Best matched pres for TLM103?

[thelead]

First, please do not tell me to get a new mic... I am fine with it for now.

OK... I have read that the tlm103 doesn't play nice with some mic pres

What are some good single channel mic pres, that sound good with the tlm103, for $500-1000?

[dhiltonlittle]

i love the tlm 103 on certain things. what are you going to be recording? a little more info may get you some better responses.

[Sqye]

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get a new mic

if you spend that money on a better mic, you'll have to worry a WHOLE LOT LESS
about your PRE situation.

sorry, the 103 destroyed some great vocal sessions for me in the past -
killed a lot of the harmonic detail and dynamics, and i'll never forgive the bastards

some people say the 103 is decent for guitar amps - i haven't tested this.
i've also noticed that posters who like the 103 tend to be into heavier music.
i'm more of a pop, pop rock, r&b, acoustic ballad and ambient music guy.
i also tend to record high female vocals, and high male vocals (both aggresive and mellow).
i need mics that are flexible and detailed, and can handle high spls at close range w/o
proximity and sibilance problems, breaking up, or muddying up. i prefer mics with presence,
and flexible polar patterns - so i can switch 3d / room perspective.

so, of course, it TOTALLY depends on your rooms, vocalists, material, etc., etc.


what kind of material do you record? that might help us out here a bit.

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[A440]

My 103 sounds prettty nice with a Phoenix Audio DRS-2 (used DRS-1 is in your price range)...have to say though a Pearlman TM-1 sounds a whole lot better on most sources.

[thelead]

I mostly use the mic for vocals, guitar, and trumpet. I do hip-hop, r&b, and some jazz.

[dhiltonlittle]

the 103 is fine, don't listen to the bs. agreed it is a bit overpriced and probably not one of the best neumann mics in existance but i doubt that it was the mic that "ruined" a vocal session. it might not have been the appropiate choice but that's another story. i have a huge collection of mics and the 103 is preferred by me and the artist/producer in alot of cases. expecially on female vox and acoustic guitars paired with another gearslutz favorite an avalon 737. but again, not knowing what you are trying to record or the sound you are going for it's hard to give advice.

[toxostoma rufum]

$500-$1000?

Summit 2ba-221
UA Solo 610
Speck 5.0 with Transformer in (thats what I use with my TLM103)
John Hardy
Great River (used)

I would not recommend the Grace or P-Solo with transformerless mics like the 103.

I do understand what people say about the 103 at close range/high SPL...that's why I don't use it for that.

Which pre are you using now? Good luck.

[warhead]

Originally Posted by thelead

OK... I have read that the tlm103 doesn't play nice with some mic pres.

OK... have you heard an issue with your own preamp?

I'd worry less about what you read and more about what you hear. It'll save you grief and money.

War

[thelead]

I have been using the pres in my digi 002... I tried a $500 focusrite platinum that was returned immediately.

What good mic could be purchased on ebay for say $500-700 that would "blow away" my tlm103?

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by dhiltonlittle

the 103 is fine, don't listen to the bs. agreed it is a bit overpriced and probably not one of the best neumann mics in existance but i doubt that it was the mic that "ruined" a vocal session. it might not have been the appropiate choice but that's another story. i have a huge collection of mics and the 103 is preferred by me and the artist/producer in alot of cases. expecially on female vox and acoustic guitars paired with another gearslutz favorite an avalon 737. but again, not knowing what you are trying to record or the sound you are going for it's hard to give advice.

it's not bs. it was the mic that ruined those sessions - everything else in my chain
at that time was standard for me in my recordings for years.

i expected a better sound quality from that mic - more detailed, better frequency response, etc.

we obviously have different opinions, but to call my opinion "bs" is uncool...

.

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by warhead

OK... have you heard an issue with your own preamp?

I'd worry less about what you read and more about what you hear. It'll save you grief and money.

War

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[Sqye]

Originally Posted by thelead

I mostly use the mic for vocals, guitar, and trumpet. I do hip-hop, r&b, and some jazz.

Groove Tubes GT67 | Sweetwater.com

if you can find this mic USED somewhere, check it out - just return it if you don't like it. it KICKS ASS!!!
i got mine (super well preserved) for $325 on ebay from an engineer in nashville.

a true multi-pattern tube, large diaphragm condenser - the best & cheapest mic
in the 67 flavor you'll find, imo. i've used it with a quite a few pre-amps -
low-end & high end, and been very happy.

i haven't yet found any pre amps to make a drastic enough difference with this mic,
to discourage me from using the mic for almost all vocal and acoustic guitar apps.

then again, i'm just me : ) i have done a sh8tload of commercial tracking and mixing
for broadcast over the years - in a gagillion genres of music.

and i've made a lot of sh*tty low end gear work for many purposes (in addition to lots of high end gear, as well).
however, i could not get the 103 to work for me - and why should you have to work so hard to get a KILLER vocal or ac. gtr sound?

good luck.

