I'll say what I always say and say this... get a decent used live sound board like a midas or a Allen Heath GL or a old Crest or something with Direct outputs and use those preamps. Bang for the buck they will get you there. If you want a couple of beauty channels tge Warm Audio Api pre is great, a single UA 610 is a greT color chanel. A used 24ch analog live sound board will run you under a grand and has eq on each channel plus a standard electrically balanced clean preamp. And you can mix down with it an like it better than the presonus for summing IMHO. I HATE the presonus compressor and wouldn't use it on anything ever.

Here are 32 pretty good preamps with eq for under a grand

https://reverb.com/p/allen-and-heath-gl ... rAr2Zq9Otc

SurfySpark wrote:
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 don't want to derail your pre-amp thread, but I gotta ask --have you ever heard the origin story of 'Cecilia Ann'? My mind was blown.

Kniferide wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:17 amI HATE the presonus compressor and wouldn't use it on anything ever.

Completely agree, they're not usable. I do have a couple DBX 166XL stereo compressors that sound a lot better. I just need five more!

Thanks for the tip on the A & H boards. I guess I'd just go line in to the Presonus for tracking. I think I've got the inputs for 32 tracks. That's a great idea. I hate Mackie preamps so much, but I haven't heard A & H preamps.

If you were going to a budget studio to record your surf band, what would you want to see? Besides a 2" tape machine of course.

Teacher's Pet wrote:I don't want to derail your pre-amp thread, but I gotta ask --have you ever heard the origin story of 'Cecilia Ann'? My mind was blown.

I did not know the story of Celia-Ann!!! Holy crap! That's amazing. It sounds so great.

Kniferide wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:17 am I'll say what I always say and say this... get a decent used live sound board like a midas or a Allen Heath GL or a old Crest or something with Direct outputs and use those preamps. Bang for the buck they will get you there. If you want a couple of beauty channels tge Warm Audio Api pre is great, a single UA 610 is a greT color chanel. A used 24ch analog live sound board will run you under a grand and has eq on each channel plus a standard electrically balanced clean preamp. And you can mix down with it an like it better than the presonus for summing IMHO. I HATE the presonus compressor and wouldn't use it on anything ever.

Good idea but make sure the direct outs are post and not pre. I was trying to do this for a while but every mixer I found that had individual outs were just direct from the input, which made them pretty useless for my needs (as individual channel strips to send to inputs on a multitrack recorder).

SurfySpark wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 1:53 pm

Teacher's Pet wrote:I don't want to derail your pre-amp thread, but I gotta ask --have you ever heard the origin story of 'Cecilia Ann'? My mind was blown.

I did not know the story of Celia-Ann!!! Holy crap! That's amazing. It sounds so great.

In addition to the Pixies connection it's the opening to one of my favorite movies: Kicking and Screaming (1995).

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:12 pm

Kniferide wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:17 am I'll say what I always say and say this... get a decent used live sound board like a midas or a Allen Heath GL or a old Crest or something with Direct outputs and use those preamps. Bang for the buck they will get you there. If you want a couple of beauty channels tge Warm Audio Api pre is great, a single UA 610 is a greT color chanel. A used 24ch analog live sound board will run you under a grand and has eq on each channel plus a standard electrically balanced clean preamp. And you can mix down with it an like it better than the presonus for summing IMHO. I HATE the presonus compressor and wouldn't use it on anything ever.

Good idea but make sure the direct outs are post and not pre. I was trying to do this for a while but every mixer I found that had individual outs were just direct from the input, which made them pretty useless for my needs (as individual channel strips to send to inputs on a multitrack recorder).

I actually modded my Direct outs to be Pre fader. Makes them a little cleaner and then I can make a mix on the faders for what I want to hear in the control room without affecting what is being recorded. I set level with the gain knob and can monitor off the faders. To each his own. I also use the aux mixes for headphones. On A&H boards it is just a jumper you got to solder. pretty annoying but not hard to do. You can change if the point is pre or post EQ as well, mine are post. So Pre and EQ go to CPU, Fader mix is just to listen.

