Best pre you have for quiet sources.

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 12:56 pm

I was recording some rain last night because, well it was raining, I had drank too much coffee, and it was otherwise relatively quiet for Oakland.
I decided to turn it into a pre shootout of sorts. I used my highest output condenser, GT52 fet multipattern. I opened my side window, put the mic on omni, perched it on the window sill just out of the rain. Then I ran it through my different pres.
My 828MKII stock mic pres, okay, kinda plinky sounding for lack of a better term. Pretty flat. Not much depth.
The Summit 2ba221, didnt seem to get any noisier even at max settings. It got way more bass than either of the others. I was picking up the Macarthur Maze freeway from a mile away.
Yamaha PM180 (mixer modded to 6 way pre) this got the most interesting sound. At max gain it was the quietest? Not my experience with it on dynamics! But it got the most detail and dynamics of the three.
Looking at the waveforms was pretty illuminating. The Summit and motu pres resulted in a pretty even hash of peaks of all sizes. The PM180 had that, but it had peaks that were 6-8 db above the background noises. It was the only one that was able to actually make it sound like wet rain drops, not quarters falling in a can. Funny I have been using this pre as a thick pre for high gain guitar, drums etc. Never tried its wide open setting before!
Once again, transformers rule!

airloom · Post by **airloom** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:05 pm

My sytek non Burr Brown channels work well for just that.

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:06 pm

airloom wrote:My sytek non Burr Brown channels work well for just that.

+1

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:10 pm

airloom wrote:My sytek non Burr Brown channels work well for just that.

do the Burr-Browns make it noisy?

snatchman · Post by **snatchman** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 1:24 pm

I have a DIY pre made by Roger Foote of Prodigy-Forum ( Pico compressor designer), that's just sooo quiet! ...

8th_note · Post by **8th_note** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:03 pm

I was recording some rain last night because, well it was raining, I had drank too much coffee, and it was otherwise relatively quiet for Oakland.

Interesting test except that it won't be coffee that I'm drinking. Here in Portland we are connoisseurs of rain so I could try it on light sprinkly rain, steady medium rain, or gully washing run-from-your-car-to-the-house rain. In Oakland you kind of have to take whatever you get.

I'll bet it's a good comparison of preamps. I'll try it. Then, when I get in a one-hand-clapping mood I could actually record what it sounds like if it's not raining. I'll have to wait till July to do that though.

jaguarsg · Post by **jaguarsg** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:35 pm

BLA modded PR8E.

KilledByAlbany · Post by **KilledByAlbany** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:36 pm

8th_note wrote:Interesting test except that it won't be coffee that I'm drinking. Here in Portland we are connoisseurs of rain so I could try it on light sprinkly rain, steady medium rain, or gully washing run-from-your-car-to-the-house rain. In Oakland you kind of have to take whatever you get..

I think if it rained a yellow shitstorm every day at 4pm, I would still find Portland to be the nicest city in America. If anybody there has a fetish about shoveling snow 8 months a year and braving rampant street crime and wants to do a straight up house trade, get at me!

As for the quietest pre, I find my SCA C84s to be a little bit quieter than my Syteks (non Burr-Brown), which I found kind of strange.

Recycled_Brains · Post by **Recycled_Brains** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:55 pm

KilledByAlbany wrote:If anybody there has a fetish about shoveling snow 8 months a year and braving rampant street crime and wants to do a straight up house trade, get at me!

oh, come on now. albany ain't that bad.

wait. yeah, it is.

I'm Painting Again · Post by **I'm Painting Again** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:29 pm

my DW Fearn VT2 is the bomb..best preamp i've had so far..works for everything with amazing results..

KilledByAlbany · Post by **KilledByAlbany** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:43 pm

Recycled_Brains wrote:
KilledByAlbany wrote:If anybody there has a fetish about shoveling snow 8 months a year and braving rampant street crime and wants to do a straight up house trade, get at me!

oh, come on now. albany ain't that bad.

wait. yeah, it is.

Must be the excecution style triple homicide today that has me all riled up.

calaverasgrandes · Post by **calaverasgrandes** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:32 pm

just to re-iterate, I'm talking your best pre on quiet sources. Which may not always be you quietest pre.
My MOTU 828MKII s the quietest of my 3 by a few DB. At least on my GT 52 it is. But it also has the limpist, most grey sound. The PM180 has more detail somehow, even though its the most colored, noisy thing I have. I mean it starts off transformer/3 leggy transistor, then the outputs are yamahas rip off of a API opamp. bi black epoxy square and all, which again hits a tranny. Youd think with all that stuff in there it would be smeared all over the place. But mostly it just loses a little bass and treble. Staying pretty decent in the mid.
My 2ba221 is usually my best pre on anything, but for quiet stuff it amplifies bassy background noise like crazy. Even with the shockmount, hipass on the mic, and hi pass on the pre I was still getting freeway rumble until I got up to about 200hz. Yikes!

Anybody try the AEA ribbon pre?
its got about 20db more gain than any of my other stuff.

b3groover · Post by **b3groover** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:35 pm

KilledByAlbany wrote:
As for the quietest pre, I find my SCA C84s to be a little bit quieter than my Syteks (non Burr-Brown), which I found kind of strange.

How do you like the C84s?

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:06 pm

I can say that the Syteks with Burr Browns are the quietest pres in this rack that I use almost every day:
API 512C, API 312, Buzz Elixir, Daking 52270, Sytek Amek 9098, Neve 1272, Drawmer 1960, Tube Tech MP1A, Avalon 737, Langevin AM16, RCA BC2B, Altec 1567.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

emrr · Post by **emrr** » Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:13 pm

Sytek quietest here too, though I have an early one which has increasing hum in channel 3 and 4. Apparently this was improved along the way (later). Hum objectionable in channel 4 with spoken word and low output mic like SM7. That's the way they is, early on.

Gain wide open is drastically more hissy than when set at 98%; this is true of most preamps with variable gain based on negative feedback loops.

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Best pre you have for quiet sources.

Best pre you have for quiet sources.

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