DI, Mic-Pre, or both?

bkeating · #1 01-18-2009, 10:13 AM

hey everyone, i've tried searching and reading all the different threads on here and while so many are very informative, i can't seem to piece together a direct answer. any insight and help would be much appreciated!

i'm about to purchase an mbox mini to record bass tracks at home for different songwriter demos sent to me by producers, artists, ect. i have a great DI (sigma sound studios passive transformer) that outputs a super clean signal. if i understand correctly, i can plug the mic level out from the DI into the mic level input on the mbox and start tracking.

should i also get a good mic-pre to go after the DI to enhance the sound of the track or would it be just as appealing to producers to have a clean bass signal that they could later run through their own outboard gear? where i get further confused is that some mic-pre's that i've looked at (UA 610) offer an instrument level line in so then i wouldn't even need a DI, correct? further more, there are DI's like the REDDI that are tube with a gain boost that act similar to a pre and might be a better option(?)

my goal is to be able to offer the best track to my ability, and aside from the playing and execution, i'd like to also have a great signal path to make my service as professional and attractive as i can.

thanks much

cripula · #2 01-18-2009, 04:29 PM

I'll be watching this thread with interest, I hope you get some good feedback. I'm in the process of setting up a rig for the same purposes as you. I want a nice mic pre as I have a handful of great old tube amps and want to record them as well. But so far, the straight DI sound is VERY good (yes, mic level out from DI into mic level in on the Duet.). I'm using an Avalon U5 or a Demeter VTBP-201 into a Duet and it's pretty impressive. I can only imagine that an LA-610 behind it would be even better, but I'm just guessing at this point. I look forward to finding out. Hopefully someone here will chime in with some first hand info.

If you're a mac guy you may want to have a look at the Duet as well. It gets very high marks for the quality of it's converters.

I hadn't heard of your DI so I looked it up - very interesting. How would you describe it's sound?

4Mal · #3 01-18-2009, 05:14 PM

The limiting factor in our case is the mbox mini. It isn't going to matter a heck of a lot whatr you put in front of that. FWIW - I record with a DI and ANY sweetening that get's done happens in the context of mixing. If I really feel the need for warming. I use an external box and reamp - I haven't yet purchased SVX but I probably will.

sonic assassin · #4 01-18-2009, 05:30 PM

how about a nice tube pre with a Hi-z input?

cnltb · #5 01-18-2009, 05:38 PM

I would first of all upgrade from the mbox mini.
If you get a good interface you may not need Pre and/or DI.
I used to have the mbox 1 and mbox 2 and was not impressed.

bongomania · #6 01-18-2009, 05:52 PM

+1. If you are really actually shopping tracks around to real producers, they will be much more impressed by high-quality A/D conversion than they will be by any sort of tone enhancement. OTOH if you are talking about sending your tracks to singer-songwriters who wait tables or park cars for a living, they will probably be more impressed by some heavy tonal color like a fat tube emulation plugin.

Record as cleanly as you can- then you have the option of coloring it later as desired.

projectMalamute · #7 01-18-2009, 06:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bongomania

+1. If you are really actually shopping tracks around to real producers, they will be much more impressed by high-quality A/D conversion than they will be by any sort of tone enhancement. OTOH if you are talking about sending your tracks to singer-songwriters who wait tables or park cars for a living, they will probably be more impressed by some heavy tonal color like a fat tube emulation plugin.

Record as cleanly as you can- then you have the option of coloring it later as desired.

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean.

I'm trying to imagine a 'real producer' saying something like "well, that bass is pretty crappy sounding and the micamp is real noisy, but damn are those clear converters. I must work with this guy."

Find the weakest part of the chain and improve that. I find that with most prosumer interfaces the problem isn't the converters at all, it's the preamps. Put a decent signal in front of that M-Box and bypass the internal micamps, I bet it sounds fine.

bongomania · #8 01-18-2009, 06:19 PM

I spend a lot of time talking to people in the recording business, and what's on their minds is very often the clarity/quality of the converters. They certainly wouldn't overlook a bass that is crappy sounding and a noisy mic pre, that's a frankly stupid slippery-slope argument. But if you ask them whether they can hear a poor quality A/D conversion and whether they care, the answer will be yes on both counts.

Edit: I get it that these tracks are probably not for commercial release, so the sound quality doesn't matter so much. I'm not trying to ignore or change the nature of his situation- my point was only to highlight the relative importance of a good converter since he was asking what gear he needed to buy, if any.

bassbrad · #9 01-18-2009, 08:34 PM

I do a similar thing for several songwriters and i am delivering a good clean tone using a Countryman DI. My bass is usually the trak that goes down after the rhythm gtr and scratch vox and a clik so they really don't want any additional processing. With that clean sound and solid performance they can use whatever plugins to process or reamp the signal to fit whatever comes later, or they may also send the trak back for me to re do my parts after drums and other stuff go down.

lambro · #10 01-18-2009, 11:46 PM

its tru the Mbox converters & pre's are a major weak point, so if you intend to start a chain reaction of "product" you want your chain to be as good as possible

so, no sense in a 2500 preamp if you are not going to change the converters

1)use a quality outboard A/D converter, ie bypass the digidesign element

2) get a great mic pre with DI, Chandler TG or Germ, Great River, Vintech, UA, Hardy, Mercury, Millenia.. whatever strikes you as fitting your style and the sound you are going for, consider pre's with EQ or without, colored or clean...

3) get a quality external clock

4) get a very good mic to blend with the DI channel

FYI, one of the best values in a stand alone DI is the passive JDI Radial, REDDI is hugely popular

If your partners are going to do any reamping, then look to the Creation Audio Labs MW-1

bkeating · #11 01-19-2009, 05:35 AM

thanks for the responses; i appreciate everyone's help.

