what is your favorite preamp for recording acoustic?

[Barney]

what is your favorite preamp for recording acoustic?

dual or single channel

please tell me your favorite

[cotten]

Moved here from the Taylor Forum. I think you'll get a better response.

cotten

[theotigno]

I like the Rane MS1b for recording acoustic guitars. Affordable, and it sounds good!

[IainDearg]

There are many great preamps out there. I believe "transparancy" as opposed to "character" are best for acoustic guitars (and all acoustic instruments) IMHO.

Not the best, by any means, but I'm soon going to buy the RME Quadmic to partner my RME Multiface simply because I'm a big RME fan and the whole thing is geared a lot towards location work which makes it ideal for live recordings destined for Youtube (if I can bring myself) and such.

[billgennaro]

i use the AEA TRP. its two channel and is clean as all get out. i also use the apogee mini-me as well. both are fine units for acoustic guitar.

bill

[zenpicker]

Very happy with my ADesigns MP2 tube pre, thank you.

[sdelsolray]

I tried dozens of preamps and have owned many, all for recording solo fignerstyle acoustic and classical guitar, but there are hundreds of different preamps out there. The few good ones I have are, I guess, my current favorites, although there are a couple of others I would love to have. This is what I'm currently using:

1) Pendulum Audio MDP-1a. Excellent two channel tube pre with extra features. A rather sensual, detailed and euphonic sound.

MDP-1a

2) ADK AP2. Plenty of clean and quiet gain. This preamp allows you to swap input transformers and op amps for a variety of textures, sounds and behaviors, from clean and transparent to colorful and thick. I currently have 4 transformer pairs and 5 op amp pairs, for 20 different combinations. All are different, and all are good. It's quite a piece. I sold a John Hardy M2 after I got this. The AP2 with Jensen transformer and Hardy 990C op amp is very very close to the Hardy.

AP-2

3) Pendulum Audio SPS-1. This unit is known for gigging, but it also functions as a studio grade 2 channel mic pre with defeatable parametric eq and stereo mix bus. It resembles the MDP-1a, like a sibling.

SPS-1

4) Rane DMS22. This is a pair of Rane MS-1 preamps woth a defeatable eq section plus a stereo mix bus. It's very good and inexpensive, but it's not in the same class of the 3 above.

DMS22

Preamps I would like to have:

1) Forssell Technologies SMP-2

SMP-2

2) Gordon Model 5

Model 5

On Edit: I forgot to mention that the mics used, their placement, the room and several other factors all influence things. I like to consider a specific mic/pre combination as a "sonic unit", or something like that.

[Bob1131]

Originally Posted by sdelsolray

On Edit: I forgot to mention that the mics used, their placement, the room and several other factors all influence things. I like to consider a specific mic/pre combination as a "sonic unit", or something like that.

I couldn't agree more! Although my GA4 has the ES and I have Fishman systems installed in two other acoustics, I prefer recording with mics and rely on my mixer preamps. I am using the new Yamaha MG124C stereo mixer and find that the preamps are everything they have been hyped to be...excellent!

I use a variety of mics depending on the sound I want. However, one of my favorite setups is a stereo configuration with two mics. A SM58 positioned about 8 inches from the neck-body joint, angled slightly toward the sound hole, panned all the way to the left. An old EV RE55 about 8 to 10 inches from the bridge, slightly angled toward the sound hole and panned all the way to the right. The SM58 has a warmer sound and tends to favor the low strings, whereas the EV RE55 highlights midrange and highs. The final effect with slight EQ and pan-balancing is a full and shimmering sound that a listener would get if they put their face a few inches from the guitar!

Oh, I also ocassionally use a foam dampener to minimize room effect. The dampeners are 12X12X2-inch egg-crate foam pads that I put the mics through. It really does help!

I know that many of the "pros" advice using matched mics for this type of setup, but try it with two very different mics and you just might get a sound that is unique and very life-like.

