I couldn't live without my personal Vintech and Brent Averill 1272 Mic preamps for bass guitars and electric guitars...nothing else does it for me that I have tried. They are both very similar sounding (although the Vintech is $500 less), so I assume a 1272, although a modified circuit, is supposed to sound like these units do, as both these companies make great product when properly made into a mic pre. I don't really think a Neve is dark, rich is more of a good word. The UA 2-610 was verging on dark...it seemed that the highs were attenuated, but I think the Neve is just more flat in the highs (maybe with a small bump in the mids?).
For Rock, the only place I use the clean pre's (Millennia Media & Great River...but they both have tranny's) is usually overheads and acoustic guitars...but I use tube or transformer based mics (or at least figure 8 if the others are being used somewhere else) so those mics aren't really very bright. I wouldn't want to couple something like an AKG 451 or Audio Technica (or anything from BLUE other than a pair of Cactus) with a clean preamp, it's just not my cup of tea as I find those too bright. I like flat (ie highs), I like rich (ie low mids), I think it works generally more than bright and clean for rock. But out of all the colored mic pre's I think Neve is king, with API running a close second.
Another thing you may want to think about Jay, is that people are trying to achieve what you already have naturally with tape (usually with a FATSO, Distressor, or Crane Song) when going to digital...so they want coloration on top of coloration (ie Neve-->Distressor).
you know what to do..!
