tube mic pre's for guitar?

[Unknown soldier]

Most of the group here seem to use Neve type pre's great river, chandler, etc for guitar amp recording... What about good old tube pre's? It used to be the rage, but maybe as conversion has gotten better it's less important to "warm" up stuff???

[Don]

I have a tube pre and a solid state{both nice}S/S wins on guitar amp almost always..It just works better that the tube for what Im lookin' for..I like the tube for vocals same reason..No reason other than how these particular preamps sound and react

[jspartz]

I have been loving the Peavey VMP-2 tube mic preamp with the Blue Baby Bottle for electric guitar amps. It rocks!

Jason

[Randall]

Digitech GSP 2101, I've seen them on e-bay sell for 50 bucks!!! I paid 2K for mine.grudge

[denial]

I find the V76 and VIPRE a little too round and slighlty muddy on saturated, distorted electric guitar so I opt for an API 512 or Neve 1073 for the task which generally provides a slightly edgier, cutting sound.

I love tube pre's on vocals and sometimes drum overheads.

[Don]

Originally posted by denial
VIPRE a little too round and slighlty muddy on saturated, distorted electric guitar .

I love tube pre's on vocals and sometimes drum overheads.

Ditto..

[K.C.]

R-121 and Vipre using balanced bridge or 6176 works great on an original AC30 or a Tone King.

[maz[music]]

I really love my Ampex 351 on electrics, with a SM57.

[Tim Halligan]

I've always found that tube mic into tube pre doesn't work for me...too coloured, and seems "squishy". Glass into glass is too much of a good thing.
I've adopted a "one tube section" in the chain policy... tube mic - S/S pre...OK,
S/S mic - tube pre...OK,
GTR amp (valve) - S/S mic-S/S pre...OK
GTR amp (valve) - S/S mic-tube pre...BAD
GTR amp - tube mic-S/S pre...BAD.

YMMV

Cheers,
Tim

[jbuntz]

Not so bad on clean gutiars. Especially if the amp has a pentode output section.

[cdog]

Electric guitars tend to be pretty colored and compressed coming out of the speaker... so the bit of color and compression a tube mic or pre adds is superflous. A little 3K boost on a 1073 does wonders though...

[howard]

A Designs MP1 or 2. Priced right, sounds great!

[musicfool100]

Originally posted by howard
A Designs MP1 or 2. Priced right, sounds great!

Peavey VMP-2 gets my vote. It has EQ too.

[Rab]

Originally posted by howard
A Designs MP1 or 2. Priced right, sounds great!

I'm surprised not to see these mentioned more on these boards... for me, the MP1 is as much a "how do they sound that good at that price?" product as the RNC is for compressors.