[Fran Guidry]

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I'm dubious about the need for a high end preamp for acoustic guitar recording. Just for jokes I did a comparison between a $150 preamp, a $500 preamp, and a $1500 preamp. Can you honestly tell which is which? Does one clip sound 10 times (or even 2 times) better than the other? Is there more difference between preamps than between moving the mic an inch or two, or changing strings?

http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index....y070224-133138

Fran

[Bob1131]

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I'm dubious about the need for a high end preamp for acoustic guitar recording. Just for jokes I did a comparison between a $150 preamp, a $500 preamp, and a $1500 preamp. Can you honestly tell which is which? Does one clip sound 10 times (or even 2 times) better than the other? Is there more difference between preamps than between moving the mic an inch or two, or changing strings?

http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index....y070224-133138

Fran

AMEN! I think the only time a difference would be discerned is when everything else in the recording chain was ultra high-end quality. Even then, the average ear may not be able to perceive a difference!

[theotigno]

For me, the biggest difference I have heard between preamps happens when you stack a lot of tracks. Other than that, I like to compare preamps to guitar backs and sides: it does affect the sound in some way, but it's more of a coloring of the signal given by the guitar top.

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I'm dubious about the need for a high end preamp for acoustic guitar recording. Just for jokes I did a comparison between a $150 preamp, a $500 preamp, and a $1500 preamp. Can you honestly tell which is which? Does one clip sound 10 times (or even 2 times) better than the other? Is there more difference between preamps than between moving the mic an inch or two, or changing strings?

http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index....y070224-133138

Fran

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I'm dubious about the need for a high end preamp for acoustic guitar recording. Just for jokes I did a comparison between a $150 preamp, a $500 preamp, and a $1500 preamp. Can you honestly tell which is which? Does one clip sound 10 times (or even 2 times) better than the other? Is there more difference between preamps than between moving the mic an inch or two, or changing strings?

Hi Fran...
Agreed. When we had our production studio, we used a moderate unit as our main preamp and it was quiet and produced accurate tracks.

Your points are well proposed.

[sdelsolray]

Here's a thread I started on another forum last year that seems relevant to the topic.

There have been many discussions and posts about microphones in the past, but there haven't been many about preamps for recording. Here are five samples. Rather than making it a "which is better" or "guess which is which", I'm interested in hearing people's thoughts about them.

There are five separate takes of the same music, one for each preamp. Other than that the player, guitar, 2 mics, mic positionings, converters, etc. are all the same. These are the raw tracks - no processing except for (i) stereo mix with panning of the two mics 50% each L/R and (ii) dither and sample rate conversion when bounced to disk.

ADK AP-2 (with Cinemag transformer and DOPA1 op amp)

ADK AP-2 (with Cinimag transformer and VinM op amp)

Digidesign Digi003

Pendulum Audio MDP-1a (tube)

Pendulum Audio SPS-1 (solid state)

A bit more detail for those interested:

Song: Accordion Bells, Leo Kottke) (first 60 seconds or so)
Guitar: Bill Tippin OMT (EIR/Alpine)
Strings: Cleartone, light, nearing end of midlife (i.e., getting old)
Mics: Pair Peluso P28
Mic positions: Spaced pair, #1 18" from 3rd fret pointing at 16th fret, #2 18" from edge of lower bout pointing at bridge
Converters: Digi003
Recording: 24bit/88.2kHz, bounced to 16-bit/44.1kHz .wav

[Fran Guidry]

I downloaded these and pulled them up in AA 1.5, listened through BM6s in a semi-treated room. I heard differences, but none that fell outside the normal range of performance variability.

And that really gets to the crux of the matter for me. Is the difference between two decent preamps greater than the difference between two performances???

Of course there's another side to this ... I still have that John Hardy preamp I used in my test - why?? Why not sell it and get another DMP3 and spend the difference on vintage Krug/trips to Hawai`i/trick wheels for my TL? Because it's Dumbo's feather, I suppose. And that makes me Dumbo <grin>.

Lovely articulate, musical playing, by the way.

Fran

[sdelsolray]

Fran,

There are noticeable differences in all of those samples, from a recording engineer perspective. Perhaps you were listening more to the music, which is certainly appreciated, but may direct your ear away from those differences. For example, the first sample (ADK AP2 w/ DOP1A op amp) is a classic "JFet" sound, with a homogeneous bass/mid/treble and dry character. The fourth sample (MDP-1a) is more detailed, a bit slower and fuller. You might also notice the MDP-1a is more 3-D and provides a more realistic stereo image. The third sample (DigiDesign 003) is thinner and more 2-D. Still, it holds up fairly well with the others even though it's a much less expensive preamp. I could go on.

If you have the time, try listening to the samples again focusing on the sound and not so much on the music.