Thread: Tube Mic & Tube Pre????

Generally I'd say that tube mic + tube preamp = mushy sound. There are going to be specific exceptions to that but in general terms that is my experience. My advice would be to not worry about "tube". Find the best microphone for YOUR voice/application. Then find a preamp that accentuates that voice/mic combo. If any or both of those end up being tube devices then great. Just my thoughts.

It is worth looking at the impedance of the mic and then try a few pre-amps where input impedance can be adjusted.
For some mics ( if not all ) it brings a great improvement n sound when coupled to a proper impedance input.

Otherwise, I am with Jack. Tube on tube can be a bit dull sounding. But this depends also on the quality of the equipment you choose. The solo 610 certainly is a nice pre, though. As ever: let your ears be the judge of that...

There's tubes and there's tubes. The best advice is to ignore all mention of tubes in audio. They get mentioned in advertising as a hook for guitarists. The UA 610 is a great preamp, but its closest competitors - preamps with similar sound characteristics - are solid state. Don't focus on the tubes. The tube amp / solid state divide in the guitar world does not mean anything in the audio world.

With that said, I might as well give a review of the tube mics and pres that I own. I have the RODE K2 and the Mojave MA-200. If you put them into a blind test with a bunch of other condensers and asked people to pick out the tube mics they might get the Rode, but I doubt they would pick out the MA-200. The Mojave is a very precise, crisp mic. The Rode is, well...lush if you like it, mushy if you don't. The only tube pre I have is the GT Brick. I rarely use if for vocals now, but I tried it with the K2 some time ago and did not like the combination. Still I would not generalize from that to other tube/tube combinations.

I should add that GC sells a lot of "tube" devices where the tube is not in the main amplification path. It basically acts as a stompbox to add [strike]distortion[/strike] warmth. Pairing two of those devices together might well be a bad thing. So based on the stuff he normally sells, the GC sales geek might have been giving a realist piece of advice.

Originally Posted by TheJackAttack

Find the best microphone for YOUR voice/application. Then find a preamp that accentuates that voice/mic combo. If any or both of those end up being tube devices then great.

+1. The right mic is critical, and whether it has a tube or not shouldn't be the deciding factor. Mics, and to a lesser degree preamps, are custom fit devices. You can't just pick the "best" and depend on it being right for your application. You have to try a mic and use your ears to decide.

Let's face it, Frank Sinatra sang into a Neumann U 47 plugged into some tube microphone preamps designed and manufactured by RCA. Nothing mushy there. Nothing sophisticated there either. Just quality components designed to do the best job they were designed to do with the best components that were available at the time. Now everything is made to lower the bottom line. What's that tell you? A tube preamp today is not the RCA tube preamp from 1948. Neither is the microphone. When was the last time you saw a new VF14 in a microphone? When was the last time you saw a new tube preamp designed with a 12 or 6SJ7, metal envelope with an anode cap? 12AX7/12au7/12at7 are all great dual triode's but they are not necessarily the greatest tube for a microphone.

And in any piece of tube equipment you need to see that it has a 250 to 350 V DC plates supply if it is really amplifying anything. Anything less than that is not an amplifying tube but merely a saturation distortion creation device. Utilizing cheap op amp's as your main amplification circuits. Oh my? Isn't that what they call hybrid technology? You bet! It's also called recycling. Utilizing tubes that are not adequate enough for decent amplification but instead, making those crappy tubes do what crappy tubes do best, Peter out & distort everything. Saturate it until it has no dynamics.

The same goes true for the microphones that utilize tubes. Tubes either come from China or Russia these days. Those fine TELEFUNKEN & Rayovac tubes of yesteryear are gone forever. And every one of those damn tubes sounds different from the next. There is even less consistency today than there was 30 years ago with tubes. Sadly, they are fabulous if not quite esoteric devices to behold in their thermionic electron transferring capabilities. And like the rest of us around here sometimes they have a tendency to get gassy. Of course that's when they look really cool when they look really Purple and sound really bad.

