Hello! First post, please be kind. I am looking to upgrade my home surf music recording setup. Eventually I'd like to be able to record other people's bands so I want a more pro sound. Currently using a (don't hate me) Presonus StudioLive 24, and the line ins sound pretty clean. The mic preamps aren't very exciting however. I am only looking to track, not mix or master. Mostly instro surf, no fancy large diaphragm vocals. I have an half-decent array of mics including a pair of Schoeps cmc6mk21 (and mk41), a pair of Coles 4038s, and a ton of other dynamic mics. I also have a killer collection of Fender brown panel amps and reverb tanks.

I'd love to not have to upgrade the entire board, and instead have been thinking that getting a bank of 24 preamps could get me there. I like not using a DAW to do my rough mixdowns, I HATE the thought of using a keyboard and mouse for anything other than "record" or "play." I use 90s outboard compressors and an Aural Expander. I'm going to see about getting more compressors and EQs, all rack stuff. I really do hate keyboards. Full disclosure, I have nerve damage from being a video editor in the late 90s, and can no longer really even use a computer for editing.

I don't want to mess with tube preamps. I like the Metric Halo racks with 8x preamps. Last time I looked they were $6k each. So yeah that's a huge investment. Maybe there is a board with 24 decent preamps for less than $24k? The Rupert Neve preamp racks are also nice and a bit cheaper. I was thinking of going through the preamps into the Presonus line ins.

Thoughts? Thanks!
Dan

While I don't normally feel like I can speak for even most of this subforum?

I get a funny feeling that you are going to get a lot of "Seriously, the preamps don't really matter that much..."

I get that it is a seriously "Unfun..." answer, but I can feel it coming.

(Never mind that it is about how I feel myself...)

Preamps are awesome!

Why are you down on tubes? I mean I get that 24 channels of Coil would bankrupt you, but check out Analogue Addicts in the UK for a lot of very funky heavily coloured options.

"Preamps don't matter" is a choice, in that one might not care about them, or they might not matter for you given what you are doing. As an analogy, consider "amps don't matter".

For solid state, again you would probably be leaning towards something with strong transformer colour as opposed to super clean, fast, all-that-i-can-hear-is-my-mic vibes. I think that you are on the right track with Neve. Any any rate, with 24 tracks the nature of the preamps is going to start staking up. Have fun and report back!

Hm, I can't say I've ever heard a preamp sound "exciting." If your goal is to have a front-end that will appeal to taking paying clients, I get that. I think if I were to build from ground up and need 24 inputs going at once, I'd get 16-22 rather neutral but good clean pres w/ plenty of headroom and then a pair or two of preamps that have some "color" to them.

On budget, I guess I'd go w/ 5x the 4-channel Warm API clones (or maybe the Black Lion 4-channel units) or 2 of the 8-channel Audients and then 1 of the 2-channel Warm Neve clones w/ the eq for max transformer color...and maybe a Grace 2 channel for a super clean stereo clean option. I wouldn't rule out a nice tube pre though if you think you're going to be working w/ vocals for your clients.

If I had more money, I'd probably just two of the Grace 8-channel units and then fill out the other 8 w/ maybe 4-channel API unit, and then 2 channels of Neve 1073, the 2-channel tubetech or something. IDK. That's probably still around half the $24k you mentioned.

A lot of folks though are going the route of the 500-series chassis for a lot of their pres and there can be a lot of cost savings there but that's a whole area I'm not familiar with.

It's like FM#30 said, preamps are not that exciting. I'm not saying they're not "important" but don't be surprised if you don't hear a huge dramatic difference between your recordings on your presonus vs even the most high-end, esoteric preamps. You'll notice the difference between good and great pres when using them on quiet sources as you should have a lower noise floor in most cases or ribbon mics or other gain thirsty mics like RE20/SM7.

Personally, I never found a noticeable difference in my recordings when I moved from the pres on my basic-ass Allen & Heath mixwizard console to the Syteks. I worked in other studios w/ Neves, APIs, etc and then filled out channels w/ a Yamaha 02R. Again, wasn't like BLOWN AWAY at the difference. At all. I've heard surprisingly GREAT-sounding rock records done entirely w/ late 90s Mackie 8-bus console.

So I guess I just want to temper expectations if you're hoping for a huge sonic upgrade by throwing a huge pile of money at pres, especially as you'll unlikely be using all 24-channels all the time. Even in a full band setting, you can use your not-as-nice pres on the louder sources and save the nice ones for the critical "out front" sources and have incredible results.

