Hobbyist vs Crazed Hobbyist vs Total Idiot

First off, you've got to figure out what your engineering goals are. Are you just wanting to have a little fun making noise? Are you looking to be the flat-out best engineer you can possibly be? Are you looking to put together a pro facility in which you could record tip-top bands? Are you somewhere in the middle.

I think the biggest reason so many people are mislead on this whole preamp thing comes from not understanding a person's needs. I've been struggling for a while in explaining why I've acquired some fancy pantsy preamps but then rarely recommend this upgrade to anyone here at RecordingReview.

The Music Always Takes Precedence

#1 I'm of the opinion that a person can definitely make exciting music with gear that is “just okay”. Stock interface preamps fall into this category, for example. Even in a not-so-hi-fi state (which high end pres in no way guarantee), exciting music means the recording IS exciting. This was the motivation for this blog: Preamps Don't Matter?

I'd prefer to listen to great music with cheapo preamps over stale, boring crap any day of the week. Everyone with a pulse is this way. If they say differently, avoid them like a gay rapists with big guns.

Good New For: Broke and talented people
Bad News For: Skilled engineers recording uninspired noise, anyone untalented

Squeezing That Last Drop

#2 Dumb metaphor time: If cash is no object, you get the lightest gear possible for 10x the price when climbing Everest because too many people have died trying and that last 100 ft is harder than it looks.

Even the best engineers are going to have a hard time with that “last 100ft”....the thing that separates the ultra men from the men without the fancy preamps. Of course, #1 is still applies here.

Good News For: Skilled engineers with deep pockets who want to be ultra-skilled engineers, hobbyists who aren't attempting to “climb Everest” and therefor don't need idiot-gadgetry anyway
Bad News For: Broke people climbing Everest

No Bailouts

#3 There are a billion places a person can screw up a recording (with or without the high end preamps). Fancy pres don't bail you out of bad sounding situations....ever!

Good News For: People who've really got their shit together......which is basically no one
Bad News For: Anyone trying to make a butt kicking recording

What's Wrong With Cheapo Pres?

#4 The two main problems with cheapo pres is they sound “blurry”....kinda like a VCR tape where stuff is kind of smudged/smeared or they take on the megaphone effect a bit. How much? Not THAT much, but it's certainly something no one I know would prefer.

You can clearly hear what I'm talking about in The Interrogator Sessions in Killer Home Recording. Once your ears are acclimated, it doesn't take much work to hear how the cheapo pres compare to the high end pres. There's never a time when the cheapo pre would win. The top notch pres always have this “extra excitement” in them while the cheapo pres seem more “sluggish”.

I divide the preamp thing into three categories: cheapo, adequate, and fancy. Once you get passed the cheapo stuff, the adequate pres do the job just fine. They may not add anything interesting, but they don't murk up anything and they don't add the megaphone effect. The True Systems pres fall into this category, among others. I thought the pres in the Yamaha MR816 weren't TOO far from being adequate, but they didn't quite make it. I've rumors that the pres on the RME Fireface 800 may be playing not too far from this ballpark. So when you read reviews about these upper-range interfaces sounding “amazing”, they really just sound “almost adequate” if we take the Total Idiot stance from above.

Adequate preamps do a fine job and could be used on everything without any real issues.

The special pres do a certain something extra. This “extra” thing could be good or bad depending on what you are going for (we'll get into that) and this is where knowing exactly what each preamp is ideal for comes into play. Certain special pres push you into a corner a little bit.

#5 Not all fancy mic preamps are ideal for use on everything. Big, dark sounding preamps can cause big problem when using them on everything. Too many “big” sources makes mixing a challenge. It's best to use the big sounding pres sparingly on the bigger stuff and use the tighter pres for everything else.

When I started out with my Vintech 1272 on the very first recording I had ever done (I was told I absolutely NEEDED it!....asshole!) Anyhow, that preamp is more on the bigger/thicker side of the fence. It doesn't have the hi-fi sparkle that many pres do, but it does have a the Neve-style harmonic in the upper mids. All Neve-type pres have this and it's a dead giveaway in shootouts. The Vintech does not have the hi-fi Neve thing that the Great River Neve-style pres have. It's more of a darker sound.

