mixers, preamps, etc...
Home > Home Recording Forum > Recording Techniques > mixers, preamps, etc...
Posted on Dec 22, 2002 10:49 pm
matt
Member Since: Dec 22, 2002
I am setting up a small analog home studio. I will be recording to a Tascam 388, 1/4" tape machine. I am looking to buy a good, quality-made mixer. Now, my question is, if the mixer itself has decent mic preamps, do I still need to worry about purchasing a seperate pre-amp? And, what kind of power amp should I be looking for(how much power, etc)? AAny recommendations or thoughts are welcome.
[ Back to Top ]
Dec 23, 2002 07:13 am As a group we are a very pro-Behringer gang here. They recently came out with a new series of mixers, the "UB" series, I have a 1622 and it is great service.bfast.com/bfast/c...mp;bfmtype=gear which should be plenty big enough fora 4 track studio, if however you need more the 2442 should handle the task service.bfast.com/bfast/c...mp;bfmtype=gear these mixers have a 24-bit built in effect processor, a newly developed preamp that I personally am very happy with, and the 2442 has many direct out, which makes it great to route straight to your tape machine. Actually, the 2442 is only $349 currently and it has 4 subgroups, 4 send and 4 stereo return, which makes it darn near perfect for your situation. The 4 subgroups would allow you to "submix" several channels into a subgroup and route that group to a single track on your tape machine. The more I think about it, for your system that is a darn near perfect fit.
Beyond that, yes, many times the preamps in a good mixer are nice for mic preamping with the need of another, unless you are really going for a very specific sound...
As far as power amps, there are billions to choose from, the new series from Alesis seems good from what I have heard from it so far (Noize2u, admin here, just got one)...and there are also many other mixers, but Behringer is what most of us use, it is far and away the best deal for your money.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Dec 27, 2002 09:45 pm Yes indeed, we are very pro Behringer here. I have a truck load of their gear and have never turned back. I use their mixer's and patch bay's, also their signal processor's, and just grabbed and Ultra Curve 8024 and am loving it as my main EQ now. As far as a power amp goes, there are a lot to choose from, and I stuck with Alesis as I love the fact that they do not use any fan's for cooling. Not that it is the only amp that does that, but I got many year's of great service out of my old RA-100 and would have kept it but I switched my main moniter's to my KRK K-Rok's and they needed a bit more juice then the old RA-100 could put out. So I just grabbed one of their new RS-300 REferance serie's amp's and it is very true sounding with out any noise. They still make the smaller amp in the RA serie's which would work fine for a smaller pair of moniter's. So if ou don't need that extra big amp, and choose yoru moniter's carfully that is also a good choice.
