Presonus Bluetube Preamp

[pyelagin]

Hi Everyone,

Presonus Bluetube Preamp is any good?

Thanks,
Peter

[mdjice]

I really don't like them....

[Idiophonic]

One tube for a two channel unit?

I'm pretty sure it is a "starved-plate" design that just adds tube noise when you use the Drive control...

I owned one of the older models and hated it, I've used the newer models and my opinion did not change...

P.S. I am originally from Baton Rouge (PreSonus headquarters is located there) so I am inclined to "root" for them as a company, but I have not been impressed with any of their low-end gear.

[pyelagin]

What's good for tube preamps in the range of low end price?

[RBowlin]

Bought it - returned it. Just wasn't the sound for me.

-Rich

[Iggy Poop]

M Audio DMP3 is the best that you'll get in that price range (about $150) and not bad. But the FMR RNP is much better for around $500 and my favorite the Grace Design M101 for $565.

[Arkestry]

Originally Posted by pyelagin

What's good for tube preamps in the range of low end price?

You can pick up a new ART Pro Channel w/warranty off ebay for $319. Get rid of the stock tubes and replace them with some NOS ones (I got Telefunkens, but I hear GE, Mullard, Phillips, etc are fine, too) and you've got yourself a very decent, usable box.

It's an actual tube pre, not a starved plate design. On top of that, it also has a real tube opto compressor, and, though nothing stellar, a useable 4-band EQ. Hard to match in the tube world until you take a sizeable leap up in cost.

Rolling the tubes is key. The difference is not subtle. If I kept the stock tubes in I would have far less enthusiasm for the thing.

[alyricalmind]

I didn't like it either. I heard the VTB-1 on a shootout on gearslutz recently and it sounded pretty darn good.

[gearaddict]

+1 on the grace and the art mpa gold (with tube change)..I have both and although the grace is great..the art is ok for some things..definitely great for the money!!

[BOWIE]

Originally Posted by Idiophonic

One tube for a two channel unit?

It uses a twin triode, does it not? Plenty of high-end gear will use one tube for two different functions because twin triodes are, more or less, two tubes in one.

I've heard people use the blue-tube and turn out very nice sounding stuff.

[skiltrip]

If you keep an eye on Ebay, you can pick up an older Grace Model 101 for under $400. I just nabbed one for $325 with free shipping. The Model 101 is darn close to the same as the newer m101 except you have a little less gain to work with (but still plenty), and it uses a wallwart, and it's chrome instead of black, none of which bother me in the least.

I also have a Presonus TubePre that I used as my only pre for a lot of years before I stepped into the land of bigger and better gear, and it served me well. I still keep it around, because sometimes the dirt I can get from the Tube Drive sounds good on vocals depending on what the song is calling for. It's also got no real resale value so it's worth more to me to keep it then I'd get if I sold it. I suspect with the Grace around it's usefulness will continue to decline.

I also owned an ART MPA Gold for a few months. And frankly, I didn't like it at all. I changed the tubes to JJ tubes and still didn't like it. It definitely has a colored sound all it's own. If you're into what it does to your sound, great, but I wasn't. It may sound crazy, but I preferred the sound of my Tapco mixer pres over that MPA Gold(not that I particularly LIKE the sound of my Tapco pres, just liked the ART unit even less). Just wasn't my thing at all.

The Presonus unit will definitely get you by, but the M-Audio DMP3 is highly regarded in that low price range. You'll end up growing out of either one though eventually (if not real quickly).


FMR RNP is definitely a dual channel pre you'll probably never get rid of, and the Grace 101 (Model 101 or m101) is definitely a single channel pre you'll never get rid of.

Lately I'm a fan of buying gear I'm never gonna wanna get rid of.

[Idiophonic]

BOWIE, can you name a 2-channel "high-end" preamp that uses one tube? I'm curious to see who else is implementing this design.

There are better preamps in this price range, the Blue Tube has been much maligned, and for good reason...

[Al Rogers]

In this price range, I'd go with a solid state preamp. Seventh Circle Audio has some kits which reputedly provide top notch quality at reasonable prices. They offer a number of different modules. If you start with one or two of their least expensive module you can keep the cost down and you can always add more modules later on.

