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(more $30 Pre-Amp School…..continued from How could we BE any dirtier?)

Symon Michael bought one, at my suggestion, to use on his saxaphone. Here’s what I told him works for me:

Let it warm up for a half-hour or more before recording with it.
And the settings I use are:

–input and output knobs, both at 12 o’clock (straight up)
–20 db gain: in (on)
–P-Pwr: in (on) (Has to be on for condensor mics. Should be off for dynamic mics, and MUST be off for ribbon mics.)
–Phase Reverse out (off) (Should be off, unless you have an out-of-phase issue with another mic.)
–OPL: in (on) (This is limiting that keeps you from being too loud.)

I use the XLR mic jack in for the mic, and use the 1/4″ jack out to my mixer (the XLR out could blow a mixer or computer.)

MWD

p/s I just ordered a THIRD ART MP tube pre-amp. It’s to go with the RODE microphone I ordered last week. That way when DJ and I have guests in the studio, we’ll all have a nice condenser mic with a nice tube pre-amp to dirty and warm us up before feeding into the digital Über-Purity of my perfect happy snug little kick-ass laptop computer. The Rode will be a nice addendeum to my good-but-budget mic closet, already including two MXLV63Ms: 

I recently purchased two ART MP Studio tube pre-amps, a steal at 30 bucks each. They really give a nice, warm sound to recorded speaking (or singing.) They also have a built-in limiter option, which will keep you from distorting.

The idea of using tube pre-amps with digital audio is that the sound of modern recording has gotten so clean, that it can be helpful to “dirty it up” a tiny bit using old-type steampunk technology, so you throw a tube in the mix.

These have an actual tube, and a little window to view the tube, to see it glowing. You actually have to let them warm up for a half-hour or so to get a good sound. (Anyone under 30 years old has probably never experienced electronics that need to warm up….)

These creamy pre-amps also have an analog level meter, which I haven’t seen in any gear for about 20 years. It reminds me of a pressure gauge or an old speedometer.

We used these puppies on episode 0048 of the Clone The Homeless podcast and episode 65 of SAC, and will probably use them on every episode recorded hence (unless it’s recorded “in the field” with our iRiver or the Sampson Zoom H2 portable, which we ordered two months ago, and it ships this coming Monday. Look for a full review of that when it comes out. It records CD-quality audio and is the size of a pack of smokes.)

Erin liked the creamy sound of our tubed throats and wrote us:

>The tube preamps sound really good…warmer and “dirtier” as you say. i can’t imagine you 2 sounding any dirtier, but you’ve done it, lol!

by the way…if you click on the above photo, the big version makes really cool computer wallpaper. Very dark and spooky. It’s Peanut the Devil Kitty!

I was talking with my friend Lydia about our first computers. Mine was old in 1991 (probably a 1988 model), a used Office Equiptment International (OEI) 8086, which had a two 5-inch floppy drives, a 1-meg hard drive, 64 k of RAM and a monochromatic (orange) screen. I ran Word Perfect 1.x in DOS on it, and used it to write some of what eventually made its way into Starving in the Company of Beautiful Women, my first novel.

I got a 386 running Windows 3.1 in late 1995, and didn’t get online (at home) until 1996, on dial up. I had a website by Thanksgiving that year, and had DSL by 1997.

Lydia responded with her story, which I find fascinating:

Technically, my first computer was, as vague as I can remember, an AM Typesetter, with a cathode ray, green monochrome screen. in 1983. My mother would have to type up the interface every time she needed to get working. These computers were huge, and we had two of them in our tiny apartment (later, print shop); they were bought for about $7,000-$10,000 a piece. I remember them being so big, that I could stand on top of one and jump down from it, as well as sleep under it. I’ll try to get the manuals for you to look at.

My parents used to do this type of graphic design work, using SGML (HTLM is a subset of SGML) - and the whole terminal’s sole use was for SGML layout formating.

Here’s some awesome images.

The printer, a Dupont 7500 developer, looked like this:

 

and was about 4′X3′x2′. It was literally a mini darkroom, with photo-chemicals and photo paper that would get dark when the package got a tear in it.

——

1987-1993 :
My next computer would be the Apple IIes we’d play with at school (when I was in kindergarten), and the Apple SEs.

Very soon after, while I was still in elementary school, we got a Macintosh Quadra 605, and I got one of the firsts CD-ROM drives for the Mac. One had to place the CD in its own plastic case, before pushing the case into the drive.

My first “Internet” experience was in the library, in 1992 on dialup BBS. They had a 9 baud modem, using IRC chat and posting on bulletin boards where people were playing Zork, but I had no idea what was going on (I’m still not very good at RPGs and I’d be writing stupid comments. Not long after, because my friend and I were the “computer kids” of the elementary school, we got to spend our lunch time on AOL.
Yes, I remember when typing Amazon.com brought up a “reserved” screen with a construction bench image.

As for the IBM keyboard, I really liked that click. It made me feel like I was working. I have a real problem with “soft” keyboards, they don’t make you feel productive.