This is not a preamp I would recommend starting with. Even though I do pull it out for certain things some of the time. The Vintech 1272 can be great on vocals that you don't need to be ultra bright (particularly with an SM7b among others) but want to sound big. The lack of sparkle paints the 1272 into a corner that's only useful at certain times. It kind of reminds me of when mom puts the special tablecloth on at Christmas. It's only great once a year.

For what it's worth, the pres in the Yamaha MR816 don't have near the sparkle of a Manley TNT solid state channel, Martech, or Great River either, but the more neutral approach to their design makes them more usable across the board. There's something impractical about certain high end pres as a daily driver. A person would be better off with a new Ford Focus than a 500Hp Hemi Cuda if they only had one car. For a person who only has single-car garage, there are powerhouse BMWs and Mercedes that can do the daily driver thing and can do it with super high performance. This is where the high end sparkly preamps mentioned above come in.

In short, spending big bucks on some random pre is not the solution and could actually get you into a place that is worse than decent interface pres.

Good News For: People with a wide variety of pres who know how and when to use them, People who have a single faster/tighter preamp they use on all overdubs
Bad News For: Guys overdubbing exclusively with one fancy preamp that may not be ideal for across the board use

My Recommendations

Hobbyists – If you are a guy just having fun, don't buy a fancy preamp. If you want your recordings to sound good but have limited time and aren't going to get upset if your productions don't blow away the big boy bands, just have fun and don't let anyone convince you need to make a huge investment.

Crazed Hobbyists – If you do this for fun, but have a few bucks to blow, have a little fun with adequate preamps first. You may not need a big selection and your needs will depend on if you are entirely doing overdubs or if you are recording multiple tracks at once. However, in this world, I recommend preamps on the sparkly side of the fence with tight low mids. You saw a few examples above. The True Systems stuff definitely gets the job done in this realm, but if you want to go all out the solid state Manley TNT channel is my go-to preamp for sparkly stuff. The Great River gear works really well. I definitely wouldn't go with something not-so-tight in the low mids for my single pre again. Those were some long years!

Total Idiots – If you are going for the top and climbing Everest, I'll tell you what I've done. I just bought a Toft ATB32. It supposedly has okay pres to hold me over when I run out of fancy stuff. I picked up an API 3124, a Wunder PaFour, and a Focusrite ISA 428. I'm keeping my Manley TNT and most likely selling everything I've had previously. (I haven't decided about my Chameleon 7602s yet.)

I expect the API to end up on close mics on drums and probably most things I'm overdubbing. It doesn't have a super sparkly top end and it's quite colored. It'll smooth out shrill stuff. My Manley TNT solid state is definitely sparkly and doesn't smooth out anything. The X factors here are the PaFour and ISA 428. I'll have to report back when I've put them to the test, but the Wunder should do more of the Neve thing with the extra harmonic in the upper midrange. The ISA should be sparkly like the Manley TNT SS, probably a little less colored, maybe a little faster. I'm speculating.

For what it's worth, there are only a few qualities that are that important. Why a person needs 22 different models of preamps is beyond me.

• Meaty Transients
• Sparkly preamp with tight low mids (for brighter vocals, acoustic guitars)
• Tamed Upper Mids, Harmonic Content (for most vocals, electric guitars)

You can make it much more complicated if you want to, but I don't see the reason. I really do think the old view of just using a console worked on most the cds in my collection. I've leave the optional hair/atom-splitting up to you. I've got noise to make.

The tighter, more focused pres are where it is at for day to day tracking. There are times when you want the bigger, darker, and less-focused sound but the most part I'm not into it. In the tighter/focused category you have all kinds of options to choose from and various attributes that make them more or less ideal.

