Cheapest of the cheap - MIC100!! Real tube?

[Electronique]

So after having many months off making music, over wich time Ive gotten rid of various pieces lying around not being used, keeping the basics of my low end studio.. I ended up with my DAW, UAD Nevana, Deta1010 and Axiom49 - No pres.

Unable to spend many thousands of dollars on a mic pre - let alone a couple of hundred, I decided to throw some money down on a Behringer MIC100 - And the crowd goes Booo hiss booo!!!

Well let me just say, I actually like this thing.. Ive only ever had a SM Pro 8 pre before, and from what I can remember of the sound of the SM Pro - The MIC100 sounds pretty good in comparison..

Question - Has the MIC100 got a real tube within? Or is it just there for show? Could I replace the tube for another?

Please no Behringer bashing. Weve heard it all before - When I can save up for a real mic pre I'll make the purchase. Until then, this is what I have to work with...

[chickencoop]

IIRC, it has a real tube inside (a 12ax7), but it's essentially just there for show-- for a little bit of starved tube distortion aka warmth.

[Electronique]

Originally Posted by chickencoop

IIRC, it has a real tube inside (a 12ax7), but it's essentially just there for show-- for a little bit of starved tube distortion aka warmth.

So would there be any point in changing the tube?? OR would be a waste of $$$?

[SomeAudioGuy]

pardon the qualifying statement here, but for it's price, the MIC100 isn't horrible. Mine is a little too hissy to use full time, but it makes a great "on the go" phantom power supply.

I don't think swapping the tube will be worth the hassle though. Putting a better tube in there might improve the actual harmonic distortion we call warmth, but I doubt it'll do anything for the surrounding electronics on the inside, which lets face, are probably a little on the low end.

I say use it as is. Enjoy it. Maybe consider an FMR Really Nice Pre as your next step, and save up for that "many thousands of dollars mic pre".

[Sean0313]

Used Mic200 in 4 or 5 years ago. Very similar to Mic100.
It wasn't that bad as long as you keep the gain under 12:00. However, the sound will distort easy if you miking bass amp.

[manning1]

SomeAudioGuy

fyi...if you get a bit of hiss.
heres an idea.
before hitting the sound card input,
pass the output of the mic 100 thru a clean booster stage useing an op amp.
this will let you dial down the mic 100 so the gain isnt as high.
and might ameliorate the hiss.
(if your useing a condenser make sure your not recording near the puter.)
heres another tip. you prolly can do conditioning to the slightly hissy trak once recorded ,
remove the hiss n make the trak sound better.
i use reaper from cockos.com to do this.
check out the plug in in reaper called REAfir, and reapers noise reduction option in
REAfir.
step one.
hilite hiss by itself to get noise print and tell reafir to apply noise print to whole trak.
step two.
bring up reafir eq.
if u notice you can set eq points anyway you wish.
for example , set 31 points up. then experiment with those 31 points in reafir doing subtle boosts n cuts eq wise to the recorded trak.
reap has over 100 plug ins.
no time to go into em all.
but if u know what your doing u might be surprised by what u can accomplish useing reafir n
the other reap plug ins.
god bless.

[Electronique]

Manning.
You must have misunderstood my post..

I get NO hiss from the unit at all - I love it!!!

[manning1]

apologies.
my hiss post should have been addressed to someaudioguy.
(i amended post.)
my birthdays coming up and i'm getting freaked out n forgetful
cos i'm getting old ..lol.
god bless.

[Electronique]

Originally Posted by manning1

cos i'm getting old ..lol.
god bless.

Ha.. Arent we all..!!

Allaahu Akbar
:)

[manning1]

Electronique .
lol.
yep..oh my god..61 this year..ugh !
my mum was a soprano, (90 next year she is and fit as a fiddle.)
as of 3 years ago, amazeingly she could still hit some pretty high notes.

just an idea, but other low end folks might find it interesting if
you posted a vocal audio clip of that mic 100.
might help some with teeny budgets.

[gsilbers]

ii loved mine for a while then one day it had hiss. :(

wierd.

[Corran]

I have the two-channel version. I like it for what it is. It actually matches perfectly with one ribbon mic I have so I'll have a use for it as long as I have that mic.

I briefly replaced a tube in another cheap, starved-plate preamp. It actually did change the sound in a good way. Try it and see what happened. I don't know what tube would be good; I used an old NOS RCA 12au7 if I remember correctly.

[Dervish Riff]

Hi, I wanted to chime in on this topic, so here goes--I picked up one of the MIC100's a few months ago, after reading a few online articles that found it useful as a DI for bass, as well as an extra pre amp channel with phantom power.

When I got it home and hooked it up, I found out why a lot of people dis it--harsh, spitty, and noisy. But I've been modding equipment for a long time, so I went to the parts box and started going through the tubes, found a Mullard 12AU7 I'd pulled from an old tape recorder and swapped it for the twice-removed generation 12AX7 that came stock, which made it much smoother. Then I burned it in for a couple weeks by using it as a boost for my guitar, so it got a fair bit of daily use.

Now it's a lot better, I'm the first to admit it's not great, but with a little work it's usable.