninspired, and generally fatigued. So I don't waste time sampling pres - I just record everything through my Benchmark mic-pre's (very transparent), because I know I can't go wrong. In the mix phase, when the artist isn't staring at the microphone, I have time and room to move (sonically speaking).

In this track, I took the vocal track and put it into the mic-input of a Neve 1073, including EQ, during mix-down. I didn't use any line-to-mic converter; I just reduced the output level in the analog domain. You can use a line-to-mic impedance transformer, which may give you a different color because of distortion from the transformer and the different loading at the pre. As always, try it both ways and see what you like better.

Have fun!
-e