PreSonus TUBEPre Microphone Preamp For Guitar--Verdict
charles robinson
Preamp to run their guitars through in order to warm up the sound of their
digital amps. Does anyone remember what the verdict was on this? Does it
work well? TIA
Charlie
SJHust
I switched to a tube amp.
I still use the TubePre for a mic preamp, but a friend did a detailed
comparison of mine with the mic preamps in the FirePod, which is more
or less the same circuit minus the tube, and we couldn't hear any real
difference. Works very well as a mic preamp, though, and was worth the
money for that purpose.
I haven't measured the voltage on the plates of the 12ax7 in the
TubePre, but I suspect it is running at a pretty low B+.
There is also a red LED behind the tube to give it a nice warm "tubey"
glow. This does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling; why should they think
this is necessary?
I chalk it all up to a sales gimmick. Tubes are in. If you want a real
tube preamp for your amp, buy something like the new Seymour Duncan
pedal, with two 6021's in it running at a proper B+, or build a clean
variation of Fred Nachbaur's Real McTube if you're up to it.
just my 2 euro-cents.
steven
LarryV
recording. I've front ended my Evans amp with one before, and to be
honest I really didn't notice much difference, but then again the Evans
is not a digital amp. They do work great for warming up the sound when
recording into a DAW.
Mark Guest
I used one with my Clarus 1A and found it OK. Certainly not essential
unless you want a mic pre. I don't use it now that I have the handy
little JazzKat. It's the second tube stage that I tried with the
Clarus, the first being a German made box (can't remember the name)
that sounded pretty good once I swapped a 12au7 for the AX7. I'm all
about carrying less stuff around at the moment, though I suspect that
this is a temporary condition. I find myself missing the nice Clarus/RE
sound, and I'll probably start using them more.
Best,
Mark Guest
charles robinson
theory than practice.
Charlie
"Mark Guest" <Mark.C...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1163429765.8...@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Mark Guest
tomb...@jhu.edu
> Ok, thanks Mark and everyone else, it sounds like an idea that is better in
> theory than practice.
The idea of a tube pre, or the idea of this particular product? This
particular product seems to be "toob" rather than tube. In other words,
the tube is there for decoration, as a sales gimmick, rather than for
its sound.
charles robinson
appear more powerful. I meant the idea of using a tube preamp that was
designed for a mike to beef up the guitar sound.Had I known that it wasn't a
real tube pre-amp I would have never considered it in the first place.
Charlie
<tomb...@jhu.edu> wrote in message
news:1163437215....@h48g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
Max Leggett
<robins...@comcast.net> wrote:
>Oh, I see, I thought that the tube worked and that the light was to make it
>appear more powerful. I meant the idea of using a tube preamp that was
>designed for a mike to beef up the guitar sound.Had I known that it wasn't a
>real tube pre-amp I would have never considered it in the first place.
I got conned on that, too. It's very good at gathering dust ....
--------------------------------------
Without music, life is a mistayke.
Friedrich "Spelling R Us" Nietzsche
--------------------------------------
Kevin Van Sant
<VLudnb6E0J9qNMXY...@comcast.com> :
>Oh, I see, I thought that the tube worked and that the light was to make it
>appear more powerful. I meant the idea of using a tube preamp that was
>designed for a mike to beef up the guitar sound.Had I known that it wasn't a
>real tube pre-amp I would have never considered it in the first place.
>Charlie
If you can find one of the original H&K Tubeman preamps, they work
really well for what you're describing. I have put it between the
guitar and amp at home, and it does make a SS amp sound more Fender
tube like. But I never bother bringing it out on a gig, because my
rig already sounds great and it's not worth the trouble to me to bring
extra gear and cables. But I do use it whenever I do direct recording
and I think it works very well for that. I've heard that subsequent
generations of this box don't sound as good, but I don't have any
first-hand experience to confirm. The original ones can be found on
ebay sometimes. Mine was about $100 3 or 4 years ago.
_________________________________________
Kevin Van Sant
http://www.kevinvansant.com
CDs, videos, mp3s, gigs, pics, lessons, info.
charles robinson
Charlie
"Kevin Van Sant" <kvan...@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:u7bhl211t0v6rvq21...@4ax.com...
tom walls
robins...@comcast.net says...
> Thanks, direct recording was one of the reasons I wanted to give this a try.
> Charlie
>
they work pretty good.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ART-Tube-MP-Project-Series-Tube-
MicrophoneInstrument-Preamp?sku=180643
--
Tom Walls
the guy at the Temple of Zeus
charles robinson
Charlie
"tom walls" <tw...@cornell.edu> wrote in message
news:MPG.1fc288783...@newsstand.cit.cornell.edu...
Kevin Van Sant
Max Leggett
wrote:
>In article <nYCdnZ-32LQcLMXY...@comcast.com>,
>robins...@comcast.net says...
>> Thanks, direct recording was one of the reasons I wanted to give this a try.
>> Charlie
>>
>For that purpose, try the ART Tube MP. $65 at Musician's Friend. I think
>they work pretty good.
>
Sound on Sound has reviews; they reckon the V3 is better, and only $
more.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb05/articles/arttubemp.htm
SJHust
charles robinson wrote:
> >
> > The idea of a tube pre, or the idea of this particular product? This
> > particular product seems to be "toob" rather than tube. In other words,
> > the tube is there for decoration, as a sales gimmick, rather than for
> > its sound.
> >
The tube is connected, and does do something, but not much. You can
turn the gain up and generate a (not very pleasant) distortion, or use
it to drive the input of your amp harder, if that's what you want to
do. It's just that this is a hybrid circuit, and you "add tubeness" to
the basically solid state preamp. It's not going to make a solid state
or digital amp sound like a blackface Fender.
Tubes are designed to work within particular voltage ranges, generally
well above 100-200V for preamp tubes, and running them at very low
voltages is suboptimal. Furthermore, a lot of "tube warmness" is subtle
distortion, even in a very clean amp like a Fender Twin. I'm curious
now and will measure the plate voltage in my TubePre next time I get an
extra ten minutes.
But after using one for this and that for three years, I've come to the
conclusion that these low-cost "tube" preamps like the TubePre or the
Behringer use the tubes just as sales gimmicks, as you said. But don't
get me wrong, I'm very happy with it as a mic preamp. But for warmth, I
use a Fender tube amplifier, and to boost my guitar signal before the
amp, I use a linear power booster I built that doesn't color the sound.
steven
charles robinson
charles robinson
"Max Leggett" <kidk...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:4558cd01.55358821@shawnews...
charles robinson
amps would be a side benefit. As you can see some of the guys have been
turning me on to other options. Thanks for your input.
Charlie
"SJHust" <sjhu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1163448118....@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Pinner
modeling processor. They supposedly use a tube the way it should. I
have no idea.
Thankx
Pt
charles robinson wrote:
> Thanks, direct recording was one of the reasons I wanted to give this a try.
> Charlie
If you get the chance try a Mesa V-1.
Two preamp tubes.
I changed the tubes to NOS 5751's for less gain.
I love it.
Pt
http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Rackmount-Preamps/V-1-BottleRocket/V-1BottleRocket.html
LarryV
on the single 12AX7 tube. I used to have a H&K amp that had a single
12AX7 in the preamp. Eventually the tube went south and after
replacing trying a few different brands, I could never get the original
tone of the amp back to the way I liked it. I suppose if you try enough
different tubes you could eventually get there. YMMV