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Old 04-10-2018, 12:23 PM
hotroad hotroad is offline
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Default Which Preamp for a DPA mic at soundhole

I use a DPA 4099 at the soundhole on my D-28 as my only source. Wondering if anyone has an idea for a good preamp for this mic. It requires phantom power and provides awesome tone for this guitar all by itself located where I placed it after much location testing.
Appreciate any ideas as to preamps for this setup.
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Old 04-10-2018, 01:07 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hotroad View Post
I use a DPA 4099 at the soundhole on my D-28 as my only source. Wondering if anyone has an idea for a good preamp for this mic. It requires phantom power and provides awesome tone for this guitar all by itself located where I placed it after much location testing.
Appreciate any ideas as to preamps for this setup.
You probably don't need a preamp for that mic - you can just go straight to a mixer with XLR inputs and phantom power. Any mixer has a "preamp" built-in. I've not found that mic (or any mic) to work well with an amp, but if that's what you're trying to do, or if you're going into something other than a PA mixer, there are preamps that have XLR inputs and phantom power, Grace Felix, Pendulum SPS-1, DTar Solstice (used only), or you could use any small mixer that has phantom power. There are a few amps that provide XLR/phantom inputs, too, but again, I've at least never been able to get enough gain before feedback from a combo amp and a mic to make it worthwhile.

I wouldn't aim the mic at the soundhole, BTW - probably too boomy. That's the one spot you always want to avoid when micing a guitar for live or recording
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Old 04-10-2018, 08:29 PM
jimmorgan jimmorgan is offline
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I would agree that you really don't need a preamp unless you just want one. In most live situations you'll be running your preamp into a line input on a cheap mixer that's really just a padded down mic input, so your nice pre signal will go straight into another Yamaha or Behringer preamp.
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Old 04-10-2018, 11:52 PM
hotroad hotroad is offline
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OP here....I was thinking of a preamp as a way to gain eq, notch, para mids, over the DPA mic although it sounds pretty good by itself, more like a real wooden Martin HD-28. Imagine that!!
So thanks for the input here on this. I like great tone but have sometimes overkilled with equipment when the guitar itself is quite capable of providing excellent tone. Its just my job to capture that tone and amplify it for my audiences. Hence the DPA mic.
Thanks.
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Old 04-11-2018, 12:20 AM
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A good mixer can do all that (tho notch filters are more rare), and if you have a sound person out front, they'll be able to EQ it to sound good to the audience, something that's tough to do on stage from behind the speakers. But if you want to do it yourself, the Grace Felix or Pendulum SPS-1 should do the trick very nicely. The DPA is really like using any mic, no different than having a decent condenser on a stand, other than that it's attached to your guitar and moves with you. So any approach you would take with micing your guitar with an external mic on a stand will work the same way.
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Old 04-12-2018, 06:30 AM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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I think the 4099 requires 48v pp . So be careful
That the pre you get will supply that. some only
supply 12v . some mics will have a range in which they
can work .. 8-15 v lets say. I have used my sm81 with my felix
with good results. The felix will supply 48 v as well as 12v pp. which makes it versatile.

Last edited by varmonter; 04-12-2018 at 06:36 AM.
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Old 04-12-2018, 07:31 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by varmonter View Post
I think the 4099 requires 48v pp . So be careful
That the pre you get will supply that. some only
supply 12v . some mics will have a range in which they
can work .. 8-15 v lets say. I have used my sm81 with my felix
with good results. The felix will supply 48 v as well as 12v pp. which makes it versatile.
The DPA should work with a range of voltages, tho you might get less gain with very low voltages. But nearly anything that provides true phantom power thru an XLR should provide either 48 volts (virtually all mixers), or 24 volts (some guitar amps with XLR mic inputs). The DTar Solstice is an odd one that provides 15 volts, but should still work.

The 12 volt setting on the Felix is different - the XLR input always provides 48 volts phantom power for a balanced mic cable (if the phantom is switched on). The 12 volts is only for the 1/4 inch inputs, and can be used with an internal electret mic, typically installed to use a TRS cable, sending 9-12 volts on the ring. For the 4099, with its XLR adaptor, you'd just use the XLR input, which is 48 volts.
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Old 04-12-2018, 07:51 AM
stevecuss stevecuss is offline
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I'd love to hear your experiences with the DPA. We bought one for our church setup and have not been able to get useable gain out of it before howling feedback. It seems significantly less feedback resistant than a SM57 in front of a guitar. It also has a loud noise floor. We've always wondered if our mic is faulty, so I'd love to hear how you do with yours
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Old 04-12-2018, 09:17 AM
hotroad hotroad is offline
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The DPA is awesome. But it does take some work to get it just right. That includes location of the mic, gain staging, eq, etc. I have it taped to the pickguard at the soundhole of my Martin HD-28 so it doesn't move around and pick up noise. It picks up all the strings in a very balanced and very very clear tone. It also captures the body resonance. Love it.

The mic does not face the guitar. Its aligned with the surface of the guitar, lies flat on the pickguard only 1/2" from the high E string. It does pick up all the strings even though it is right at the E string.
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Last edited by hotroad; 04-12-2018 at 09:23 AM.
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Old 04-12-2018, 10:05 AM
hotroad hotroad is offline
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The DPA mic for my guitar does require 48v for good tone and volume. Absolutely does not work with less. Just a heads up.
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Old 04-12-2018, 09:41 PM
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Since I claimed the 4099 would work at different voltages, I figured I'd better refresh my memory and make sure I was correct, so I did a quick test. DPA's site says 5-48 volts, I believe, tho there's some ambiguity about whether they mean with the XLR adaptor or not. Anyway, my Zoom H6 supports 48, 24, and 12, so I recorded 3 really short snippets with those voltages. Here they are in order, seems to work fine. Different gear is different, so your mileage may vary.

48 volts, then 24, then 12 (I pasted these all together to form one track, but they were actually recorded as separate takes, with the down time in the middle to reset the voltage, and I recorded them in reverse order, 12->48)



I'd certainly recommend getting something that supports 48 volts in any case! I'd expect this mic to work with almost any voltage since it's just a bias voltage, but most likely you start to get reduced headroom at lower voltages, something that's not going to be evident in this test. I actually expected reduced volume at 12 volts ( I recall doing this test with KM184s and hearing a difference at 12 volts), but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Last edited by Doug Young; 04-12-2018 at 11:44 PM.
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Old 04-13-2018, 06:21 AM
varmonter varmonter is offline
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thanks doug. there does seem to be a slight difference
in these. Of course my ears through my cell phone
are not a great test. But It seems any of these voltages
will work with the dpa .,
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Old 04-17-2018, 02:32 PM
spoonmeyer spoonmeyer is offline
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Default DPA with 4099

Just wanted to hop in and add to Doug's comments. We have a tested the 4099 with our ALiX preamp as well running off the 12V supply. It requires making a custom microdot to 1/4 cable to connect the DPA directly to the preamp's input, which is easy enough.

It works great, and you get the convenience of having EQ, a little boost and *most importantly* a mute switch when you need to cut the mic signal and you don't feel like flailing your arms around on stage to get the soundperson's attention.

Eben Grace
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