15 Affordable Mic Preamps: Desktop, 500 Series, & Rackmount | Reverb 

The isa one is $700 now 😂😂

I did a response video to this video and I suspected this would be a starved plate design, thanks for the confirmation!

yep i got a presonus bluetube 15 years ago, and sold it within a month. the tube had none of the "magic", just decreased clarity and presence.

Thanl you for the info, what do you think would be a great option for a real tube preamp?

@@Schooliday Well, "great" is a bit too vague. But to get into a preamp that actually uses the tube as a proper gain stage at the proper high voltages, you are going to need a proper power supply, usually provided by a rather large power transformer. That stuff isn't cheap, so you usually get up near a thousand dollars before you see "real" tube gear. If it has a wall wart for power, it is definitely starved. I won't get into brands, but a quick search of some online gear sites and the cheapest offering I could find for a true high voltage tube preamp was almost $800. Below that threshold, it's pretty slim pickins. So, "real" tube, and "affordable" might not really work in this context. (My understanding is that some of the ART offerings run the plate at a slightly higher voltage than most starved plate. So, they are a little better but not by a ton, and still not hitting what I would consider a true tube gain stage.) If you want to get a tube experience without a chunk of change for a standalone preamp, I might suggest examining tube mics. They can also be prohibitively expensive quite easily, but there are a few reputable offerings for maybe $300-500 that will get you the true authentic tube sound, but admittedly only for one mic. If you want a preamp to give you tube flavor for other mics, and direct inputs like guitars and bass and keys, save your money unless you are willing to invest in something really good. Otherwise just get the most pristine, crystal clear preamp you can afford, and apply tube flavoring in the box. It will better approximate the real deal without mucking up your signal like the cheaper tube preamps will. There are a lot of nice affordable clean preamps that you can add color to later. Cheap tube preamps just aren't worth it. Trust me, I have owned them, and sold them and given them all away. I still have tons of tube gear, but none of the starved plate preamp designs any more, they just don't cut it.

@@coyotecirclestudio9611 Hello again, sorry for the late reply. But thank you a bunch for the foresight and information shared. Since you talked about higher voltages, I wanted to ask you about SPL Goldmike 9844. They seem to be working with high voltages, but I still wanted to see your take on it since they are cheap to the level that I'm skeptical. Thanks again and cheers.

And outboard EQs.

Vaughn Quinlan Agreed!

Hassan Kamal i think they did a “Using Pedals as Outboard Gear” that explained how to use I/O

@@TrevBarnes Good memory! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8qFkP5vI-T8.html

Best bet is a patch bay.

If you don’t know how to connect things you probably don’t need to buy gear quite yet.

@@DarrylBarnesDance lame answer

I bought gap before my studio burnt down I ended up parking it and continuing using my scarlet preamp it's way more better imo

That's a heck of a deal. For my purposes I wish that there was a 710 desktop model liveried up like my Solo 610. 🤘

@@hoboroadie There is a single channel 710d available.

Will My audio technica at2020 sound good on that

Scarcity mindset 😜🤕

some of them are only 200 bucks... and on top of that, there are ton of retailers who offer interest free payment plans with no credit.

@@_Trakman indeed

🔥🔥🔥 I’m going to be doing something similar thanks for the confirmation my guy 💯💯

"We"? You and your balls?

@@pmAdministrator LOL

what are your thoughts on the ISA after a year?

no accent...lack of accent if anything, just clear pronunciation you may not be used to

That UA Solo 610 that Rachel posed next to got no mention, I figured that was because it's similarly priced. Seems like those Avalons are pretty well regarded.

Don't you worry. She'll be back. :)

I know SPL Goldmike. And it is good.

John neff, a retired engineer, he used that, and made many pro stuff

@@ZanTaylor i have a avalon ad 2022 now lol

Im using a dbx286s and would recommend it

You aren't going to find any good 4 channel pres for under 500. 800 is minimum for RME quad Mic But realistically a good budget for a 4 channel is around 2000.00

@@3star2nr what about antelope orion rev 2017?or any suggestions?

@@georgezorbas6422 antelope makes great interfaces for sure I like the onboard dsp and emulation. I've never tried one out but i like the concept. If you can get one I'd try it. I mean if u don't like it you can always just sell it. Imho though no plugin will be as good as an actual preamp. You dont need EVERY channel to be high end. There are ways to get great sound on the cheap. You can invest in a high quality stereo pre like a daking mic pre 2 and use it on your snare. Or over heads. Then plug the other mics straight to your interface. There's also tricks you can do like record a clean drum take straight to the interface, mix it down to stereo then send it out via line out to a really nice stereo DI that accepts line level. And re record. If you have a really good interface this trick can unlock a ton of creative options. You could even send tracks through guitar pedals and get some crazy sounds back in. Drums are always going to suck but if you're smart and creative you can get good sound cheap. The snare and cymbals are the most important items sonically with a drum kit. So the only part of the kit that needs great sounding or colorful pres.

I have great pres but often use the stock IC pres (Ti PGA2500, considered to be the best and used by Prism as well) in my old RME FF400 all the time with an SM7b and still have gobs of headroom left. Why on earth everybody cries about their 7bs needing a cloudlifter etc is beyond me. What are they trying to do, record at -0dBFS? As to character, we're in an age where there are so many saturation/ color plugins available that it's ezpz to add w/e you want.

Im using it for my sm7b and it works great

I have two they are sweet!

Don't ever watch Nick Batt's videos on Sonicstate, his pronunciation of "Moog" will drive you nuts, lol.

David Solus , I know Geoff and she works for an audio sales company. She needs to know the correct pronunciation. As for Nick, he’s a brilliant synth guy and the Moog mispronunciation is a British thing. He brings it up every now and then. While it makes me squirm a bit, his demos are some of the best, so he’s forgiven!