tube amplifier

Faybs · Post by **Faybs** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 8:25 am

I will like to know if adding a hardware tube pre-amplifier to an instrument or a entire mix is useful ?

I've heard about presonic tubepre.

bosone · Post by **bosone** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 9:04 am

i have presonus tubepre and it works very well, for a small price.
i used it for direct e-bass recording, for warm the guitar before entering in my POD, for vocal lines, acoustic guitar, percussions.
i am very happy with it!

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 9:13 am

I use a lot of outboard tube mic gear here. Great for warming up an audio signal before the A/D conversion.

If your mixes are unusually harsh sounding, running the mix through an external tube preamp may smooth out some rough edges. May also add unwanted noise. Tweaked properly the results can range from so-so to magical. Let your ears be the final judge. Have fun experimenting.

voidar · Post by **voidar** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 10:59 am

bosone:

How come you do not use it after the POD? That would smoothen whatever digital sound the POD has and give better results, I think.

I own the TubePRE myself you see.

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 1:20 pm

I use an ART Tube MP after my Pod Pro and the sound is awesome. Try running from the output of the Pod and see what you think.

voidar · Post by **voidar** » Mon Sep 29, 2003 6:31 pm

I think I will start to use the TubePRE after my Palmer ADIG-LB to see if it helps some myself.

Post by **garyb** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 11:27 am

tubes are nice but cheap tube devices aren't any better than cheap solid state devices.also,there are GREAT sounding solid state devices(clean,warm and musical,a perfect example is the neve mic pre).please don't fall for sales hype,but rather,use what sounds good to your ears.....

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 12:10 pm

The guitar amp I have here is a late 70ies tube Lab Series L9. It was marketed by Gibson and manufactured by Moog. It has excellent reviews on harmony-central, and the reviewers said they bought it for 100-300$, which is very affordable.

This L9's plate verb is unserviceable, and there's few options: an EQ with bass, mid (selectable 100-6.4kHz) and treble amount, followed by a LP filter. The output has a compressor (one control knob) and you can set the volume. These are the owner's arguments not to use it anymore.

Directly from the tube's output the signal goes into a Focusrite Trakmaster and to the Luna2496, which also has some guitar effects pedals connected. Have a look in the Effects/Others/ folder, you can insert hardware connections and save them as device for next time. Lately I started making custom guitar effects and assign CC# on a hardware controller so the players can tweak the effects. Most pedals are very easy to emulate and they're fun to modify, especially with flexor.

I'm sorry, drifted off topic a bit. Point is that they are always surprised and pleased by the sound this setup makes. If I have to return the L9, I go find another tube amp of that series.

[edit] This setup is the only one i'm kind of experienced with, as an amateur. I'm sure there's much better gear on the market, for example the amp krizrox proposes. But this is the one I have, and I'm quite happy with it!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: at0mic on 2003-10-01 00:43 ]</font>

krizrox · Post by **krizrox** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 2:24 pm

I love the ART Tube MP units. Check 'em out!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: krizrox on 2003-09-30 15:28 ]</font>

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Tue Sep 30, 2003 3:29 pm

I got the DI/O Preamp System from ART the ART DPS, it as ADAT output, it a dual channel, the sound is fabulous with almost any source. Especialy a mic'd classical guitar :

You can add exactly just the amount of warmth you need. You can balance the level that is going thru the tube and the amount going straight to output.

You can also inject (using an insert) any signal to go thru the tube, for example a stereo mix since it is a dual channel.

I really love this unit