Mic Pres and WorkFlow

[DJKeys]

I ran some tests using the MicPres on my MBox Pro 3 against the direct out from the MicPre in my Mackie 1604VLZ Pro (older, I know). I have a Drawmer compressor on the Insert as well. Mic is Audio Technica 4050. Although the sound quality was not much different to my ears, the MBox was more sensitive. I just need some tips from those more experienced than myself.

Questions:

Since I prefer working with everything going through the mixer, (no latency issues) will vocals suffer that much in a total mix?

Would upgrading to an Mackie Onyx 1220i give me that much better MicPre?

Should I make an effort to just use the MBox Pro for all recording and leave the mixer out?

According to Avid, the line inputs go directly to the converters and not through the preamps, so the sound is still pretty good.

Any comments appreciated.

Thanks-

-dj

[J Toon]

i would like a little more info on this as well. I have been using a mixer with my mic pres and almost always have. I used it with sony acid pro, cubase, and ProTools 9 also. I have also worked without one on each program. My vocals never came out worse on either but i usually have a better outcome with the mixer but that is probably a personal thing because i feel like i have more control with the mixer in real time only because i am more use to it.

[Obsidian Dragon]

My recommendation is if you can't hear the difference, then don't pay for the difference. Some folks really can hear the difference and therefore purchase the one that sounds best to them. It may be very subtle, in which case you need to determine if the small difference is worth the difference in price.

Analogy: A homeowner is going to paint a room. The color "Mauve" is $16.00 per gallon while the color "Dusty Rose" is $39.00 per gallon. The wife insist that "Dusty Rose" is the one she wants but her husband can't see any difference between the two colors. Notice that two people can have a very different sense of the variation in colors. Our hearing works in a similar way.

The husband may get the "Dusty Rose" paint to keep his wife happy (smart guy) but will probably feel like he over paid for the paint.

[The Dougfather]

The Mackie 1220i is a mixer with a built in audio interface, so i see little difference here to using an Mbox, your still amplify the signal with a mic pre and then it's going through the AD stage. Albeit on the Mackie you have all of the other features of a mixer, i guess you really have to question whether you will use all of this and whether it will actually add to work flow or just make things more complicated. By compressing and EQ'ing your committing to a sound during tracking, no issue with this but it offers no flexibility down the line, for example if you later decide you hit the compressor a but hard etc.

IMHO using a mixer is great from a mix point of view, theres some special about pulling a whole mix down through a desk and using outboard. There are however pro's and cons, the biggest being no recall IMHO.

It sounds like your just not bowled over by the sound of the preamp, rather than buying another mid range audio interface why not just invest in some stellar pre's to add to compliment Mbox 3. Something like the focusrite isa one or audient mico would give you digital capability. As you have two line inputs theres also the Dav BG1 or the Daking Mic pre one to name but a few. The audient and Dav are dual preamps and pretty well priced.

Just my two pence.

[DJKeys]

Great information, much appreciated. I never apply any type of processing to the signal going into ProTools except compression/noise gate on the vocal tracks. Any processing takes place after tracking, EQ/Reverb etc. I guess I am just used to having a master output of the Main Mix going back into the mixer which makes it easy to track vocals with no latency. I think what I am hearing is that there is a big difference in a dedicated pre (like those mentioned) and the ones built in to any mixer or audio interface. If I was making a living with this, the investment would be justified. Since I am just a weekend warrior producer, I will just stick with what I have for now and produce some tunes.

Great feedback, thanks again!

-dj

[The Dougfather]

Theres absolutely no reason why latency should be an issue with your setup.

You can either use low latency monitoring which the Mbox 3 is capable or during tracking lower your playback buffer down as low as you can.

LLM is great but it disables plugins and sends on record enabled tracks, lowering your playback buffer retains full usability but just taxes the system harder so keep an eye on your CPU meter. Nowadays i drop the buffer to get some reverb in the vocalists cans, i can use 32 or 64 sample buffer no probs and thats with a G5.

[DJKeys]

Originally Posted by The Dougfather

Theres absolutely no reason why latency should be an issue with your setup.

You can either use low latency monitoring which the Mbox 3 is capable or during tracking lower your playback buffer down as low as you can.

LLM is great but it disables plugins and sends on record enabled tracks, lowering your playback buffer retains full usability but just taxes the system harder so keep an eye on your CPU meter. Nowadays i drop the buffer to get some reverb in the vocalists cans, i can use 32 or 64 sample buffer no probs and thats with a G5.

Thanks DF. Can you tell me why vocalists want to hear reverb on their voice when they are tracking? (Unless performing to a live audience). This is a mystery to me.

[tonto]

I agree with dougfather about getting some "stellar" pre's. where you really notice the difference in pre's is when you have several tracks that you are mixing. comparing similar pre' side by side might not show a drastic difference. there are high priced pre's for a reason.