[BOWIE]

Originally Posted by Idiophonic

BOWIE, can you name a 2-channel "high-end" preamp that uses one tube? I'm curious to see who else is implementing this design.

There are better preamps in this price range, the Blue Tube has been much maligned, and for good reason...

OK, DaviSound TB-3.

[Idiophonic]

Thanks for your reply,

Quote from the DaviSound website:
"Our manipulative circuit techniques force the tube into rather early overload, with resulting asymetrical signal swing"

I noticed this with the BlueTube, the more drive control was turned up, the more asymmetrical the resulting waveform was. I just never found the effect (when using the BlueTube) "musical" at all. I've never used the DaviSound and would assume it achieves a better result than the PreSonus device. It seems from the description that, like the BlueTube, the tube provides more of a tube "distortion" than clean tube gain. This was my complaint about the bluetube. Rather than "warming up" a signal, the drive control made it grainy and distorted. The BlueTube is usable (using only the non-tube Gain control), but I find the effect the drive control has on the sound entirely unpleasant.

(BTW, thank you for mentioning this unit, I had never come across it before, and it seems it has not been discussed very much on GS either. Very interesting!)

[BOWIE]

Originally Posted by Idiophonic

(BTW, thank you for mentioning this unit, I had never come across it before, and it seems it has not been discussed very much on GS either. Very interesting!)

I haven't used their gear but I think it's gorgeous. I came across them when I was building rackmount housings and looking at different ideas. I like some of their concepts too and I hope I get a chance to try out some of their gear.

[Ihsahn1981]

I had this one and I didnt really like it.

I had a SM TB101 that I thought was better.


Sold them both to finance a Saffire Pro 10 which Im pretty happy with so far.

[vonrichter]

I've got the old original version of the BlueTube.

The first thing to understand is that it's not a "tube" device in any practical sense. The tube is just used for an overdrive knob that has limited usefulness.

Judged as a budget solid state stereo preamp, it's OK. It amplifies microphone signals and does not distort on high gain. It's basically a clean "neutral" character. It's slightly better than the pre's on a typical small low-budget mixer from the same time period.

I can't say how the newer BlueTube stacks up to newer mini mixers.

[nathanp]

Originally Posted by pyelagin

Hi Everyone,

Presonus Bluetube Preamp is any good?

Thanks,
Peter

I owned a Presonus Bluetube DP (the dual channel one) for a year and in my opinion, it's not a very good preamp. It's not bad, it can definitely be used to make some good sounding stuff if you're on your game technique wise. It doesn't really add anything pleasant to the sound, yet it's not very transparent either, kind of on the dull side to me. You can't turn the tube drive up past about 10 or 11 o'clock without getting nasty clipping. Up until then, you can add a very minimal amount of somewhat pleasant harmonics, but somewhat thin sounding. This thing doesn't sound how I feel like a tube amp should.

I recorded a decent sounding album with it as my main pre. To be honest though, I don't think you're really getting much of an upgrade over your interface's pres, unless their just horrible.

As others have said, it uses starved plate design. I'm not really sure why this gets used at all. Honestly, it seems like a marketing ploy that enables a company to slap "tube" onto the title of their pre.

I owned an ART MPA Gold for a while too. I traded it to a friend in exchange for a keyboard and some other stuff that was more important to me at the time, but I plan on getting another one soon. It has a sound I think of when I think of a tube amp. It is quite colored, and isn't the quietest pre as another poster mentioned. But it sounds very pleasant to my ears and has 70db gain. Presonus has like 50 something db and has just as much noise.

[JeromyReno]

I have 3 of the old two channel units. Changed out the tubes for some jj's and It helped a lot. They sounded better than the built in preamps on the firepod I had. I still use them on toms, especially if I'm micing the bottom of the toms with a ton of drive and layering with the top mic.

They have 12ax7 tubes that have two gain stages so you can run two channels threw one tube.

Tube distortion is a good for some sources but not really a universal saturation device by any means.

(If you want one on the cheap holler)