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[dhiltonlittle]

sqye, no disrespect my man. we don't disagree at all. i agree that more could be expected for the money etc. by BS i'm talking about the general bashing of the mic. not necessarily your post. having not heard your tracks, imo the mic didn't ruin your vocal. the fact that you chose to use the mic on a source it didn't work with ruined the vocal. was that the only mic you had at the time?

back to the post,

you're still not giving enough info to get decent advice. what are you recording? what style? what instrument? what are you hoping to get out of it? what don't you like about the pre you have? and so on.....

[thelead]

Originally Posted by dhiltonlittle

sqye, no disrespect my man. we don't disagree at all. i agree that more could be expected for the money etc. by BS i'm talking about the general bashing of the mic. not necessarily your post. having not heard your tracks, imo the mic didn't ruin your vocal. the fact that you chose to use the mic on a source it didn't work with ruined the vocal. was that the only mic you had at the time?

back to the post,

you're still not giving enough info to get decent advice. what are you recording? what style? what instrument? what are you hoping to get out of it? what don't you like about the pre you have? and so on.....

I am currently using the pres in my digi 002. I tried a focusrite platinum pre that was returned immediately.

As far as what I am recording: hip-hop, r&b, and some jazz.

Instruments: vocals, acoustic guitar, trumpet

[dhiltonlittle]

with a budget of 1000 dollars i'd look at a two module 500 rack and get two different flavors. of course you'd have to add the second later to stay within budget. you need better conversion too so you could look at other options like the api a2d if you wanted to invest in that now. as far as 500 mods go look at the avedis ma5 and the api 512c.

[grevan]

I have had good luck with the Biz and the Chandler Germ with this mic, depending on source. Both have worked well for vocals.

[Classic]

I highly recommend Universal Audio's LA-610. I'm sure the Solo 610 will be great too, and meets your budget.

For me, it tames the 103 nicely. I've gotten some great recordings with this combo, and never understood why everyone said it was brittle sounding until I bought a Pacifica.

[andychamp]

I've found the 103's natural "forwardness" can be somewhat tamed, to good effect, with a Great River NV series or a Germanium.
Loud, punchy mic into input transformer seems to give it something I like.

OTOH, since you're also planning to record some trumpet, I'd shy away from the brighter & cleaner crop of preamps. That combination might well prove too present.

[heyman]

Sounds just fine with the Great River Mp2nv

[musictech]

I've used the 103 successfully on many vocalists through the Great River ME-1NV with the transformer "loading" engaged. That pre smooths out the mic really nice. It also helps if the room you are recording in is relatively dead. I usually had a Cranesong Trakker in the signal chain as well, then going through some UA 2192 converters. Got a great RnB and Pop vocal song with several artists through that combo.

I've since upgraded to better mics that usually get picked first before the 103, but the 103 is certainly capable of a great vocal sound with the right vocalists, pre-amp, and room. I don't think it deserves all the bashing it gets here. If you paid full price for it, then maybe it's not worth it, but I got mine a long time ago for a really great price when a certain retailer decided not to sell Nuemann mics any more and blew out their remaining stock for much cheaper than they were supposed to be able to sell them for.

Steve

[thelead]

I wanna say I paid $550 for it three years ago off someone I knew...

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by dhiltonlittle

. having not heard your tracks, imo the mic didn't ruin your vocal.
....

well, one of these days, i'll post the 103 vocals here, and you'll see clearly that the mic sucked.

this was a session with a SUPERB acapella girl trio in vegas called "fugue" -
i was finishing up a record in london at the time, and flew directly to vegas to record the girls.

because we were on a tight schedule, the girls bought a 103 on the advice of their live sound guy at the time - and i was curious to check it out, anyhow. the sessions were all o/ds -
(we weren't tracking the girls live together).

i had recorded the girls back in nyc previously, and was very familiar with all their voices.

if i post a/bs of all the sessions i did with them - and there were many -
you could blindly pick out the crappy 103 vegas sessions - trust me -
the difference was night and day. nothing else was different from my standard setup with them
(or most other artists i was working with at the time).

why do you doubt my findings - have you tested this mic on all input sources, pres,
and genres of music, and swear up and down by it, or something?

Originally Posted by dhiltonlittle

.
the fact that you chose to use the mic on a source it didn't work with ruined the vocal. was that the only mic you had at the time? ....

unfortunately, and since my monitoring was not ideal, i just trusted that the mic would do
it's job - that was MY MISTAKE. because it didn't. i was going on the same presumption
you're apparently going on - it's a neumann ldc, it should do the trick, right? i should at LEAST
be able to get something decent - worst case scenario, i'll just have to edit, and fix things in the mix with dynamics and eq, etc....

NOT...i just got mud, and poor dynamics.

anyway, you don't have to believe me - after all, it's not THAT important.

after all, everyone should just use their OWN ears, and figure out what works best for them.

all i know is - i won't be racing out to get a tlm-103 for lead vocals anytime soon.

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[toxostoma rufum]

Hands up from those who could make a 103 work on any vocalist without ruining the session. That's a loaded question that cuts both ways. I believe Sgye, but only to a degree.