Welcome to the forum!

ICYMI there's some recent, informative, and somewhat relevant preamp discussion taking place in the TALK ME OUT OF IT thread, p. 18 - 19.

numberthirty wrote: I get a funny feeling that you are going to get a lot of "Seriously, the preamps don't really matter that much..."

I get that it is a seriously "Unfun..." answer, but I can feel it coming.

(Never mind that it is about how I feel myself...)

I'm so happy the 'preamp flavor' trend (maybe more of a TOMB thing than EA) has mostly died off. "What flavor of preamp should I get for my snare?" I dunno.. maybe start by replacing the cratered 20 year old pinstripe head first..

There are so many color/saturation plug in tools (often "free", see Airwindows thread) for thickening/darkening/exciting/vintage-ing whatever that are worth exploring before putting thousands of dollars into boring preamps. (I'm not opposed to having a couple nice channels for vocals or overdubs and whatnot. Still a subtle difference, but maybe that matters more on an upfront vocal or guitar lead than a bottom rack tom mic..). And while I get along with tracking pads, a digital interface with knobs and faders is a modest investment if you don't want to feel like you're 'working on a computer'.

seby wrote: Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:17 pm "Preamps don't matter" is a choice, in that one might not care about them, or they might not matter for you given what you are doing. As an analogy, consider "amps don't matter".

Careful before I track down the clip of FM steve saying he primarily uses (Neotek/Sytek) board pres (while pro, are definitely not 'exciting').

A bunch of fav Albini pres listed in this article https://www.soundonsound.com/people/steve-albini?amp

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 11:38 am A bunch of fav Albini pres listed in this article https://www.soundonsound.com/people/steve-albini?amp

That Massenburg he mentions a lot is even cleaner/more 'boring' than Syteks.

p.s. around 19:30, and if you fall asleep make sure to wake up again around 25:15

The most practical way to settle this for yourself is not to find a bank of 24 preamps and spend way more money than your two 4038s put together on the hope that it will give you the fairy dust you desire, but instead to get one excellent channel of highly recommended, solid pedigree mic preamp (Great River, Api, BAE, Chandler, Avedis, or whatever other fancy thing a heroic engineer, or a long winded thread on a forum has hipped you to). It will be the snare mic pre, the second guitar part pre, (most importantly) the vocal recording pre. And if you are feeling scientific you'll record a take with it, and then a take with your ordinary board preamp and see just how much better it is. If you're feeling it, then you'll want a lot more. If it's just subtle enough you might want to make a pair out of it and be done. Or you'll flip back and forth between a take on both signal chains and think about listing it on Reverb as 'mint condition' (this would be frighteningly practical, like you'd be my hero because I'm not built that way).

As the regulars on here have probably grown tired of hearing, I put this to the test something fierce by recording and rerecording a short song from the ground up with a variety of very ordinary and fairly expensive preamps to see if the 'stacking' theory of preamp tones paid off in increasing dividends as the track count increased. The results have left me a preamp agnostic.

Thank you all for the excellent thoughts! Truly appreciated. A pal told me the same thing - get some good preamps for the snare, kick, guitar, and bass. (No vocal recordings are planned.) Then use the regular Presonus preamps for everything else. I may just get one or two fancy preamps as suggested.

Full disclosure - I want to create an instro surf only studio, and be a cheap and fruitful resource to build support surf music. This is a future plan. For now it's just me, and I wanna do this studio thing as a retirement hobby.

I have zero desire to own a real-deal legit studio, but I want something that will work for these modern surf bands. For tracking I want good stuff.

I am never going to use a computer for this, so outboard stuff with knobs and faders is the goal. In fact I have nerve damage and cannot mouse around for more than about ten or twenty minutes without burning pain. This is why the StudioLive is awesome, but I fully understand it's soooo limited for mixing and not able to do proper mastering. My future studio will have to partner with a mastering outfit. Or the bands take their tracks to their own mastering outfit.

So perhaps I'm just naive about the preamps "legitimizing" my setup. Maybe I don't need more than a few good preamps, but maybe I need a whole new setup. I'd love some guidance.

For background, I grew up recording on dual cassette decks, overdubbing ten times. Then I got a Tascam Portastudio 464. Then I got a Tascam 32 1/2" reel deck. And now the Presonus. I also record dialog for tv and film for my regular job. So I am not a stranger to recording. I have no desire to master, just rough mixes.