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.

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

Every once in a while, the media lets something slip. Back in December, I read in the local newspaper that the auto industry was pushing for partial government ownership of the auto industry here in the US. This hit me upside the head like a sledgehammer. I couldn't believe that the powers that be let this one “slip”. For the first time, it was made clear to me that there were those making a serious push for pure socialism. I couldn't believe they spilled the beans in public!

(Getting away from politics)

When I opened up the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Tape Op, I was equally crushed by an over sized crushing device when I came across a line in the interview with the popular UK band, Elbow. I can't recall the beans ever being spilled in print before. Not in EQ, certainly not in Mix Magazine, and not even in Tape Op. Before I tell you what that statement was, let's get some background info on Elbow, because I didn't know who they were before the article.

I visited the Elbow @ Myspace and at this point they have close to 2,000,000 plays. This puts them definitely in “label territory”. It appears they were actually signed to Island Records (major label) but were a casualty of a corporate take over before the band could release a single album. They have released four studio albums to date and all of them have parenthesis with a “#” and a number afterwards. In other words, these dudes have made the charts with all four of their albums. They've won a bunch of awards and received critical acclaim....bla bla bla

This band is not screwing around!

You can get more details here at Wiki. Before I unleash the big secret that no one in pro audio land wants you to know, it wouldn't hurt to take a listen to their work. Yeah, Myspace really sucks for evaluating audio engineering. What can you do?

Regardless.....

• Elbow is a pro band that is in major label territory and makes a living making noise.
• Not only do they make a living, they actually hit the charts. Leaders of the Free World hit #12 in the UK.
• Elbow's home recordings were good enough that Tape Op was beating down their door for an interview.

So, here goes.

Craig Potter from Elbow says:

"The difference between good mic pres and cheap pres is absolutely nothing in the big picture. It makes a bit of difference, maybe, and I probably don't experiment as much as I should, but it doesn't make enough of a difference."

So there you have it. A band who has made a big expensive record for Island Records, has worked with big boy producers, and chooses to engineer their own records considers high end preamps to be “absolutely nothing in the big picture”. The band is still clearly successful as you can see by their busy touring schedule and their recordings certainly are good enough for Tape Op to interview them.

Conclusion
While I've felt compelled to beat this preamp issue to death here on RecordingReview.com, it seems I have to. Way too many kids and hobbyists get tricked into thinking their recordings will never be up to par because they don't have volume knobs that say Neve or API on them. My goal is not to defame the high end gear, but simply give some perspective.

When considering the high end gear, don't be afraid of what you'll lose if you don't shell out the big ones. Instead, look for what you will gain. If the price to benefit ratio isn't good, throw away your money on something else!

Elbow doesn't need high end preamps to chart in the UK. Do you? Find out what Elbow DOES need in their Tape Op interview.

P.S. The track and mix everything in the box as well.

With all the talk from the Mytek AD Converter shootout and the Recording Gear Quiz lately, watching a REAL guitar player in action was something special. It put all of this recording gear junk into perspective. I now know exactly why pro engineers start playing with preamps. THEY HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO!!!! THEY ARE BORED!!

Let me explain. When I'm producing / engineering a project, a big part of that is motivating a player to come up with parts that are better than he would have came up on his own. From there we need to get the performance and tone up to snuff so that we can capture what people consider a “great” guitar sound. When you have a guy who is either a professional guitar player or at least in the league of professional guitar players, you may just find that Mr. Guitar Pro will come up with a part that is better than what you had in mind. This is what happened to me last night. A real player who really has command of his instrument should have no trouble blowing away the producer's expectations simply by being themselves.

In this specific song, I'm trying to walk that fine line between country and rock music. I want this to be able to play on country music stations, but I'm not exactly going for old school country with lap steels and such. I want more of an “ass kicking” country vibe. If I would have played guitars myself, the song would have ended up sounding like a Dr. Seuss versions of Guns N Roses or Motley Crue. Some of the rough versions I tossed down while experimenting where very close to this.

Then Mr. Guitar Pro walked in the door. Here's just a short list of improvements from calling up my guitar buddy.

• Guitars were perfectly setup with great intonation.
• Guitars were in perfect tune and held perfect tune both due to the gear used and his playing
  The performance after one take was smoother than I would have done in a week.
• The added guitar hooks and such really made the song come alive. I would have never thought of those in a million years. My version was little more than power chords, really.
  Years in years of research, trial and error, and searching were placed into his pickups, guitar, amps, speakers, cabinets, etc. His tone was exactly what we were looking for nearly instantaneously.
• The overall musical effectiveness of the song (the combination of everything from the fingers, notes, pick, preamps, and room) was a ZILLION times better than what I had.

Getting Back To Recording Gear
We've discussed this whole high end gear thing quite a bit lately with the Mytek AD96 shootout http://forum.recordingreview.com/f18/ad-converter-shootout-mytek-ad96-vs-presonus-firestudio-8907/ and the Recording Gear Quiz http://www.recordingreview.com/quiz/signal-chain.php

The big boys don't deal with amateurs. In the big leagues, if you brought a guitar that wasn't setup to a session, you wouldn't be called back for another session. They don't have time to intonate your guitar when they are renting a room for $3,000 per day or whatever. They don't have time to deal with a player who can't play in tune and they only deal with players who play smooth enough to sound pro. If a player can't do all of this, they are replaced with a player who can.