Here's a 1992 Chicago Bulls basketball analogy that I think sums it up. Michael Jordan is API. BJ Armstrong is Great River. We are recording my “sparkly” acoustic guitars again. (Work with me, I know this sounds, and is, stupid.) BJ Armstrong is the point guard and so it's his job to bring the ball up the court. Is it going to really be the end of the world if Michael Jordan has to handle the ball? Probably not. Basically, we get an extra point in the sparkly department by selecting the Great River. We don't necessarily lose anything with the API. Your girlfriend probably won't notice and the bass player definitely will not notice.

Then again, when all this stuff aligns and you select the pres that give you what you want at various times (and combine that skill with an equal amount of across-the-board engineering skill) the band will definitely notice.

Conclusion

Broke home recorders don't have to worry too much unless their aim is absolute robo recordings. A hobbyist will usually have goals that are more modest than the guy engineering the next INSERT BIG BAND's album. Some hobbyists are dealing with limitations in music, musicians, instruments, room, and engineering ability that hold them back and in any of those situations, the fancy preamp thing is unnecessary.

For the crazed hobbyist, If the wrong pre is used throughout a recording, a person can have their work cut out for them in mixing. Because of this, I highly recommend tighter, more focused pres to be used overall and then, in time, adding a big sounding pre for special situations (vocals, kick, etc).

For the guys going for the absolute echelon of ultra recordings, there are specialized tasks for various pres than can make life a little more fun. Understanding when to use what is part of the skill of a great engineer. While there have certainly been numerous recordings made with a console only, and great music music will always come through, most people agree that there are sound quality benefits to specializing.

The Manley TNT is a high dollar unit, to say the least. Well, even expensive gear has problems some times. I contacted Manley to let them know I was having a problem. I shipped the TNT to them their shop and what do you know? They can't find the problem. It appears that it is intermittent.

We've all dealt with tech repair situations that had intermittent problems. This ALWAYS blows. In a big ol' chunk of those cases you end up screwed. Well, the Manley dude told me straight up, that they weren't going to give up. They had their tricks and they'd find the damn problems.

It took 'em almost a month (which was fine by me), but they eventually found the culprit. There was a problem with a capacitor.

It's nice dealing with a tech support where you know you are being taken care of. I don't know how much time they spent on my Manley TNT, but I'm guessing it was significant. While you'd expect high end support from such a high end company, you never really know for sure what you are going to get.

I have to say that I couldn't recommend Manley gear any higher based on both the quality of their products and their dedication to taking care of you when problems occur.....including the dreaded intermittent crap.

Well done, Manley!

Brandon

While I have vocal preamps galore in my Killer Home Recording shootouts, I haven't included any preamp shootouts here in free Recording Review member's area.

So, I've brought in the greatest singer of all time.

He sang through a Presonus Firestudio preamp (and converter), a Manley TNT Tube Channel preamp > Mytek AD96, and a Manley TNT solid state channel preamp > Mytek AD96.

So check it out now (Member's Only, you'll need to join first).

The Most Serious Mic Preamp Uhhdsf Thing EVER!

Brandon

First off, I want to start off by thwarting away any potential tech support that Manley may have to deal with. Even though this is a Manley preamp, you can record girls with it too. In fact, it may even work better on girls. (I didn't do that shootout).

Sorry. It's a terrible joke. No one laughed the 14 times I told it during shootout times either but I insist that somewhere out there someone will laugh.

The Idea Behind The Manley TNT

First off, Manley makes some high-end junk. In fact, I can't even call it “junk”. I guess I need to search the Thesaurus for something a bit more eloquent. Done! Manley makes high-end stuff. They target big boy studios with their gear and they strike me as the kind of company that worries little about hitting a price point. They have one goal in mind (domination) and they don't seem to be overly concerned with how much you have to pay for it.

Manley set out to create the single most versatile 1U rack space preamp on the planet. They tossed a tube design on the cleverly named “Tube Channel” and then snuck in a solid state design on the boldly named “Cool Channel”. (Manley's reputation is stout enough that they don't have to bore us with another abuse of the word “warm”.) On each side they included an array of impedance options. I won't bore you with the actual impedances, but there were at least three on each channel. They included a DI (which also contains an array of unique impedance options...VERY COOL!), a smart high-pass filter on the Cool Channel, an average intelligence high-pass filter on the Tube Channel, a thing called “Iron” on the Cool Channel, and a switch called “Color” on the Cool Channel.

