Condenser Mics and Portable Preamps, Portable Recorders

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blickblocks

Active member
I'm shopping for preamps and portable recorders to use with my Sennheiser ME80 and an AKG 451. I was never able to get a loud, clean signal with the preamps on the Zoom H4n recorder, and I subsequently sold it. I see the preamps as the weak point on the budget priced portable recorders, and I think that is simply because they're designed to be used recording bands live.

Since I can't afford a Sound Devices portable mixer, I'm wondering if it makes any sense to use an inexpensive mic preamp (like the PreSonus Tubepre or Art Tube MP) and record to line level on a little Tascam recorder (or my Macbook, or a tablet, etc). Recording line level would bypass the noise floor of the preamps, or at least minimize it. I'm looking at the DR-05 and DR-40 recorders btw.

Some of these preamps are fairly compact, and I could see using them mounted to a camera rig, though I probably will have limited need to run and gun. Any recommendations?
 
How do you intend to power it?
I have no experience with the kinds of preamps you mention, but I've heard that their performance can be a bit lacking sometimes (probably better than the zoom, but then most preamps are). Also consider that many don't have filters, limiters, or much in the form of metering. If you can, try before you buy, or buy used so you can resell it if it's not what you hoped for.
 
blickblocks said:
I can run that off of two 9V batteries. How is the noise floor when using phantom powered condenser mics?
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I haven't tested the 402 for noise, but the specs state a signal to noise ratio of -103 dBu. I recorded a female vocal trio ( and a keyboard player ) last weekend using dynamic mics with about 45 dB of gain on each mic, and was still showing a noise-floor of -50 dB RMS, which was the ambient room noise of the condo we were recording in. I don't think noise-floor is going to be an issue here. ( but I have doubts about powering this on a couple of tiny 9-volt batteries. The AC power supply is rated at 8 watts draw, which you could get out of one of the larger multi-voltage battery packs. )

The Mackie 402 is a really well made little mixer, and a bargain for $100.
 
blickblocks said:
The PreSonus Tubepre V2 seems to get good reviews and costs $99. You don't think it "any" good?
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This is not battery powered either, so I don't see any advantage over the Mackie 402, other than it requires 12 volts instead of 18 volts to power it.

The specs are roughly the same as the Mackie, but the Mackie is a 4 channel IN and 2 channel out unit, so you can power 2 mics with it.
 
This is a common issue with most budget recorders.
Any external preamp for less than $500 will not get you significantly better quality than the on-board ones IMHO.
The Mackie>to>recorder @ line level would likely sound decent.. but I doubt that two 9V batteries (in series @ 18V) would run the Mackie. (amperage.. unless so designed. Not even counting the additional Phantom Pwr. load.
 
TheDingo said:
This is not battery powered either, so I don't see any advantage over the Mackie 402, other than it requires 12 volts instead of 18 volts to power it.
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I don't think I ever said that the pre must be battery powered, but even if they are not and I need to run it off of battery there are always solutions (unless a device uses something like an AC/split rail PSU).

I'll have to check out the Mackie mixer, see if I can demo one at Guitar Center or Sam Ash. Thanks! Any other suggestions would be great.
 
I was running into the same issue as you with a Tascam dr-100. Tried a few of the cheaper solutions like you are looking at and it generally sounded a little better, but never really seamed to make that much difference in sound quality or noise levels. So instead of chasing my tail and wasting more money, I found it much easier just to purchase a used Fostex fr-2 on ebay. It was a little bit a a stretch money wise (I found mine for $400), but I have not been happier. Yes I know the Fostex is in a different category and an older unit, but the sound is wonderful and clean! I would say, skip playing with the cheap pre-amps (I wish I did for time and money reasons). Also, you can find deals on the FR-2le.
 
You are probably going to have to do some testing on your own. Peoples sense of "noise" differs. Most of the cheap mixers of the past were quite noisy, but then so were the media that you were recording to so it often didn't matter so much. Behringer had a small mixer that looks a lot like the Mackie that I know a number of experienced mixers (people not boxes) liked and used on low budget and student gigs. But that is dialog on a low budget film. SFX is often more demanding of low noise since you are often recording very quiet things.

I have had a SD MixPre in front of just about every recorder I have used for the last ten years or so and it has made them all sound better. I didn't use it on the NagraV but it has some fantastic mic pres.

You can probably power any of the two channel "mixers" off of batteries if you can deal with a bit of soldering. The above Behringer could run off of 9V batteries. The Mackie 1202 was often adapted to run off of batteries.

The two channel one mentioned in this thread should be able to run off of batteries also.

The spec for the PS says 8W, but doesn't list the voltage.

So IF the 8W is what it's drawing from the AC side then you are looking at about 8 hours on 9V batteries. If it's based on the 18V side then more like an hour.

Since it is so similar (in design) to the Behringer I'm guessing it's the AC side and you can get at least a day on a pair.

The math, so you can check/ correct

W=A x V
so 8W/110V = 72ma

Energizer 9V battery will get about 550mah with a 75ma discharge rate.

so 550mah/72ma = 7.6 hours

You aren't going to be on all day probably and with only one mic pulling phantom you might well be drawing less juice.

But YMMV.
 
Thanks for checking the math on that, it does seem doable!

I did three days of shooting for two different interview-type projects this past weekend. I used a new-to-me mic, an Altec 201b (same as AKG 451), which my friend used to use recording drums but had sat collecting grime at the bottom of a storage bin. It is a cardioid mic but I wanted to give it a try anyways, since I would be able to get the mic pretty close to my subjects.

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First day of shooting went fantastic, I was interviewing my friend in his recording studio, so we hooked up my mic to his Roland 8-mic interface with a little bit of compression and recorded this straight into Ableton. Great, natural sounding noise floor, very open sounding and clear, and this was in the control room not the recording room. We had the preamp gain boosted quite a bit but it still sounded great.


The next day I used the same mic with a borrowed Tascam DR-100, and I had to have the gain cranked to 10 and was still getting fairly low levels. Acoustics were very rough, but the worst part was that half way through the shoot (while I wasn't monitoring with headphones) the cap seemed to get a bad connection and introduced very bad static noise that built up over time. My fault for not monitoring! :( I think it was just dirty because I got it working just fine today after taking the cap off and reinstalling it.

I ran a lot of noise reduction on that rough section, as well as a bit on the clean parts too.

I'm not exactly sure the best way to be compressing for dialog (on set or in post), nor am I too experienced about mic placement. Suggestions of where to start would be great.

spd_20081213114351_b.jpg

My friend who gave me the mic also hooked me up with a mixer, a Soundcraft Spirit Folio SX, after I told her about all the problems I had with the H4n and DR-100. Used it earlier this evening, the preamps sound great! I couldn't get it to work with my Sony BVP shotgun though. I used an XLR to 1/4" cable because I didn't want to fry it with phantom power (it runs on a 9V battery). Are there any XLR cables/dongles which disable phantom power?

I still want to figure out a portable, battery powered solution, but for now I need to learn how to use all this new stuff I've got.
 
"I couldn't get it to work with my Sony BVP shotgun. I used an XLR to 1/4" cable"
-- Most 1/4" inputs are line level.. so that makes sense. Yes. there are Phantom Pwr. ISO transformers available, why didn't you just shut off the Phantom Pwr. on the board.
BTW, Nice find! I'm not familiar with that particular Altec, I've heard the 201b were re-badged AKG451/CK1. It could also be quite valuable, I would seek out a vintage microphone expert.
In my perusal of http://www.preservationsound.com I could find nothing on the Altec 201b.
 
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