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  #121  
Old 10-20-2018, 11:32 AM
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All this preamp talk has me thinking of revisiting a preamp shootout. I don't have some of the cool preamps being discussed here, but I do have a bit of variety. Worth doing and posting? Suggestions for best way to do a fair demo with guitar?
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  #122  
Old 10-20-2018, 11:52 AM
Brent Hahn Brent Hahn is offline
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All this preamp talk has me thinking of revisiting a preamp shootout. I don't have some of the cool preamps being discussed here, but I do have a bit of variety. Worth doing and posting? Suggestions for best way to do a fair demo with guitar?
Mono, same everything-but-the-pre, and play something with some dynamics, but simple enough that you can do it the same way over and over. A KM84 if you've got one, because they're so neutral and gain won't be an issue.
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  #123  
Old 10-20-2018, 12:07 PM
sdelsolray sdelsolray is offline
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Absent having four channels of the same preamp and/or having four of the same microphones, any comparison will have to either (i) compare mono recordings (i.e., one mic and one preamp channel per sample) using the same performance or (ii) compare two mic/two preamp channels (for stereo samples) using different performances.
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  #124  
Old 10-20-2018, 12:19 PM
AcousticDreams AcousticDreams is offline
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If you're looking for pre recommendations (depending on budget) Besides the excellent ones mentioned so far I would also suggest looking into A Designs as well.
I have their Tube MP2A which in my opinion is an excellent tube pre as it is somewhat the best of both worlds in that is relatively un-colored but still gives that Tube depth and presence. Also A Designs "Pacifica" is highly regarded as an excellent top rated Solid state pre and they make some of the best instrument pre amp DI in the industry. They are also very reasonably priced for boutique class equipment

http://adesignsaudio.com/home
The owner-creator of Adesigns lives only a few miles from my house. A year or so ago I had the great pleasure of meeting with him at his place of operation. Super nice and helpful fellow. He was kind enough to let me borrow a Pacifica for a couple of days.
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  #125  
Old 10-20-2018, 12:37 PM
AcousticDreams AcousticDreams is offline
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Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
All this preamp talk has me thinking of revisiting a preamp shootout. I don't have some of the cool preamps being discussed here, but I do have a bit of variety. Worth doing and posting? Suggestions for best way to do a fair demo with guitar?
Doug, I would absolutely love that! Please, please do.
I would also like to suggest that if you do that comparison, that either you make a last entry in this post with the new posts url. OR....you continue that preamp test right here on in this current post. The Reason why? Cause we have had some of the most helpful, knowledgeable, reasonable people in this particular thread. I would hate to loose any of people who have participated in this discussion.
If you do this test, My personal preference would be for you to do it with the Schoeps in Stereo & Brauner in Mono.
Further, It would be important to myself to hear the difference between a Great preamp such as the Great River you have all mentioned, and a Good but inexpensive interface such as The audient ID44 by itself, Antelope Discrete 4 (or other). The objective here is to find out just how much difference there is between the Newer interfaces with their claimed higher built in preamps verses the stand alone great preamp.
For selfish reasons...I am hoping that the newer interfaces can come close. I keep thinking to myself, with all of our newer tech, science, a great preamp for lesser money should be possible. With microphones, The capsule quality is limited by mechanical building and material qualities. But with preamps-interfaces I am hoping that we are closer.
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  #126  
Old 10-20-2018, 12:53 PM
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Originally Posted by Brent Hahn View Post
Mono, same everything-but-the-pre, and play something with some dynamics, but simple enough that you can do it the same way over and over. A KM84 if you've got one, because they're so neutral and gain won't be an issue.

I hate mono for acoustic guitar, it makes everything sound equally bad :-) Is there a reason you prefer mono? I guess I could do it both ways. I have KM184's, but to me, those aren't very neutral - big treble boost. The Schoeps are the flattest, most neutral thing I have. But more people probably have KM184s.

One easy way to do both stereo and mono would be with MS, tho that rules out the 184s

Last edited by Doug Young; 10-20-2018 at 01:22 PM.
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  #127  
Old 10-20-2018, 01:10 PM
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D
Further, It would be important to myself to hear the difference between a Great preamp such as the Great River you have all mentioned, and a Good but inexpensive interface such as The audient ID44 by itself, Antelope Discrete 4 (or other). The objective here is to find out just how much difference there is between the Newer interfaces with their claimed higher built in preamps verses the stand alone great preamp.
Unfortunately, I don't have any of the newest cool preamps. My newest would be the Apogee Ensemble, which isn't one of the ones that get all the buzz. I have tried various of the "hot preamps of the day" in the past, and never heard enough difference over the Great River to warrant keeping them. I do have some "lesser" preamps that I could include. With a quick mental count, I think I have 8 at the moment, tho two are single channel only, with a price range from like $10 per channel to $1000.

