I have a friend with a ZR-76 (Ensoniq). We both feel the sound could be improved with a pre-amp and were wondering what you guys are using.
Do you recommend something like a dbx586(?) with tube warmth and digital outputs? (For digital tracking.)
Do you use stereo preamps and slightly vary the left and right outputs? Or set them the same?
In general, it will be applied to the entire (sequenced) mix.
Your opinions would be very interesting to us. Thanks very, very much. D.
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I use a lot of different gear for electronic keyboards. It depends on the song, the sound & the desired results. Most of the time I go for something that can emphasize the vibe, often something that will not sound totally impressive on it's own - but sit in very naturally in the mix with other instruments. When recording traditional instruments with microphones I try to keep the signal as pristine as possible but when recording keyboards I am willing to try almost any weird combination.
Gear used for tracking keyboards in last 4 weeks, sometimes a combination of more than one of these: synth straight to line input in desk, through direct box to desk, Miked amps (anything really, from practice amps to class A tube amps to marshall stacks), miked leslie, various stomp boxes, Bass POD, Guitar POD V2.0, Compressor, Parametric eq's, Various preamps (ranging from very cheap stuff to Crane Song Flamingo). Sometimes I track left and right outputs through different sounding recording chains and pan them differently (beware: when using different equipment on L & R channels respectively you have to watch out for undesired phaseshifts and comb filtering, but sometimes that can be cool to...!).
Just my 2c,
Mats
You might consider a Presonus Blue Tube preamp. With the tube drive controls you can dial in that extra bit of fatness or crunch. Then you can rack it up with a Blue Max compressor, or better still, an RNC from Fletcher. It's the bee's knees!