For those of you who read the high-end audio recording fantasy publications (which IS essentially porn without all the drugs or pony tails) you may be up on the Manley SLAM! Limiter. The preamp on the Manley SLAM! is the same thing as the Tube Channel on the TNT.

Blah blah blah…You can read about the features and all that junk in the Manley TNT Manual or on the website. Let's get down to my views on this damn thing.

Features In Action
Smart High-Pass Filter - Okay, it's not THAT smart. It's not an auto-detect gadget or anything stupid like that. I just like the fact that The Cool Channel gives me a choice between 60Hz and 120Hz for the high-pass. 120Hz is a bit extreme for some applications and that's why I want it. There are many sources that have absolutely no need for anything up to 120Hz and for those I can say “See ya!”. When we want to be subtle, we can leave quite a bit more in. This may not seem to be all that life changing, but it came in handy more than I had realized. 85HZ is a common high-pass frequency and seldom do I consider it ideal.

Note: The more I do this music recording thing, the more I prefer to solve problems the second they arise. I don't want to have to reach for a high-pass filter when mixing. I want it to be right from the start. I feel this “smart” high-pass filter is a good idea.

The Tube Channel has the usual dumb high-pass filter, but it's set at 80Hz. I found this useful because the tube side is generally used for meatier sounds anyway. We'll get into that.

Mega Impedance Options – I loved having the option of selecting different input impedances on the Manley TNT. The character of the recorded signal can change dramatically by varying the impedance. I could tame brittle sounds by selecting lower impedances and I could make signals that were a touch low-mid heavy a bit more aggressive by increasing the input impedance. This is all Engineering 101 stuff, but it worked exactly like it should have with the TNT and better than most.

Apparently, Manley designers went out of their way to create an impedance switcher that doesn't affect gain. In a lesser circuit, switching to a higher impedance would usually increase the level. It's clear that Manley has no qualms with going the extra mile.

Iron – Everyone always talks about the Lundahl transformers. Apparently they ain't cheap. Many of the Cascade ribbon microphones double in price when you add a Lundahl transformer. I don't get too deep into that side of the equation often, but basically the TNT Cool Channel lets you decide how much of the transformer you want to use. This is not a simulation. This is not a plugin. This is a real world splitter gadget that lets you run the signal through a real, “iron” transformer. The result is a possibly outstanding increase in harmonics.

Manley Guy Interjection:

We use Lundahl INPUT transformers, so you’re dealing with them when you adjust the input impedance. However, the IRON control is affecting the OUTPUT transformer, which is a custom Manley design (and built here in-house). We had to specially design this transformer specifically for the IRON function; using a stock one from someone else (or from us!) wouldn’t have cut the mustard. We mention this on page 9 of the manual - the last paragraph on that page has a little blurb about it.

I have this view on recording gear that if you can't make something sound crappy when you overdo it, it ain't good enough. I like bold, obvious gear that I have to restrain myself from going too far with. This may be why preamps often bore me a bit. I'd rather play with a compressor with attitude ( I LOVED playing with the Complimiter 610, for example) By cranking this transformer up to 10 you can easily add way too much harmonic content to certain tracks. It sorta reminds me of sending a low end heavy track to a Distressor with the the release on zero. It adds sort of a distortion. It's not something I'd ever imagine using on 10 often, but using it on 3 does some great things in my opinion in a way where the singer would never ask “Do you hear a distortion sound?”. They'd only notice their voice cutting through the mix a bit easier. I'm always looking for harmonic content. That's why I like the SPL Twin Tube plugin so much, for example. This iron knob is only found on The Cool Channel.

The reason I'm always looking for ways to sneak in harmonic content is fairly straightforward. Harmonic content has a way of making a track feel brighter without EQ. When we blend in just the tiniest amount of distortion underneath the signal, some great things happen to the way that track sits in the mix all at levels that are essentially indistinguishable.

