inline pre amp ??

Well ,,, I was looking at just the inline pre but I am just learning so I take it from your knowledge a mixer is better(more controls) and the pre is internal(already there) so it would be a ''win,,win'' way to go
right?
 
what do you think about the Azden FMX-2,, duallie for under 300 bucks ??


or is this so lacking I'm better off to wait till I can afford better stuff ???
 
The Sound Devices MM-1 is a great single channel preamp with limiter, lowcut and headphone jack for about $350. It would be good if you only need one channel. It will hold it's value well, so when you move up you should be able to get 70-90% of original value. I would hold out for a SD MixPre at a minimum for a 2 channel mixer. Don't buy Azden! Please?!
 
Azden is not a good investment. Mixers, Sound Devices are very nice. If you can use AC power there are some very affordable mixers from Alesis and Mackie that are pretty decent. Once you have to use batt. power the price starts getting heavy.

The cheapest poss acceptable choice is a Behringer one. Lots of folks will tell you they are crap and well I have heard mixed reviews from folks who should know what they are talking about. Nobody says they are great, few will claim good, but there are a number that I know that will call them acceptable. Behringer is a company who's stuff is all over the map. Some is quite good some is awful, and there quality control is seriously lacking. That said for under $100 you can get a battery powered mixer (like 4 channels?) that might be acceptable. Most of the other stuff down in that range won't be acceptable. SD used to make a single channel mic pre that you might find used pretty cheap but??? If your in the $300-$600 I would probably look hard at the used market. That's my opinion any way. I think if you need something NOW and you can't spend what you should then you should not spend a lot on something that isn't going to work for you for long. Under $100 won't set back your saving for what you really need that much and might keep you from spending too much for something that isn't any better. My first batt. pre was $600 and it was a bargain. I would still be using it except that it required 9 9V batteries (yes that is correct NINE). It sounded great, still does, but the batt.s were killing me so I got a MixPre. I do mostly FX recording.
 
The Sound Devices MM-1 is a great single channel preamp with limiter, lowcut and headphone jack for about $350. It would be good if you only need one channel. It will hold it's value well, so when you move up you should be able to get 70-90% of original value. I would hold out for a SD MixPre at a minimum for a 2 channel mixer. Don't buy Azden! Please?!


thnx very much

and thnx Noiz2, you've summed it up pretty good for me. For now I am running comando(nada, zippo). My Lav is decent, balanced, hardwired Crown. (not the best lav, but certainly not the worse)
And AKG Ck98 shottie. I'm using Audition during post and getting (what I think id,,,) decent results.

Am gonna go with the best advice and wait .

Thank you both so much for saving me a coupleof bucks.

joe
 
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Get the Sound Devices MM-1 for $350. I have it.. built like a tank.....Sounds really good.... you won't be sorry.
 
OK, I looked at it, but it's single channel, does that mean I can only afix only one mic ??

Yes, the MM-1 is just one very good channel. Sound Devices makes the MixPre for 2 channels, but then the price is almost double that of the MM-1.

Keep in mind that down the road when you have the budget for a good multi-channel mixer, the MM-1 can be used as a great boom-op pre-amp to feed the multi-channel mixer. ( ...also, it's good to have some form of redundancy, so if something dies during a shoot, you can rely on the backup to pull you through )
 
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