mic pre for home studio

[stones@rocheste]

Greetings

I have real small pockets but want a mic pre to use with an Edirol UA-5 audio card which feeds Logic software on a Mac. Is something as cheap as a Presonus BlueTube DP acceptable, or is that just too low end? By the way, this is strictly for hobby recording--no one's paying to hear what I create.

Thanks for your help.

[manning1]

joe...
there are loads of options available.
i'll list a few.
you can actually make a nice mic pre out of about 10 buks of
transistor resistor and capacitor parts and a 9 volt battery.
ive built a few diy. and the tracks are as clean as some friends who have bought pricier fare. lots of schematics on the net.
another approach for cheap is the cassette deck trick.
plug a dynamic mic via a 3 pin xlr to quarter inch adapter into a cassette deck mic input and take line out into the edirol.
decks are ten a penny. pick em up used for 5 bucks.
believe it or not some decks have pretty decent mic pre's in.
but you wont be able to use a mic needing 48v phantom.
only dynamics. if you dont believe they arent at all bad just try it.
next up the art tube mp about 70 buks.
many folks told me not to get one. said they are junk.
me being the renegade i am then heard examples from an audio engineer
useing the mp which impressed me decided to get one for the hell of it.
the trick with this unit is not to push it too hard.
i use it for mucking around. in summary i dont think its bad like some folks claim....
but thats myopinion. heres the trick.....keep the input and output knobs down a bit and make up gain on the edirol. maybe demo one.
a couple of the songs on my motogator site in my sig used the mp for laughs.
listen to the vocals on build a man up....a work in progress.
anyway those are my cheapo suggestions.
a lot of folks like the yamaha mg mixer for 90 buks as well.
clean mic pre's. well respected.
if you want something really nice. check out a rane mic pre sometime.
under 200 buks if i remember. used by a lot of major acts. peace.

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by manning1

joe...
there are loads of options available.
i'll list a few.
you can actually make a nice mic pre out of about 10 buks of
transistor resistor and capacitor parts and a 9 volt battery.
ive built a few diy. and the tracks are as clean as some friends who have bought pricier fare. lots of schematics on the net.
another approach for cheap is the cassette deck trick.
plug a dynamic mic via a 3 pin xlr to quarter inch adapter into a cassette deck mic input and take line out into the edirol.
decks are ten a penny. pick em up used for 5 bucks.
believe it or not some decks have pretty decent mic pre's in.
but you wont be able to use a mic needing 48v phantom.
only dynamics. if you dont believe they arent at all bad just try it.
next up the art tube mp about 70 buks.
many folks told me not to get one. said they are junk.
me being the renegade i am then heard examples from an audio engineer
useing the mp which impressed me decided to get one for the hell of it.
the trick with this unit is not to push it too hard.
i use it for mucking around. in summary i dont think its bad like some folks claim....
but thats myopinion. heres the trick.....keep the input and output knobs down a bit and make up gain on the edirol. maybe demo one.
a couple of the songs on my motogator site in my sig used the mp for laughs.
listen to the vocals on build a man up....a work in progress.
anyway those are my cheapo suggestions.
a lot of folks like the yamaha mg mixer for 90 buks as well.
clean mic pre's. well respected.
if you want something really nice. check out a rane mic pre sometime.
under 200 buks if i remember. used by a lot of major acts. peace.

Hey Manning... I love reading your posts and I hope I don't sound like a d*ck (really not tryng to) but formatting you stuff would really help me to read what you are writing....



Some paragraph breaks and capital letters would help. I just reread your post above a few times and lost my place half way through, so I gave up. As I said your posts are great and you have good info but they are really tough to read.

Respect.....

[tINY]

There is always the used mini mixer. You get a couple of reasonable pre-amps there for about $25.....




-tINY

[Sounds Great]

There are a couple of Aphex 207's on Ebay.

I am using one now.

[ShamansDream]

My first pre was from a sony car stereo. It was a bolt on unit on the back, wired in a 12v gel-cell and whallah... stereo preamp for $10-.

I'd recommend the route your thinking, though. A $100- (or less on ebay), the little presonus amps do work fine for most hobbyists.

If you want to change DAWs (just for recording) you could consider ebay for the old MBox 1 which has a pretty good set of pre's. They're pretty cheap with the release of the MBox II.

Just a thought or two

[henryrobinett]

I recently used a friends Studio Projects VTB-1. I was impressed, for the money. It's tubey, at least the "preset" I used was. It was in contrast to the high end Millennia pres I was using it with. But it hung in there nicely.

[petsematary]

The Bellari MP105 modded by Black Lion Audio...isn't that one supposed to be really great? And they're sort of cheap too. Even with the mod.

[manning1]

not so new...
my apologies. i do the best i can at any time.
this morning my wife...lol....wanted to go shopping.
so i rushed. i cant complain..lol...cause she keeps on buying stuff for my studio.
a great woman.
sometimes i have other things occurring....like looking after people in my family.
i have a lot of elder issues also to deal with.
or typing while helping a friend on the phone with a computer problem.
all the best.
old saying...walk a million miles in a mans shoes etc....

[PoorGlory]

I have the Presonus BlueTube DP. Its not bad... I find it works great on electric guitar. For vocals I currently use the M-Audio TAMPA, which has a built in compressor. I love that pre... very full and smooth. The BlueTube is more of a powerful and aggressive midrange if you crank up the drive control. I suggest the TAMPA if you're doing more vocals than guitar. You can get it for around 200 bucks on ebay.

I've also used the ART Tube MP... its a little lighter on the midrange than the Presonus, but the one I had was pretty noisy. I reccomend staying away from ARTs cheaper pres.

But the BlueTube is fine. I don't plan on selling mine anytime soon.

[Gduron]

presonus eureka.... really good stuff for the buck

[chrispick]

Originally Posted by Gduron

presonus eureka.... really good stuff for the buck

Agreed. Great bang for the buck. Quiet, clean pre. Pretty decent comp.

[phelbin]

Originally Posted by Sounds Great

There are a couple of Aphex 207's on Ebay.

I am using one now.

I have much more expensive gear and I always use my 207 on acoustic guitar. It sounds better than it should with that pricetag.

I used to have a BlueTube and it always did well for me. And for $200 you could do much worse!

[nathanvacha]

Actually, i think i read that Black Lion will also hot-rod the blue tube's...


And presonus is good for the bottom of the low end.

[Sounds Great]

Originally Posted by chrispick

Agreed. Great bang for the buck. Quiet, clean pre. Pretty decent comp.

Same with their compressors like the Expressor. Aphex usually seems to have a good performance/price ratio. thumbsup

[tnjazz]

You're looking for a low budget pre to use with a UA-5 ?

The UA-5 *is* a low budget stereo preamp with P48 and all... (??)

At least on par with the Blue Tube and stuff like that.

Maybe I didn't understand the original post fully, but it seems like you've already got a workable solution...

Dirk