A good test would certainly cover more ground than I'm capable of. There are a ton of preamp tests out there, better done than I can do, so this would be more of a real-world comparison, just home studio, solo acoustic guitar, etc. To do a truly fair, scientific comparison, you'd need a way to record to all preamps at once (some kind of mic splitter, which would introduce it's own issues), and record one performance. So all I'm proposing is similar to what I did with the mics, just what a real person gets in a home studio.

One challenge is that I'd have to do multiple performances. However, I'd argue that if the difference between preamps doesn't rise above minor differences in performance, then maybe it's not all that important in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, a bigger issue is how swayed we can be by performance. If I play great thru preamp A, and lousy, or produce bad tone on the performance thru preamp B, you'll probably prefer preamp A. I'd try to play something simple and consistently, but there will be variations, and who knows what someone's ear would pick up on.

but I'm starting to get some ideas how to do it, with lots of caveats...
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  #128  
Old 10-20-2018, 01:28 PM
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Preamp and mike shootouts have been done before of course. Used to be a website called listeningsessions which had a dozen or more high end mikes and preamps in combinations for comparisons and high rez audio files. It was interesting how very much the same the different gear sounded.

FWIW here is a smaller, lower rez, you tube shootout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWh0Y13rGB8


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Last edited by rick-slo; 10-20-2018 at 03:52 PM.
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  #129  
Old 10-20-2018, 02:25 PM
AcousticDreams AcousticDreams is offline
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This is a perplexing shootout. With results I would not have expected. Very interesting & strange.
Some of the higher end preamps seem to stifle the dynamics.
Now I am really confused..ha ha..
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  #130  
Old 10-20-2018, 02:56 PM
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This thread has become a 'life changer' for me. For a long time already I was not satisfied with my Røde NT5s (beit upgraded with Michael Jolly capsules). When I first heard Doug's comparison between de Gefells en the Schoeps they both convinced me I needed to make some drastic decisions. But the shoot out made me hesitate. Initially I fell for the Schoeps but listening again and again - also to recordings by Michael Watts - I got equally if not more charmed by the Gefells. To my ear the latter sound so super natural. I am open to correction and I know the profile of the Schoeps proves to be flatter and therefore(?) these mics should sound even more natural. That could well be the case and probably I got biased because of the considerable difference in price but I tried to be honest with myself and open-minded. After some sleepless nights I decided to bite the bullet and go for the Gefells. To make it financially viable I first had to sell some redundant items in my studio (which went well). But pristine mics come at a double high price because now I also needed a good preamp. For my vocals I made that qualitative jump already a year ago when I went from a Røde NT1 to a Neumann 87 ai. Gee wizz what a difference that made! I coupled it on a Focusrite ISA One which turned out to be an excellent combination. By then I realized what a good mic and a good preamp really meant. Teutonic registration and British amplification proved themselves a superb match. Since the ISA One would not suffice with the Gefells in the studio I decided to also sell the One (which went even better) and head for the ISA Two. A bit of a gamble but at the same time an educated guess. The preamp will arrive early next week, the Gefells in two weeks time. Hopefully I will then be able to make a representative recording. Depending on results my interface will be a Roland Octa-Capture or my older Propellerhead Balance (my DAW is Reason). Both have nice preamps by the way but it was only last year that I learned what a real good external preamp can do to your sound. And meanwhile what a thread can do...!
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Last edited by Karel; 10-20-2018 at 03:09 PM.
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  #131  
Old 10-20-2018, 03:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Karel View Post
This thread has become a 'life changer' for me. For a long time already I was not satisfied with my Røde NT5s (beit upgraded with Michael Jolly capsules). When I first heard Doug's comparison between de Gefells en the Schoeps they both convinced me I needed to make some drastic decisions. But the shoot out made me hesitate. Initially I fell for the Schoeps but listening again and again - also to recordings by Michael Watts - I got equally if not more charmed by the Gefells. To my ear the latter sound so super natural. I am open to correction and I know the profile of the Schoeps proves to be flatter and therefore(?) these mics should sound even more natural. That could well be the case and probably I got biased because of the considerable difference in price but I tried to be honest with myself and open-minded. After some sleepless nights I decided to bite the bullet and go for the Gefells. To make it financially viable I first had to sell some redundant items in my studio (which went well). But pristine mics come at a double high price because now I also needed a good preamp. For my vocals I made that qualitative jump already a year ago when I went from a Røde NT1 to a Neumann 87 ai. Gee wizz what a difference that made! I coupled it on a Focusrite ISA One which turned out to be an excellent combination. By then I realized what a good mic and a good preamp really meant. Teutonic registration and British amplification turned out to be a superb match. Since the ISA One would not suffice with the Gefells in the studio I decided to also sell the One (which went even better) and head for the ISA Two. A bit of a gamble but at the same time an educated guess. The preamp will arrive early next week, the Gefells in two weeks time. Hopefully I will then be able to make a representative recording. Depending on results my interface will be a Roland Octa-Capture or my older Propellerhead Balance (my DAW is Reason). Both have nice preamps by the way but it was only last year that I learned what a real good external preamp can do to your sound. And meanwhile what a thread can do...!
Spend a couple of grand upping the room acoustics. Be prepared to record the same piece a few times with mike positioning variations and go with the best.
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  #132  
Old 10-20-2018, 03:47 PM
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
Preamp and mike shootouts have been done before of course. Used to be a website called listeningsessions which had a dozen or more high end mikes and preamps in combinations for comparisons and high rez audio files. It was interesting how very much the different gear sounded.