Color – It's a shame they couldn't label this “Cock N Balls”. I'm guessing it wouldn't fit on the label. Maybe they could have named it “Blacks”, “Whites”, and “Hispanics” but that wouldn't be fair to the Asians. Regardless, I love this color thing. Never has racial integration been so fun!

Again, I want knobs and switches that knock me on my ass. I want to hear BOLD differences....the kind you need to type in caps. (HINT! HINT!) While I thought 60s and 70s were time periods and not parts of the rainbow, I have to admit that these mods have some BOLD color. The default setting is “clean”. As you can imagine, it doesn't do anything. It's very useful in those times when you simply want the TNT to do its job (which is excellent on it's own).

The 60s color immediately made me say “DAMN!”. I wasn't expecting such an obvious difference. They didn't hold back any punches. The character immediately leaped into this Janis Joplin vocal sound kind of thing. Okay, so it's not 100% Janis and my idea of “leaped” is based on high end gear companies that should label their buttons “placebo”, but it's definitely a big step in that direction. I'd love to record a whole record with the 60s color. Some of my clients would be pissed. Some would kiss me.

I hate the 70s. (With notable exceptions) That was my mom's era. I come from the school that says that parents are supposed to hate your music. (Listen up, 16-year old wuss boys trying to impress Dad with your Eric Clapton t-shirt!). The 70s color sounds like you spent the previous decade with too much drugs and too many The Who concerts. It sounds like they took an impulse of Pete Townsend's hearing and applied it here. Okay, not really. Let's get serious.

I didn't feel like The Partridge family or Skynard when I used this setting. I'll tell you what it did remind me off. It just SCREAMED Melloncollie and The Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins. I'm probably way off base on this and some high end jerk bag is going to tell me they used the same console as was used on The Night At The Roxbury soundtrack. Regardless, every time I hear tracks done with this, I felt that way.

To describe it, it's a relatively dark setting but with a bunch of harmonic content WAY lower than that of the 60s. It's like instead of putting harmonics at 2k and 8k like in the 60s mode, they put them at 400Hz and 800Hz (without sounding “tubby”, “boxy”, or any other scary words that can come from those frequencies). Note, I'm guessing 100% on where this harmonic content lies. I have no intention of making an entire album with this setting, but then again, that may be a good reason to do it. At least Manley has the balls to include a mode that I don't want to use all the time. Awesome!

Real World Color Application
I was doing a session for a chick who had a sparse arrangement in the verse and a mega dense arrangement in the chorus. When I got the vocal nice and thick in the lower midrange on the verse, it didn't cut through enough in the chorus. Normally, I'd reach for EQ and get a headache with this one. Instead, I found myself switching from clean mode in the verse to 60s mode in the chorus. It gave me exactly the cut I needed without sounding EQ'd. Bad ass! It was as if they built this feature for me.

Of course, don't label the “color” setting as gimmick or effect only usable in specific situations. Not even close! This color setting is a real deal problem solver. While it is a bold sound, its usefulness in a real world mix is absolute. Check out Preamp Shootout #3 in Killer Home Recording: Vocals and it'll be immediately obvious to you just how valuable this color button is AND how impressive the “iron” knob is..

The Sound – Regardless of what source I used this thing on, the Manley TNT is a freaking winner. On bass DI, it really did something incredible. It was much like taking Ron Jeremy's Extendz....or maybe it reminded me more of the dog in Van Wilder. The Tube Channel of the Manley beat everything I had in the preamp shootout with either bass DI or micing a bass amp and The Cool Channel came in second. When it came to acoustic guitar, The Cool Channel won, in my opinion. It had the most upper midrange “sparkle” without getting clicky in the top end. On vocals, the variety of options is bad ass and extremely useful. The Manley TNT scored very high on every vocal shootout and clearly won one of them (at least to me). I really break all of this down on each shootout but I have to say that I was always pleased with the Manley TNT. It's the kind of thing that makes me re-question my deprecated views on preamps I've had in the past.

