guitar recording-what mic preamp do You recommend??

[huckleboogie]

Hi folks,

next week i will begin overdubbing guitar tracks for an album .
i will do it at home, but i never did record guitar with a proper mic preamp. i'll use a 57 to mic the cab. maybe a room mic for some solos, not sure yet. while i got a lot of good advice for mikin etc already, i hope to find some advice here on preamps.

i think about trying a chandler germanium or a millenium td 1....probably the latter is more neutral while the germanium has it's distinctive flavor goin on. what are You guys using?

second question: can i go wrong if i use a cheap M Audio fasttrack for audio>digital interface?

thx guys, any help is appreciated, i need to order the stuff tomorrow in order to be able to start workin on monday....
cheers

[ptbarnum]

I recommend the A-Designs Pacifica, very clear with nice mids. Check it out too.
As for the m-audio, it'll work, but if you can afford it, a good interface can make a big difference. Even something like the apogee duet would be a worthwhile investment, and improvement..for a pc, I dunno.

[huckleboogie]

cool man! that matches whit a friend's recommendation: he told me to get the apogee duet and i think i will. i'm using a mac and logic express, so this should be a good choice.
gonna check out the preamp as well!

thx alot!!!!!

anyone else?

[ibodog]

M-Audio Fast Track Pro would be a decent improvement over the Fast Track. It has digital inputs so if you got a mic pre with digital output you should be able to do pretty well. Works fine on Mac and Windows, too.

[SteveA]

cool man! that matches whit a friend's recommendation: he told me to get the apogee duet and i think i will. i'm using a mac and logic express, so this should be a good choice.
gonna check out the preamp as well!

thx alot!!!!!

anyone else?

The duet is a logical choice. It'll kill anything by m-audio. The preamps are fine and the conversion is well Apogee. The ensemble would be a better quality recording. I would not recommend using the preamps on the m-audio. They'll clip easy and be very noisy. Apogee all the way. The Chandler is a great unit but hey you've got a mac so just get the apogee. You'll get great conversion and preamp and trust me good conversion makes a hell of a difference from the m-audio stuff. I personally use an m-audio fw1814 but just use it as an interface. I bypass the preamps and the conversion.

[SteveA]

I recommend the A-Designs Pacifica, very clear with nice mids. Check it out too.
As for the m-audio, it'll work, but if you can afford it, a good interface can make a big difference. Even something like the apogee duet would be a worthwhile investment, and improvement..for a pc, I dunno.

Yeah the pacifica is certainly a modern classic. You'll see it recommended everywhere. And hey its modeled over the quad eight console of the 70s notoriously used to record the pink floyd stuff (think The Wall) and it does a great job at that. If its good enough for Dave, its good enough for almost anybody! But hey for 2k you can get an Apogee Ensemble which is a stellar unit. From the sound of it, to use the most out of any high end preamp you'd also need a pretty decent mic. So until you're ready to spend some major dough on a 1k mic, hold off on the premium preamps and get yourself a really good all around unit like the Apogee Ensemble because you're using a mac and conversion matters too. Another thing that isn't talked about is the room but that's for another day.

[ibodog]

That Apogee Duet looks nice. But for $500 I'd want to have digital input and output. The M-Audio Fast Track Pro has SPDIF digital input up to 24/96 and M-Audio will have decent drivers. Then you could *rent* a nice pre with digital output for the duration of the guitar overdubbing. Just a thought.

I've seen the specs and charts on the Fast Track Pro. The mic pres are OK and will get you a clean recording. But if you're looking for a mic pre to add some MOJO then you'll need to add that on some other way. I couldn't find any performance specs on the mic pres in the Duet, but I'm sure they sound fine (Apogee has a good reputation).

[SteveA]

double post

[SteveA]

The Fasttrack pro looks fine. A USB version of the 410 it seems. Still would get the Ensemble though or the Duet. Why need the spdif ? Unless you're planing on using external converters in the future. You're call just start making music.

[huckleboogie]

thanks folks for all the advice!
i'm positive now that i probably cant go wrong with the apogee....i ordered that one and the chandler germanium. i will record with two mics, a 57 which i'm planning to put thru the chandler, and a neumann knockoff for ambience. i hope that i can run one channel of the apogee with and the other without preamp (cause the chandler will be in front of that one).
i'm really curious,,,,cant wait!
the pacifica is out of my range money-wise...i had also considered a Chandler LTD, which is in the same range
but all the more i'm happy to hear that the apogee's preamps are more than decent.