Of course, there are tons of these. My first detailed experience with a professionally done shootout was the AB Pre-CD done years ago, which was fascinating. 40 or so preamps, if I recall, and a major effort. So, anything we post here on AGF is more of an amateur effort just for fun. I can't claim to compete with listeningsessions, SoundPure, etc. One thing I find, tho, is that the pro shootouts rarely use the kinds of material I'm interested in. I don't care about vocals, and I want to hear a good-sounding guitar played fingerstyle. Vocals, drums, electric guitars, strumming, don't tell me anything I want to know. Mostly, of course, I want to hear how the gear works for me, so when I do these, it's mostly to educate myself about what I want to use, and I'm happy to share because it's interesting to get other people's takes on the results, even tho it's possible the results are worthless to anyone else.

I'm mostly being tempted to revisit all the various preamp combos I have because of how many people on this thread are saying that preamps make a big difference. My experience is that the differences are so small as to not matter, but one person's mountain is another's molehill, so it may just be a question of what's being focused on. Or maybe I've gotten used to the ones I use and just don't notice the difference because I'm not comparing side-by-side. So worth revisiting.
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  #133  
Old 10-20-2018, 03:53 PM
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T The preamp will arrive early next week, the Gefells in two weeks time. Hopefully I will then be able to make a representative recording. Depending on results my interface will be a Roland Octa-Capture or my older Propellerhead Balance (my DAW is Reason). Both have nice preamps by the way but it was only last year that I learned what a real good external preamp can do to your sound. And meanwhile what a thread can do...!
Sorry to have cost you some money :-) Let us know what you think when they arrive. "natural" is hard to define, you're listening over speakers to a guitar thru a recording chain, which is all very unnatural, and you don't know what the guitar sounds like in my room to start with! (One interesting thing about these kinds of comparisons is that everyone's listening in different rooms on different systems. It's all but certain what you and I hear is different. I have 2 sets of studio monitors, and they sound quite different, even in the same room.) But I think the Gefells sound very good, can't really go wrong with them.

Last edited by Doug Young; 10-20-2018 at 04:08 PM.
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  #134  
Old 10-20-2018, 03:59 PM
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Of course, there are tons of these. My first detailed experience with a professionally done shootout was the AB Pre-CD done years ago, which was fascinating. 40 or so preamps, if I recall, and a major effort. So, anything we post here on AGF is more of an amateur effort just for fun. I can't claim to compete with listeningsessions, SoundPure, etc. One thing I find, tho, is that the pro shootouts rarely use the kinds of material I'm interested in. I don't care about vocals, and I want to hear a good-sounding guitar played fingerstyle. Vocals, drums, electric guitars, strumming, don't tell me anything I want to know. Mostly, of course, I want to hear how the gear works for me, so when I do these, it's mostly to educate myself about what I want to use, and I'm happy to share because it's interesting to get other people's takes on the results, even tho it's possible the results are worthless to anyone else.

I'm mostly being tempted to revisit all the various preamp combos I have because of how many people on this thread are saying that preamps make a big difference. My experience is that the differences are so small as to not matter, but one person's mountain is another's molehill, so it may just be a question of what's being focused on. Or maybe I've gotten used to the ones I use and just don't notice the difference because I'm not comparing side-by-side. So worth revisiting.
In my post I had meant to type: "It was interesting how very much the same the different gear sounded." There were guitar recordings in the listeningsessions. That
was a major comparison. Too bad that website has disappeared.

It's vary rare to be able to draw any accurate conclusions how gear will perform for ones self from such shootouts but they are fun nevertheless.
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  #135  
Old 10-20-2018, 04:04 PM
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In my post I had meant to type: "It was interesting how very much the same the different gear sounded." There were guitar recordings in the listeningsessions. That
was a major comparison. Too bad that website has disappeared.

It's vary rare to be able to draw any accurate conclusions how gear will perform for ones self from such shootouts but they are fun nevertheless.
Yeah, I agree with the same. I liked the listeningsessions stuff, too. There have been others with guitar, too, but I often find myself thinking the guitar just sounds unlike what I'm looking for, which makes it hard to know what the weak link in the chain is.
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