Neumann stopped selling the 103 in wooden boxes so they could start shipping them with wooden baseball bats to help those who want to bash the mic.

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by toxostoma rufum

Hands up from those who could make a 103 work on any vocalist without ruining the session. That's a loaded question that cuts both ways. I believe Sgye, but only to a degree.

Neumann stopped selling the 103 in wooden boxes so they could start shipping them with wooden baseball bats to help those who want to bash the mic.

lol...i only wish the MIC would "cut" a little bit...

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[mostlykeys]

The Manley Mono Pre is a great match for that mic. You may want to try the Trident s20 pre? In my experience with the TLM 103, mic placement really affected sibilance. Otherwise, its a great mic on acoustic guitars.

Orlando

[mostlykeys]

Originally Posted by musictech

I've since upgraded to better mics that usually get picked first before the 103, but the 103 is certainly capable of a great vocal sound with the right vocalists, pre-amp, and room. I don't think it deserves all the bashing it gets here. If you paid full price for it, then maybe it's not worth it, but I got mine a long time ago for a really great price when a certain retailer decided not to sell Nuemann mics any more and blew out their remaining stock for much cheaper than they were supposed to be able to sell them for.

Steve

Agreed

[uncle duncan]

You might consider a Safesound P1, which is a single channel pre/compressor for vocals and bass. The pre seems to have a little dip around 6k, which has the affect of smoothing harsh mics without losing detail. It also comes with an input for monitoring your DAW and a headphone jack, so you can have zero latency monitoring of your source. The pre/comp was designed by one of the Neve guys, and lists for around $600 or so.

The thing bout 'character' preamps is, they can actually accentuate the harshness of a mic if they mess up the S's. I first noticed this on a Sytek with the Burr Brown channels. (I have since gotten much better preamps to ruin the S's of my singers, and only use the Sytek Burr Brown channels for rack toms these days.) The UA 610 could also be a good choice I suppose, as long as you watched your headroom to keep the S's from breaking up.

From what I've heard about the pres on the 002, the Safesound P1 would be a giant step up. Plus, later, when you get other pres, you can still use the SS P1 for compression. There is no other clean compressor that comes close to it for the price. At least if you get your stuff recorded clean, you can muck it up later, but if you record it dirty, you have nowhere to go but more dirtier. (Bad grammar, I know. It's a joke!)

[andychamp]

Originally Posted by Sqye

(...)why do you doubt my findings(...)

I wonder if the facts that
- you more or less just got off a plane (jetlag, air cond., pressure changes)
- hadn't worked with the mic before
- the monitoring wasn't that good
may also have something to do with the disappointing results you got?

I'm not knocking your oppinion and I believe you when you say the recording sucked.
You don't like that mic? Fine, don't use it.
But I think your not liking it may have reasons beyond the mic itself, at least in that particular case...

I think what gave this mic a bad rep was that it was marketed as an affordable / entry level Neumann.
So it ended up in the hands of a lot of people who didn't know how to sing or record properly, whose other equipment was(and sounded) cheap and terrible, and who were counting on that mic alone to make them sound great.

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by andychamp

I wonder if the facts that
- you more or less just got off a plane (jetlag, air cond., pressure changes)
- hadn't worked with the mic before
- the monitoring wasn't that good
may also have something to do with the disappointing results you got?

I'm not knocking your oppinion and I believe you when you say the recording sucked.
You don't like that mic? Fine, don't use it.
But I think your not liking it may have reasons beyond the mic itself, at least in that particular case...

I think what gave this mic a bad rep was that it was marketed as an affordable / entry level Neumann.
So it ended up in the hands of a lot of people who didn't know how to sing or record properly, whose other equipment was(and sounded) cheap and terrible, and who were counting on that mic alone to make them sound great.

listen man - i've tracked a TON of vocalists with a TON of mics in my time -
and i know the difference between a mic that makes me happy, and a mic that doesn't.

the 103 did not. AND i have the recordings to prove it.

anyone with a brain and any recording experience at all would be able to
hear the problems with this mic for those wonderful strong luscious voices.

sorry, dude, but the mic just did not cut it.

tracking kickass vocalists is not frikkin' rocket science -
ESPECIALLY when you have years of experience.

this is not a "marketing" problem. the mic simply did not do the job.

and as far as your reference to amateur usage problems and expectations,
the singers had been professionally performing at that point for years,
and i'd been tracking vocals daily for almost 20 years, at that point.

why are you pushing this, dude? it didn't work for me - period.

if you like it so much, and you wanna use it, and keep fighting for a so-so mic, go for it -
go to town with your mediocre (at best) mic.

imo, there are hundred mics i would rather have recorded [strong acapella female vocals
in a mid sized room] with - in that price range - or LOWER

entry level, shmentry level - either a mic works, or it doesn't...
what - do you work for neumann communications, or something?

why do YOU care wtf i like? or think, for that matter?

you can keep defending this mic, but it's a waste of your time,
unless you want to post some strong solo and stacked acapella female vox recordings
you've done with it?

i mean, i'm totally closed, but...



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