possible silly question about use of VB101 recording setting

[diezelduder]

i have the two notes vb101 going straight from the left right analog outs to mic pre ins of a RME fireface UCX

my question is would i get some benefit from using mic pres like dual channel mic pre, going out of the two notes in to mic pre into the RME line ins

or would this make more noise or what? i have no idea i know people do this but wondering if it's necessarily worth it?!

idk help a bro out

thanks

 

[opiante]

The only thing thats silly about your question is the fact that you think its silly

Simple answer s, why not? Tube mic preamps are basically tone shaping devices and there is no harm in hearing what they do to your VB-101 tone.

I use the Universal Audio Apollo platform for my recordings. They just recently released a new type of plug-in that basically creates a software / hardware hybrid of mic emulation. Fist thing I did is stick that plug-in on a channel that had my VB-101 coming in. Sounds FANTASTIC!!! Makes it fat, full and even warmer.

I ADORE my VB-101... Guys at Two Notes thought of all the right tone tweaks, but there is always room to thro another tone shaping device beind it an see what it does.

Ian

 

[diezelduder]

The only thing thats silly about your question is the fact that you think its silly

Simple answer s, why not? Tube mic preamps are basically tone shaping devices and there is no harm in hearing what they do to your VB-101 tone.

I use the Universal Audio Apollo platform for my recordings. They just recently released a new type of plug-in that basically creates a software / hardware hybrid of mic emulation. Fist thing I did is stick that plug-in on a channel that had my VB-101 coming in. Sounds FANTASTIC!!! Makes it fat, full and even warmer.

I ADORE my VB-101... Guys at Two Notes thought of all the right tone tweaks, but there is always room to thro another tone shaping device beind it an see what it does.

Ian

thanks i have to start all semi serious threads with a self-deprecating remark or it just wouldn't be me
but now on to the myriad/plethora of choices to decide which dual channel pre would be a fit for this situation

your input is greatly appreciated and any more from anyone else is also welcome!

thanks again

 

[opiante]

The question here is what do you want out of thisMic-Pre? These things really vary in what they do and how they do it. Essentially its like saying "I want to get a guitar amp", it really opens up more questions then it addresses. So some guidelines in terms of intended / desired sounds and price range would really help here.

Having said that, I very much understand where you're coming from. I'm not a recording engineer and every time I would record a guitar tone that didn't thrill me with analog warmth I'd think "I must need a tube mic-pre" as some magical solution. Over time I've come to learn that this is only partially correct, since there arejust SO MANY factors involved. One thing I must add is that I've also never been ready to spend the sort of money on mic-pres that I do on guitar gear, so most of my experience have been on a budget (in recording gear terms).

At this pointI need to throw in something else... We must stay aware of the fact that in the end you're not really going to be needing a classic microphone preamp in its pure sense. There are components to these things that are meant to electronically interface with the physical components of the mic. In other words there are some impedance loading issues, similar to relationships that us guitar players are used to with pickups, pedals and high impedance amp inputs. Since you're using the VB-101 you don't care much about these physics. You just want to fatten up the signal. So many of the classic mic-pre conventions go out the window, and in essence you're looking for a tone shaping preamp rather then just a mic pre.

OK, so for some recommendations... On the budget side of things I have really great things to say about Golden Age stuff out of Sweeden. These are Neve clones. I've used the Pre-73 with great success, makes everything darker and more analog-ish. Wonderful stuff for the price. You'll usually see several price points for what seems o be the same product from them, this is cause they offer different levels of component quality. Even the basic ones are pretty good though. A nicer option is the Universal Audio Twin-Finity preamp, which is more of what I think you're looking for. Its a hybrid tube / FET circuit so you get both in one box. All of these are single channel, so you'd need a pair to have stereo processing... so it can get quite costly.

So thus far my answer was pretty 'classic' and safe. But after all we ue Torpedos so there must be an element of out of the box thinking here as well. What interface do you use for recording? There may be a different wy to go.
Essentially, to me personally it makes most sense to use te digital outs on the VB-101. The guys at Two Notes built in exceptional A/D converters and latency is just a non issue here. If you use XLR outs, you're going to the Torpedo analog, the converting to digital, then back to analog for the XLR outs and into mic-pre analog and then into your interface where the conversion will be done again. Nothing wrong with that, but once in the digital world of the Torpedo I prefer to stay there. This is wy I really love what you can do with UA Apollos now. Their new UNISON preamp plug ins sound great either on the actual XLR ins or as a pure software plug-in on the digital input. The warmth is there, the punch and feel are all thee... and you get the ultra low latency of having onlyt the VB-101 doing digital conversion.

I have no idea i any of this makes sense, just thought I'd share cause i recently went thru all this.

Regards,
Ian