- cripula, not really sure how to describe the sound of the sigma DI. just really clean and crisp. one engineer thought it was very similar to the passive radial. i think i got caught up in the story behind it and jumped into the "i've got to have this" frame of mind, haha.

it seems like everyone's suggestions are right on point with my intent. i didn't realize that the mbox mini would contribute so much to the sound so focusing on a high quality converter makes sense as the logical first step.

- bongo, lambro, could you guys suggest a good converter or the best way to bypass the digidesign?

also, what would be the smart way to go in terms of the external clock?

dmilt23451 · #12 01-19-2009, 03:12 PM

It really all depends on what your budget is and what DAW you are using, If you are using a mac and Logic I would really suggest getting an apogee duet interface, it has great converters (same as their higher priced units), and a very usable pre's.

Also if you want a good pre I have used an UA 610 and it sounds killer on bass

I would however add that while I agree that you should upgrade your converters, If you can get a good signal out of the m-box mini (which you should be able to, I have had one and have gotten very usable tracks with it), the other engineer/producer should find your tracks just as usable because in my experience the difference in converters is pretty null when you are talking about one track in a whole mix.

(for the record I have first hand experience with the mbox mini, digi 192, 96 IO, IZ Radar (best sounding converters that I have experienced) and apogee converters)

bkeating · #13 01-19-2009, 04:55 PM

thanks, i was wondering about that since the only track i would be recording is the bass.

i'm set on using pro tools with a mac so that would limit me with the mbox and digidesign products, correct?

JazznFunk · #14 01-19-2009, 05:04 PM

Honestly, for a budget-minded setup that affords you flexibility and good sound, check out the ART Tube MP Studio mic preamp. It's all of $30 at Musician's Friend. I have three of these in my arsenal, two with different tubes, one with the stock tube. I use it to warm up my solid-state heads, record direct, go direct to the board with no amp for some shows, and much more. I also use it with my double bass as a preamp and it does great. Nice and clean with a great bit of gain. It can get dirty if you overdrive it, but I rarely do that. You can swap the tube out and, depending on the tube, it can alter the sound quite a bit. I personally like the stock Chinese tube that's in one of my units, but the other unit didn't sound as warm... I put a Ruby Tubes 12AX7A in it and it is wonderful now. For recording, I put the preamp immediately after the bass, then run THAT signal into a quality DI (I use a Countryman Type 85). Anyway, the ART is designed to give clean, warm gain, and it does it very cheaply...

http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com...amp?sku=180581

MakiSupaStar · #15 01-21-2009, 05:37 PM

Don't get the MBox. I recently purchased one and I'm not happy with it. First off, it's dodgey trying to get it to set up properly with the computer. Once you launch, relaunch, and restart properly so that it reads, I then have to finesse the monitor plugs so that my headphones work on both ears. I've spent as long as five minutes doing this. I've just not been impressed with it at all. I'm going to replace it soon.

sonic assassin · #16 01-21-2009, 06:00 PM

if you want a good pre and good converters, go with an apogee duet.

leswatts · #17 01-24-2009, 09:42 AM

Have some tube type guitar amps around?

for tracking I run my bass through my old fender 30 tube guitar amp (turned down) and then just run its line out to the converter. So I'm using the amp as a tube pre. It sounds a bit warmer than the very clean mic and instrument pres I have.

Costs me nothing extra, since I have the guitar amp in the studio anyway for tracking guitar...

Les

bkeating · #18 01-27-2009, 05:43 PM

hey everyone, thanks for all the help, i wanted to update with where i'm at and what i've decided to do.

in sum, i intend to run pro tools to record bass tracks at home to send back to songwriters doing demo work ect. AFAIK, the songs aren't released commercially as they are just demos, but the writers are in partnership with publishing companies so the quality is definitely important.

to run pro tools i need to have the digi product interface, yet many have told me the converters are not as good as other higher end ones such as apogee. however, in order to add an apogee converter i would have to plug those into an S/PDIF I/O on the digi unit and those are not included with the lower end mbox mini. if this is understood correctly i'd basically have to buy 2 pieces of hardware and i'd be looking at 2 grand or so. some have suggested that the money spent there is better than spending that much on a dedicated mic pre because the conversion quality might be more desirable. however, at the moment i'm only looking for one or two tracks to be available and having two interfaces seems a bit much to me in relation to just a bass track.

so, in conclusion, i'm going with the mbox mini and then getting the UA610 in hopes of using that to bypass the mbox pre-amp. if i chose, i can use my DI into the 610 or go right into it. at the end of the day, i should have a great signal tracked with the hopes that any undesirables in the conversion will be lost in the mix and the rest of my track is free for the producer to EQ, compress, ect how he sees fit.

about a week ago i knew nothing about any of this but now i feel like i'm finally starting to understand and appreciate all the letters and numbers. did i get any of that right or did i just make up a bunch stuff, haha

dmilt23451 · #19 01-27-2009, 05:48 PM

That really is a great way to do things. By getting the 610 you will have a classic peace of gear that will last you a long time and you can build on. Like I said originally just doing one or two tracks of not the greatest converters (but certainly not the worst) will be fine.

With all of that said I have hear very good results with that set up, so best of luck to you!

cripula · #20 01-27-2009, 06:31 PM

bkeating you probably know this anyway, but I thought I'd mention that you don't have to use PT because the people you're working with do. They can send you their tune in whatever format, you can drop it into the software of your choice, record your track, and send it back to them as a wav file that they can drop back into PT. I've been doing that with a pal, he's using Logic and I'm recording into Reaper. Works great.

In any case, having a 610 lying around could only be a good thing

There was a guy selling a solo610 in the classifieds a few days ago. Seemed like a pretty good price...