Clean vs colour preamps

[wavetable]

I'm still wrestling with my 'big dog' preamp search. There are some really interesting prospects but I've come to the conclusion that in order to narrow the field I have to firmly decide whether I want clean or colour.

I don't want to pull anyone into yet another 'what's the best preamp' conversation as I have absorbed the futility of that on my travel round the web. However, I hope that perhaps there is some value in asking whether I have enough 'clean' in my 500 rack with RPQ500s and Carnabys that I would be better with a beautiful 'colour' preamp (like the Phusion or Special OP6) or whether I need that last wafer thin mint with some really top end clean preamps?

I was pondering the fact that Paisley Park seems to have stuck with GML through Prince's time there. If a man with so much money and talent never felt the need to use anything else could I really go wrong with an ultimate clean preamp? (I know - he also stuck with Boss guitar pedals so you can figure that talent is the key factor; but I'm afraid I feel the need to compensate for the lack thereof)

There's also some sensible sounding advice that it's easier to modify tone colour when you've printed the best clean signal you possibly can and that layering sounds through the same pre with a colour preamp risks the build-up of undesirable artifacts.

At the same time, so many great albums have been created through Neve desks and others that impart a specific character.

Any thoughts? I only want to go big once. I'd rather spend on top quality on one side of the fence rather than split the budget.

[Hugh Robjohns]

At the same time, so many great albums have been created through Neve desks and others that impart a specific character.

And so many others have been created through other desk brands with different or no discernible character....

I'm not a believer of desks/preamps making 'the sound'. I find it's much more dependent on the sources, the room, and the mics.

For me, the Cranborne Camden preamps (EC1/2/500) do everything I want. Ultra clean, but with controllable colour through the mojo feature when needed. My EC2 is so good I use it far more often than my GMLs (8304) or Focusrite ISAs (428).

[Sam Inglis]

What sources are you mainly recording, and in what sort of a space?

The sound of most records made at Paisley Park or through Neve consoles is likely to have more to do with the room than with the mixer. Rupert Neve never designed his consoles to sound coloured -- rather the opposite. Whenever I've recorded using a 1073 or similar I generally find myself thinking that it doesn't sound noticeably coloured until I push the gain a bit too far, and then suddenly you can hear obvious saturation on peaks. That can be great on drums but I don't much like it for example on vocals.

The main 'colour' preamps I own are the Special OP-6 and the Chandler Germanium, both of which seem to add a bit more colour at all gain and signal levels rather than going clean-clean-clean-clean-clean-fuzzbox like many designs do. You do have to be a lot more careful with gain structure and so on than you would with a clean preamp, and you will get some hiss on quiet sources.

[James Perrett]

I've got a couple of Neve preamps here and these days I never use them because it isn't worth all the faffing around needed to set them up. I'm happy using the clean preamps in my mixing desk or in the Audient ASP-008.

Mic choice makes much more of a difference.

[Zukan]

I'm from the school of thought: clean in, coloured out.

[Matt Houghton]

As others have said, it rather depends what music you're making and how you want to use the preamps. You certainly have some lovely, high-performing clean preamps already. So unless you need more channels, I reckon you should either be looking at character preamps or something other than preamps (or nothing, and just crack on with making music!)

I do tend to use preamps for more than miking, though. Some make wonderful character DI boxes, and driving them when recording bass or electric guitar can be great. I'll use them to process line signals when mixing too. I have API-style, Neve-style and Electrodyne preamps here that all sound very different from each other when you drive them. Any preamp with both input gain and a master output level control will let you do that more easily than those that lack the output level. But then, you can also buy dedicated saturation processors, which might be a better option if this is the sort of thing you're looking for, and just patch that in after your clean preamps... Also, you have some great colour options on the Camden if you take the time to explore the Mojo feature. I love what that has to offer, and the price is unbelievable.

As for character preamp options, there are loads of them out there now, and it all rather depends on what character you want! But FWIW, the one I have fondest memories of playing with when in for test in recent years is the Lightning Boy Dark Storm (https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/li ... dark-storm). It won't slot into your 500-series rack, mind.

[The Elf]

Clean in, coloured out here too.

My Focusrite Liquid Channels were a revelation on my audio journey, giving me a beautifully clean recording, then being able to loop back at my leisure to instantly switch between the pre models it offers (and having A/B-ed some of them, I can vouch for at least some of the models). The differences are far more subtle than most people seem to believe.

[wavetable]

Thanks for the responses - yes, Camdens not Carnabys, sorry. Most interesting, Hugh that you prefer Cranborne when you have 8304s. I have the R8 rack as well and the summing mixer makes it a breeze to record with zero latency and then listen back, so Cranborne and 500s have been a big success in that respect.

