OT : Mic pre question

Nat wrote on 1/9/2003, 11:21 PM

Hello, I have a behringer Eurorack little mixer and a Wamirack 192L card.
The Wamirack features 4 preamps, so obviously I use them directly to plug my mics.
However, the input gain seems much lower than my pres on the behringer mixer.
Is this a bad thing ?
I guess it's ok to record loud things but for low volume sounds I don't know.

Any advice ?

Comments

Cold wrote on 1/10/2003, 3:24 PM

As a general rule, the pres built into computer interfaces are more of a convienience than a quality preamp. I haven't used the wamirack interface so I couldn't tell you the quality of it's pres but I have used a Eurorack and found the pres respectable sounding for the price. Yea it will matter if the imput level is too low. You can't use the full bit rate for recording, and worse when you bring the level up you will also be increasing the noise floor along with it. Try this, record the same quiet source using the same mic and chord into first the wamirack pres and then through the eurorack pres (bypassing the wamirack pres),bring the tracks up to the same level and compare the sound quality, amount of noise, overal dynamics etc. decide for yourself.
Steve S.

Nat wrote on 1/10/2003, 3:56 PM

Thanks i'll try that.
The one thing I noticed is that even if the gain of the wamirack pres are set to max there is no audible level increase in noise. When the eurorack pres are set to max I can clearly hear noise.

Cold wrote on 1/11/2003, 1:37 PM

More than likely you should very seldom have to use the full gain of the euromix pres (except maybe ribbon mics, very distant micing of a very quiet source etc.) and the noise between the two at max is not really a fair comparison because if one is supplying 60 db of gain (the euromix) and the wamirack perhaps only 30 your gain vs noise comparison is badly skewed. every pre I've used shows at least some self noise when set to the maximum gain, of course if the gain is only half in one pre the noise floor should be much quieter. By the way, I'm pulling the 30db number out of thin air only for comparison sake. Go back and compare oranges to orages and let your own ears be the judge.
Steve S

Nat wrote on 1/11/2003, 4:25 PM

Thanks, I'm at least happy they seem quiet, If I need more gain I'll use the eurorack and my mackie mixer..

Thanks

Nat