The real musicians are obsessed with their instrument. They are totally nuts about the intricate details that make them sound great. (This is the one serious argument I have in favor of pro recording gear, actually). When a truly professional guitar player who talks about Mohogany grown in Honduras verse in America and the way that P.A.F pickups are wound not so tight and more randomly, you start to realized the minute details that make up a real musician verses someone who just makes noise. You get a feel for what differentiates the men from the boys.

Being that I'm not recording pro players much (not nearly as much as I would like) it became EXCRUCIATINGLY obvious to me just how silly it is for us home recording guys to get all wound up about preamps and converters if we aren't recording pro caliber players. Remember, the difference between my crappy guitar playing and my buddies was ZILLIONS! We seem to debate in the various shootouts the objective difference in quality with the $1,000 preamps to the $8 preamps. Some say as high as 10%. Some say 0%. If we were to put that up on my scoreboard that ends up like this:

Mix With Cheap Pres and my guitar playing: 8.0
Mix With Expensive Pres and my guitar playing: 8.0 – 8.8

Mix With Cheap Pres and Mr. Guitar Pro: 1,000,000,000,000,008
Mix With Expensive Pres and Mr. Guitar Pro: 1,000,000,000,000,008.8

I Felt Like I Did Nothing
I was supposed to be producing this song. When Mr. Guitar Pro showed up he already had an idea what he wanted to do. (I sent him an mp3 the night before). He walked in, cranked up, I mic'd it, I hit record. What he did exceeded my expectations for the song! Done.

Engineers Don't Want To Feel Worthless
I got to thinking what I would do all day if I was recording guys like Mr. Guitar Pro each and every day. I'm talking about drummers who know that “Popular Drum Company” only used Brazilian Beechwood for one year back in 1983 or who feel liberated when they use a click track (not the other way around which is typical for most drummers). I'm talking about musicians who have dedicated their life to a craft of making whatever noise comes out of their instrument the most pleasing thing possible and have serious talent to go with it (my fatal flaw!)

If I recorded these pro guys all day long, I know what I would do. I would start ambitiously looking for a way to dig deeper into my craft even to the point where the benefit was something that only I noticed. I would get really wound up about preamps and converters. I would go all out to make sure that I could do my part the best I possibly could. I would have the liberty of doing this because I already know the source is taken care of.

The Problem
The only problem is all this high end gear crap is useless when the source isn't just good, but MAGICAL! If the source isn't magical, a converter is not going to get you there. Neither is a fancy preamp. I can hear it now “Listen to that extra little extra something in the snare drum that your girlfriend can't hear anyway as the drummer ruins the groove and the entire song with his out of time playing”.

The take must be EXCITING before a preamp provides any benefit. A boring drum take in a killer studio will always sound boring. Too bad! You can't separate the signal path from the performance, unfortunately.

Develop Pro Taste Across The Board
If you really want your tastes in audio gear to be in line with the big boys, you should make sure you develop that same taste for musicianship. Sure, there are definitely big boys who scoff at some of the low end preamps that sound pretty damn good to my ears. However, if these guys were to deal with the average local musician they would have no choice but to commit suicide. (Alright, that may be a bit over the top!) They would nicely explain to Mr. Average that he isn't capable at this time of giving the producer what he really needs to do his job properly. A replacement will be hired the following day. A replacement who is a lot more similar to Mr. Guitar Pro I've describe above.

The Real Preamp Test
Are you ready for high end preamps and converters? This is a fairly easy test.

How many musicians have you fired? How many sessions have you stopped because the talent was inadequate? If you are willing to cram just about anything in that preamp of yours, maybe you should go to the doctor and get that preamp checked out. It may need a shot. You officially have a whore preamp (which is not exactly what they had in mind when they came up with “gear slut”) How many songs have been contaminated by some sick disease infested performance / tone?

Put some thought into that. If this were your daughter's preamp, would you let just any guy cram his sound into it? When I bring up the “daughter” concept, we suddenly start to think about something special that means the world to us and we protect to the death (bla bla bla, I don't have kids yet so this analogy sucks!). This is SUPPOSED to be how we treat our songs. Without the emotional attachment, if our goal is to really make killer recordings, wouldn't we have similar standards about the kinds of musicians and performances we put into those sounds as we do the other things that are really important to us in life (like our daughters)? I'm not gonna let just any guy cram his sound into my daughter's preamp. I'm gonna get the 12-gauge out and explain that Mr. Average can get the hell out of here and not to come back. The guy that really has it together is the only guy I'm going to consider. In fact, I'll gladly allow Mr. Guitar Pro to cram his sound into my daughter's preamp as much as possible. I want to be there so I can watch (listen)!

Conclusion
Recording gear certainly has its place, but in almost every case it's a subtle one. If we expect too much out of our gear, we'll be disappointed without a doubt. We should be expecting more out of our musicians. I've written on this topic extensively, but this time I had the unique perspective of working with a true badass and I came up with an offensive image to go with it.

When you aren't running around with your head chopped off making up for a non-magical musician who doesn't have a clue how to get a magical sound out of the instrument, you have time to twiddle your thumbs and think about preamps.

I guess I should point out that I frequently do cram not-so-magical sounds into my high end preamps. Because I haven't moved up to the point where I only deal with magical players, I guess I do whore out my preamps so I can get paid. In these situations, the preamp I use is irrelevant.