Kniferide wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 3:05 pm

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:12 pm

Kniferide wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:17 am I'll say what I always say and say this... get a decent used live sound board like a midas or a Allen Heath GL or a old Crest or something with Direct outputs and use those preamps. Bang for the buck they will get you there. If you want a couple of beauty channels tge Warm Audio Api pre is great, a single UA 610 is a greT color chanel. A used 24ch analog live sound board will run you under a grand and has eq on each channel plus a standard electrically balanced clean preamp. And you can mix down with it an like it better than the presonus for summing IMHO. I HATE the presonus compressor and wouldn't use it on anything ever.

Good idea but make sure the direct outs are post and not pre. I was trying to do this for a while but every mixer I found that had individual outs were just direct from the input, which made them pretty useless for my needs (as individual channel strips to send to inputs on a multitrack recorder).

I actually modded my Direct outs to be Pre fader. Makes them a little cleaner and then I can make a mix on the faders for what I want to hear in the control room without affecting what is being recorded. I set level with the gain knob and can monitor off the faders. To each his own. I also use the aux mixes for headphones. On A&H boards it is just a jumper you got to solder. pretty annoying but not hard to do. You can change if the point is pre or post EQ as well, mine are post. So Pre and EQ go to CPU, Fader mix is just to listen.

Is that post or pre the preamp section? A lot of mixers are just DI out which makes them useless as preamps.

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 3:51 pm

Kniferide wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 3:05 pm

ChudFusk wrote: Fri Dec 02, 2022 2:12 pm

Good idea but make sure the direct outs are post and not pre. I was trying to do this for a while but every mixer I found that had individual outs were just direct from the input, which made them pretty useless for my needs (as individual channel strips to send to inputs on a multitrack recorder).

I actually modded my Direct outs to be Pre fader. Makes them a little cleaner and then I can make a mix on the faders for what I want to hear in the control room without affecting what is being recorded. I set level with the gain knob and can monitor off the faders. To each his own. I also use the aux mixes for headphones. On A&H boards it is just a jumper you got to solder. pretty annoying but not hard to do. You can change if the point is pre or post EQ as well, mine are post. So Pre and EQ go to CPU, Fader mix is just to listen.

Is that post or pre the preamp section? A lot of mixers are just DI out which makes them useless as preamps.

on Allen and Heath boards the signal flow is Preamp > EQ > AUX (so EQ does affect aux sends) > Fader > Direct Out by default. There are jumpers on each CH that let you move the Out point to be pre fader, and also pre EQ ( you could take the Direct out pre EQ, post Preamp if you wanted to). So it goes Mic Pre > EQ > Direct Out (which is a paralleled path) > Aux mixes (also Paradelle) > Fader the way I have mine set up. This way the Direct outs are a tap from the preamp/EQ but the fader does not affect the level going out of the direct. By Default, if you move the faders, it will trim the level going out of the D Outs. There is also a jumper that lets you take the AUX sends pre EQ so the Channel EQ does not affect the aux sends, handy if you are sending to a separate mixer for monitor feeds on stage or whatever.

I've never used a board where the Direct Outs were pre-preamp at all. Are you saying they literally just loop out the input? cause I've never run into that.

I don't want no dang eq on the direct outs! Just preamp out. I'm liking these Allen & Heaths! Those Midas boards are huuuuuuge, and expensive!

To get back to preamps, my pal who worked in a studio was telling me that the various fancy preamp uses were sort of brand-specific. Some are way out of my price range, but I'm definitely interested in getting at least a handful of preamps. The 500 series power supply thing is also interesting.

Here's the list, please chime in with opinions, especially if you disagree:

API - crisp, not warm, drums or organ
Universal Audio - warm tubey goodness, good for all
Neve - warmer, kick or toms
Trident 80B - all around, even and nice. Horns like em
Grace Design m802 - all around good but not for vocals. I hate the interface menu one knob crap tho.
Telefunken V72 - vocals and piano