Quality design transistor circuits can also be available as class A designs. That simply means that the transistor is always working at full capacity even when nothing is going through it. A lot more heat & wasted power when class AB output circuits are just fine, slightly lower in noise and generally cooler. Input sections are still frequently class A whether they are utilizing bipolar or FET transistor inputs with or without an input transformer. And that's another very important factor here. That microphone input transformer. Yup. Sometimes IT IS THE SOUND OF THAT PREAMP that really isn't the preamp but the input and/or output transformer. You only get these in quality microphone preamps. Output transformers are less critical in their design in comparison to the ever so important microphone input transformer. Having adjustable input impedances is an interesting thought. I used to switch between some microphone output impedances when loading into 150 ohm microphone inputs. It provided different output levels and different changes in the timbre & character. Not something I couldn't live without and have. Yes, I could change the input strapping on the St. Ives input transformers on my Neve 3115's. But I don't. It's not necessary. Regardless of microphone technologies in use. Most of these preamps while they might indicate that they are wired for 150 ohms generally have a DC input resistance of 1500 ohms which really isn't loading down any microphones. That was the standard design criteria for most microphone inputs that we highly covet such as the API & Neve's.

There you go. You are now mtowning to a Motown mutha
Mx. Remy Ann David

I cringe every time this question is asked and some of the reason for the asking is 'some dude @ Guitarget said.......' Okay. Most of the 'dudes' at gitarget arent any more knowledgeable than the noobies who post of recording sites asking the questions that a true pro recording gear house could answer.....but unfortunately most of these places are gone simply because of gitarget and the like....eor.

Your answer is found in all of the posts on this thread. Use your ears. Tubes dont mean distortion in high-end audio unless there are certain build factors present....low voltage to the plates (thanks Remy) is only one but is the biggest thing you can look for and easiest to recognize.

So. Do you like the vocal sounds from the 40's an 50's? Tubes everywhere. 60's? A mix. 70's? Solid-state for the most part though the tube mics were still being used just not talked about ....80's? The lost era. Every record that sounded great took 6 months to make. 90's? Digital with tube mics.

So you'll really like the Solo UA. Its a good stripped down representative of high-end audio. Very strightforward and easy to use. It will amplify any mic to its potential and the rest is all about your skills.

I did some comparison after reading this the other day. I was slightly questioning my gear, but then Remy popped in and I went ya, that's right.

Before I had the opportunity to own some high end gear, I had no idea the difference it makes. How easy it is to mix in comparison to using middle of the road gear. I'm still miles away from some of you, but, I do stand by this... You simply can't understand how easy sound fits into a mix until you have real quality to work with. Lower end gear, you don't notice some things ( like good cable as I just realized) and you notice other things that fool you into thinking something is not really what it claims to be, because you can't truly hear it.. So many opinions are based on the missing of something else that really matters. All I can say is, wow! when you have really powerful pre-amps.

I did this the other night because I second guessed myself from this thread. I took a bunch of pre's and various LDC tube mics ( $500, $1000, $2500). I did some comparisons to see how clear they all sounded with SS and tube preamps. The tube pre's with the biggest transformers sound super clear with all the tube mics. So, I'm with Remy on that. The SS sounded really clear, but to me, they all lacked the fat warm and really clear/ spacious sound I am loving more and more these days.
The two that kicked ass where my Millennia M-2b and the ADL 600. Both these two pres are twice the size and weight as all the other tube preamps I have. Once I got the gains set... its just a dream to hear. I'm so spoiled and blessed to have these beasts in my studio. I don't need much more. I often wonder why people need so many preamps and mics for flavour. But, its obvoius I'm still learning but couldn't help but share what I think. Tube to tube sounds great to me because I like fat sounds and space. I write and am inspired by music with space. Its what works for me.