The pres are not to bad. I have an Mbox and I record an entire album on it and everything else I do. They are Focusrite mic pres so you know its gonna sound good. They are the best mic pres that I have worked with on a DAW. Only thing is that the vocals always need a little boost especially if you're playing some type of metal. To solve this I use an Art Studio V3 Tube MP which is about 50 bucks I think. It has output protection limiting so you can shove the volume way up above the mix without clipping. This works great with death metal. You just have to unscrew the top screw on the left side because if you don't this screw goes into something that involves the power and makes it sound fuzzy. After taking this screw out, it sounds crystal clear. But overall, get mic pres, I wouldnt use anything else!

^Overall great mic pres is what I meant

I think he was talking about the DIGI PRE units, right?

I've used them a couple of times.. not enought to make a really rigorous judgement, but so far they haven't pissed me off. Can't think of much to say about them, which I guess means they're ok.

I wouldnt use anything else!

So you wouldn't use Neve 1073 or API512 if they were available? :lol:

Yeah, I was talking about the digi pre units. The ones that can be controlled inside PT HD or used as stand alone. They seem very cheap for 8 mic pres but you rarely see them around.

They are fairly bland. No color but by the same token they are decently accurate. There is a whole army of folks that would say they dont like them simply because of their colorless operation and another segment would want this instead of color. I'm a source kinda guy when it comes to recording. I will say there are much much better pres as far as depth and field of sound, but we're talking a big difference in money.

I just read those exact words on a digi forum, 'bland, no colour'. Sounds like I need to get my hands on a unit for a test drive. I get where your coming from when your talking about depth of field and sound, puts me off buying from what you're saying there. I find that when more people than not are talking about lack of colour, a curiousity. I've always looked for mic pres that were transparent and without 'colour', thinking that colour was something that came from cheap brands. Maybe it's just my misconcieved idea of what colour is with this kind of gear.

Trial and error will solve many a dilemma. They are really not 'bad'...Quite the contrary. And two peoples definition of 'color' may mean two entirely different things.