Tube VS Solid State
This dumb old war will be going on longer than our dumb old US Vietnam-style wars. They'll still be arguing about tube vs solid state when the US is busted into 7 regions who all hate each other because of Jesus somehow. Is there a difference between tube vs solid state? Yeah, there is a difference. The tube thing seems to have lower frequency harmonics. It's a bit meatier. Is this subtle? Sometimes. Sometimes it hits you in the head with a frying pan.

The Tube Channel is a BIG sound, but it's also quite a bit darker than the Cool Channel. It doesn't do the sparkle thing as well and it certainly doesn't have the air that the Cool Channel does in the mega top end. However, it's got great low mid harmonics and it's low end sounds gigantic. When you need something to sound BIG in a mix, the Tube Channel is THE way to go. However, I wouldn't want to track everything with the Tube Channel. I think things would get a little too far out of hand. In fact, for most tracks my initial inclination would be to reach for the Cool Channel.

The Cool Channel does pretty much everything right. It has this “near Neve” style aggressiveness to it however, it seems impossible to get The Cool Channel to sound boxy particularly when employing the 60s color. I find my Vintech 1272 had a similar aggressiveness but it would get boxy the first sign of trouble. This is a turn off to me and now that I know better I can see why I've not been overly thrilled with the Vintech 1272 over the years in certain applications.

The Great River EQ-1NV had a character that was at least from the same city as the Manley Cool Channel and had a very similar accent but the Great River didn't have the 60s color switch to engage when recording a truly problematic singer. I don't mean to take anything away from the Great River. In fact, I really liked that preamp too...a whole lot! However, I wanted to point out that Manley went well beyond the call of duty by packing in additional color. They could have just put a damn volume knob and a high-pass filter and called it a day. Instead they've created real solutions to real home recording problems. Yes, I'm impressed! Yes, I feel like they catered to me exactly!

The Dark Side
Alright, so I've told you about “the force”. Now for The Dark Side. There is only one thing that this thing completely sucks at (literally)....the wallet! It's not a cheap box. However, there is a bright side to dumping this much cash into 2 preamps, particularly for studios that are mostly overdub style studios. Investing this many Ben Franklins into the TNT is going to provide you with more tonal colors than any other preamp I know of. If there are even 2 preamps out there than can pull off the big tube sound and pull off a very Neve-style sound and have all the flexibilities when it comes to transformer saturation, impedance, and the color thingy I want to see them. I've never encountered it. I know the Focusrite Liquid Channel could be an option but I'm a little apprehensive of the emulators by instinct alone.

Basically, it goes like this. It's gonna cost you a lot more than $2,700 (street) to get this many preamp colors. Of course, none of us are engaged in color collecting contests. However, I'm convinced that, especially without additional gadgetry, no preamp is perfect all the time. It seems that when one preamp brings out the good stuff on one source it brings out the bad on the next source. For those of us who need to track everything basically through the same 2 channels I think the Manley TNT is a total freakin' winner!

Reservations
If you are an experienced recording dude, you know where the preamp sits on the totem pole of recording junk to think about. Preamps don't make up for crappy instruments, crappy songs, crappy performances, or crappy room acoustics. PERIOD. So if you are recording at home with a 2 channel audio interface with crappy studio monitoring and $7 in your bank account, don't bother. If you've got the cash and nothing else to do today, the Manley TNT is WAY cooler than buying a high end riding lawn mower....then again, so is paralysis. (That joke isn't meant to make fun of people in not-so-ideal physical conditions or professional lawn care dudes. It's meant to be a sledgehammer in the face of suburbia USA.)

Conclusion
I'm buying the damn thing. Enough said!

Audio Clips
Want to hear the Manley TNT head to head against the following preamps? Check out Killer Home Recording today! You can hear the Manley TNT go head to head with the following preamps on male vocals, female vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass amps, bass DI, and drums.

Martech MSS-10
Truesystems P-Solo
Great River MEQ-1NV
Presonus ADL600
Trident S20
Vintech 1272
Presonus Studio Channel
RNP
Firestudio
Presonus Digimax D8
M-Audio Octane