Mic Preamp

[Ant]

Is a mic preamp going to up the signal from my mic significantly? I'm thinking it will, so will probably buy one but just checking for some advice. Currently, I'm just putting the mic straight into my soundcard and the result isn't very good. I'm having to normalise my vocals to get them at a suitable level and this also makes the noise louder, and it's horrible.

Anyways, do I have to be spending alot of cash? I saw one for £25 (abit less than $50, I think). Would that be suitable or do I need to really shell out?

Peace.

 

[Rukas]

Is a mic preamp going to up the signal from my mic significantly? I'm thinking it will, so will probably buy one but just checking for some advice. Currently, I'm just putting the mic straight into my soundcard and the result isn't very good. I'm having to normalise my vocals to get them at a suitable level and this also makes the noise louder, and it's horrible.

Anyways, do I have to be spending alot of cash? I saw one for £25 (abit less than $50, I think). Would that be suitable or do I need to really shell out?

Peace.

A pre amp is a pre amp, any will do really. For budget reasons Id recommend you go with one of the Behringers they are cheap but good.

Really most mic preamps do the same. If you have a cheap mic and are only recording in cool edit, an expensive top of the line preamp isnt going to do anything for you. Your set up is only as good as your weakest link.

I personally dont use a pre amp so I cant give you specific advice sorry.

 

[Bigg Limn]

Yeah I'd recommend getting a mixer with a preamp built in...like RUkas suggested 1 of the Behringer models. I've had one since I started recording and it's worked well and lasted a while. Those run from anywhere like $50+

pz

 

[Rukas]

An alternative (albiet a more expensive one) is getting a sound card with phantom power to boost the mic signal and then using a software preamp.

Right now Im running my mic directly into my Mbox and setting a Focusrite preamp on the bus in Pro Tools.

 

[Hymnz]

just get the mbox or something, many of the pros use pro tools to record... if u r only doing vocal recording, definitely check out the cheap behringer range. good luck

 

[Bigg Limn]

Is a soundcard w/ phantom power jus as good as a mixer w/ phantom power run thru a good soundcard?

 

[Rukas]

^^ If you have a good software mixer than yes, even better in my opinion cause you can change it by using different software where as you only have ONE mixer.