software

The title says it all. I use a SM57 for recording. Am looking at getting a pair of condenser mics, and would like to know your opinion for a decent mic pre-amp, with phantom power. Thanks!

Well, you need 2 channels if you're going to use more than 1 at a time.

The PreSonus mic pre's are cheap and very good.

Cool. A vote for Pre-Sonus. Any other suggestions? How are the Joe Meek units? M-Audio DMP3? SM Pro Audio PR8? Any of the ART pres? DBX?

The FMR Audio RNP is probably not as cheap as you're looking for at $475-500, but it's superb, as is their RNC compressor for $175. Together they make a great dual channel combo.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of ART, but the tube stuff they make is pretty good and not very expensive, especially used. I have the Pro MPA and Pro VLA. The MPA mic pre is pretty good. The VLA is a great compressor! It's modeled after expensive Urei or Universal type compressors, and it's amazingly cheap for what you get.

Define Cheap. A small behringer mixer will give you 2 or more pre's for $60 or less. How good do they need to be and what is the budget? Personally I am using a pair of Groove Tube quot;The Brickquot; tube pre's. They run about $700 a pair and sound fantastic.

As I always say, studio projects vtb-1. It absolutely cannot be beat.

The Joe Meek units are terrible; stay away!


Originally Posted by TwilightOdysseyThe Joe Meek units are terrible; stay away!

Really??? I've never used one but I've heard really good stuff about them from about everyone.

$475 is a little more than I want to spend.

Define Cheap = lt;$200. I go from a Fostex analog multitrack recorer to my pc. It has a 6 input mixer with two mic pre-amps. They are just ok. They do the job, but do not provide phantom power. I'm wanting to step up from that to something that provides phantom power,consistency and dependability.

The vtb-1 initially looks good. I'm going to spend some more time reading about it. I'm going to check on the VLA comp as well. Thanks for the suggestions!

What is up with the Joe Meek stuff? I've read raving reviews and some pretty hard slams about their stuff.

I bought a Behringer UB802 to use for stereo recording. It's a 4-channel (2 mono 2 stereo) mixer with 2 built in phantom power preamps. It has a headphone out and 1 aux send/return. It works well with a stereo soundcard. It was about $70 new; you can find them used for like $40. Stupid cheap, amp; quiet. If you’re set on a dedicated preamp, Behringer's got them too, but I haven't tried them.

I just upgraded to a Behringer MX2642 12 ch (8 mono 4 stereo) board, it was $179 used at Music-Go-Round. This has 8 Mic preamps. I still use the 802 for coffee shop type gigs, when I need a spare input or 2.