Preamp Shootout

MUS410 Adv. Rec. Tech. Assignment #2

Recently, I went into Studio F and recorded my friend Madie Bishop playing guitar into four different preamps. Madie is not a guitar by trade. I chose to record her because she does not have much studio experience and I want to learn how to teach musicians studio etiquette and procedure. I am sure there will be times when I will have to record sub-par players and make them sound passable.

Research

While researching different techniques to records acoustic guitar I came across a video from Reverb’s Youtube channel. This video displayed several different techniques for placements. I ended up using their third suggestion of placing the mic close to the picking hand because I had done similar things before. Audient has a very helpful article that includes several tips. I especially liked their pros and cons of recording in mono vs. stereo. For this project I chose to record in mono for simplicity.

I chose to shootout preamps as I have very little awareness of their nuances. I compared the Focusrite, Manley, UA, and Shadow Hills preamp. The Focusrite is designed with a vintage solid-state style preamp giving it a slightly colored but still very clean sound. The Manley force is a tube preamp that adds a lot of extra depth and color. The UA can switch between a solid state and a tube preamp or even a combination of both. The Shadow Hills allows you switch between Nickel, Steel, or discrete transformer. “Nickel gives you ruler-flat low end, and a slight (1dB) boost at 10k. Steel adds the personality of a 1dB boost at 40Hz, with a tight Q. The Discrete position yields startlingly fast transients and unmatched clarity.” –Sweetwater Description

The sound of the Focusrite is essentially my baseline. It seems to have a fairly flat sound when compared to others. All of the recordings area bit boomy but I think that is due to my mic being too close to the sound hole of the guitar. The Manley adds a low end depth which is nice for the picking but makes the chords sounds too muddy. The Shadow Hills with those settings adds a level of brightness that none of the others do. The UA with those settings is most similar to the Focusrite with a slight bump to the low end.

My ranking for them on this particular recording would be Shadowhills, Focusrite, UA, then Manley. The Manley and UA really accentuated my bad mic placement. The boosted high end from the Shadowhills made it sound better than it should have, and the Focusrite is generally not awful, but also does nothing notable for the sound.