Sam, I'm mainly recording grand piano in my living room. The room is partly treated now and I'm much happier with it (although I was less happy when my wife knocked over an acoustic panel the other day and put a ding in my piano). I have a separate 'studio' but it's too small for the piano. I also record my own shoddy vocals, guitar and Harpejji; no drums or bass in this house. Lots of synths and Eurorack. I certainly have no noise issues whatsoever with what I've got at present. Thanks for highlighting that; I would probably be dissatisfied if I introduced more noise into the equation. I know I don't like distortion on piano or vocals. Any time I switch on mojo I switch it off again quickly.

James, I accept that mics and the person in front of them are the most important elements in the chain. I'm pretty happy with the mics now that I have sorted out the acoustics a bit. Even the Mojaves. It's a point well made, though. Thinking about it I get a very different vibe from C617 vs R88; Perhaps transparency at the preamp end will serve me better.

I have no illusions that I 'need' another preamp but I feel it may complete my signal chain. The piano is a good one, the mics are great, I like my monitors and I have an M3 Macbook and decent interfaces for recording duties. I can't do much about the talent at this point in my life so I just feel like the preamp is the last (cough) element that I might want to upgrade. At least I don't want a Chelsea tractor.

[Matt Houghton]

Well if it really is the final piece in your jigsaw and you're genuinely contemplating spending a good chunk on something nice, you'll almost certainly be able to find a retailer or distributor who will loan you a couple of units to audition for a few days before you buy...

Really, given the quality you already have to hand, I think that's going to be by far the easiest way to discern whether an upgrade will deliver what you hope for.

Personally, given what you've said about what you record and what you like/don't like in terms of distortion, I doubt you'll hear a great improvement over what you have. You may feel differently when you hear them, of course. There may be some small subjective differences in terms of any transformer 'thickening' and so on, but I reckon that's personal taste territory and our words probably aren't going to help you figure out which you like!

[Arpangel]

Much better to go for as neutral a preamp as you can, you can always ad a bit of colour, you can't make a coloured preamp clean.

[ManFromGlass]

I accept that working with gear that inspires is part of our process.
But if one already has some good to great gear then isn’t continuing this quest a good excuse for not spending the time making music?
That being asked - I often find a new something inspires differently than what I already have inspires.
It’s a trap, I tell you! But a good one!

[Arpangel]

More importantly, when you do hear something that "inspires" trust your judgement and hold on to it, don’t try and better it, you’ll sometimes loose what you started with, and end up with something worse, trust your ears and stick with it.

[wavetable]

I accept that working with gear that inspires is part of our process.
But if one already has some good to great gear then isn’t continuing this quest a good excuse for not spending the time making music?
...

Haha, guilty as charged!

I can only claim that the last couple of years of acquisitions has been driven by being primarily a synth head for many years and therefore not working much with mics and preamps.

Just before lockdown I ordered my piano (which is a full rebuild) only for the shell to languish in Poland where it was due to be re-sprayed and various other delays on parts and personnel. When it was finally delivered it took another year to resolve a problem with the dampers (they had left the original damper mechanism in place but the new soundboard was apparently so resonant that it needed to be replaced with a more up-to-date sprung mechanism). Once that was all dealt with I knew that I wanted to record it but my existing comfort zone in the synth studio was not available near the piano so I've spent time and a good chunk of money getting to my current point.

I am actually really excited to start; I've got some things I've been working towards but it's only very recently with some acoustic treatment to the living room and a wider selection of mics that I've reached that 'eureka' moment where I knew that everything was 'good enough' that it wouldn't drive me insane to hear a good piano badly recorded. I'll have to settle for badly played.

So yeah, great advice - get on with it! At the same time, while I'm not planning on waiting around now, I've got my ear on being able to make it sound a bit vintage and warm when I want that flavour while just looking for that last step in quality.

[Arpangel]

I have a nice baby grand, but mostly use a Reason piano sound which is beautiful, my most used. The grand is such a faff to record, making sure the house is quiet etc.
I love sending the recordings out to a Shallow Water pedal, instant 40’s film piano, the advantage of recording acoustic pianos is that the sound is more malleable and responds better to effects than a sampled sound.

[wavetable]

In the end I found this about the hardest piece of gear to select that I can remember because there are so many choices with such subtle differences - and in the end I just overloaded and settled it impulsively by ordering a Shadow OP-6 (well he was having a sale and I love a bargain).

I'm not at the point of drawing conclusions but my first experiments suggest that this thing is fun. It does clean - but keeping the input gain clean and then dialling down with the attenuator about 40% just seems to sound more like a record (playing aside). Seems to behave a bit like a limiter, perhaps? Still, that was with the C617s (which I just leave up permanently on the piano because I like them so much); today I'm getting the R88 out.