line levels into preamps-good or unnecessary?

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amble wrote:

> i know people send synths and other line levels through preamps--is
> doing this "opening up" the sound and/or "adding presence and depth"
> the way a good preamp does with a mic signal, or is it just changing
> the tone?

Maybe all 3, depending on the pre. Maybe just 1 or 2. "Opening up" the
sound and/or "adding presence and depth" can be a result of a tonal
change, or not. I'm not an expert on pres, but in some cases I'd think
that even an impedance change from going thru a pre can bring about the
"opening up" the sound and/or "adding presence and depth" you speak of.
It's usually pretty subtle. The best thing to do is run the line level
gear thru as many different pres as you can, perhaps with different
gain staging if you're picky, and see what it does to/for your mix.
IOW, the proof is in the pudding.

maybe it's just my day to be vague,

Mikey Wozniak
Nova Music Productions
this sig is haiku

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In article <1108935808.798977.41020@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com> dubwon@hotmail.com writes:

> is it worthwhile to go through a preamp if my synth already has enough
> gain going into the DAW? or is it unnecessary, just adding noise?

Just hook it directly up to the converter if it has enough level.

> i know people send synths and other line levels through preamps--is
> doing this "opening up" the sound and/or "adding presence and depth"
> the way a good preamp does with a mic signal, or is it just changing
> the tone?

Often they'll use a direct box (DI) which converts the typically
unbalanced line level synth output to a balanced mic level signal.
This is handy if you're running through a fairly long cable like from
the stage to a PA console near the back of the room, or through 50
feet or so of cable between the studio and the control room. The mic
preamp is necessary to get the level out of the DI back up to
something that can be recorded. And some people like the sound.

Others just do it because they read about it in Mix and don't give a
thought as to why.

--
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"Paul Stamler" <pstamlerhell@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:kcfSd.252726$w62.88743@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

> Oh, and if you want to actually add some presence and depth to the sounds
> from your synths, run them through a power and and speaker in a
> good-sounding room, and mike the room.

Er, make that a "power amp", not a "power and". More coffee.

Peace,
Paul

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Roger F wrote:
> The tone of many synths gets "muddied" by driving inputs like the
> AD9624 or the Apogee stereo converters. The synth "sees" 10k
resistance
> going into one of these as an un-balanced signal. For some synths,
this
> can lead to 3 to 6 db of power loss. The way this manifests itself
is
> reduced bandwidth in the synths outputs.
>
> You don't usually need a preamp per se to overcome this. Any DI or
> whatever that has a 100k impedance will make a big difference in
tone,
> plus can add (recover) up to 6 db of lost gain, which makes the
> converters sound better since you are hitting them "harder".
>
> A simple diy buffer / balanced line driver does the trick, like an op
> amp buffer driving a Burr Brown DRV134 or Analog Devices SSM2142.
>
> Even just directly driving the BB or AD chip is an improvement since
> they present a 30k impedance to whatever you plug in.

I experienced a similar "muddying" effect when patching synth
signals into the micpres of an SSL G's micpres (the instrument levels
being too low a signal at the line inputs, I thought this a benign way
to boost the level.) Perhaps the circuit didn't react well to an
unbalanced signal, perhaps some kind of impedence mismatch, I don't
know. But the effect was pretty obvious when doing an A/B comparison
with tracks recorded the "right way", which is to use synths into DI's
into micpres to recorder. ( I was recording some demos for R&B
Keyboardist/Songwriter Odeen Mays at the time, and he was greatly
relieved when we figured out "Where did all the sound go?" )

Although I imagine some DAW interface boxes are electronically
optimized to record synths direct, it wouldn't surprise me if some of
them and if many Converter units are not.

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Staff Audio / Fox News / M-AES
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

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WillStG <willstg@aol.com> wrote:
>
> I experienced a similar "muddying" effect when patching synth
>signals into the micpres of an SSL G's micpres (the instrument levels
>being too low a signal at the line inputs, I thought this a benign way
>to boost the level.) Perhaps the circuit didn't react well to an
>unbalanced signal, perhaps some kind of impedence mismatch, I don't
>know. But the effect was pretty obvious when doing an A/B comparison
>with tracks recorded the "right way", which is to use synths into DI's
>into micpres to recorder. ( I was recording some demos for R&B
>Keyboardist/Songwriter Odeen Mays at the time, and he was greatly
>relieved when we figured out "Where did all the sound go?" )

Some synths out there are actually very bad about driving low-Z loads.
You'd think that with transistors being cheap today that there would
be no reason for the outputs on those things not to be able to drive
a 600 ohm mike input, but a lot of them sound much better with a 10K ohm
load on them. You got me why. A passive DI box will usually do the job
nicely enough.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."