VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

Matto

Hey there gang!

I'm looking at new preamps for my brand spankin' new studio soon to be finished (I'll share photos at some point) and I was wondering if there is anyone who could chime in with their suggestions.

I've had a great short list supplied by some VO friends which is:

-Manley VoxBox
-Avalon 737
-Universal Audio 6176

At the moment I am looking at the 6176 because I have been told that it can excel in both a natural commercial sound and punchy promo read. I do play in both sandpits, so I feel like it would be a good fit.

Any thoughts from the resident tech wizards?

Cheers,
Matt
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Philip Banks · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:29 am Post subject:

Good mixer with phantom power and good "soundcard"/audio thingy? If so, use that and then use software for the rest. If you are a major vocalist (singer) then "stuff" is good. For us humble VO people, no need at all.

I did a test with my mixer +phantom power, read sentence and then read the same sentence through my Universal Audio 710 (now sold). The edit point was halfway through the sentence mid syllable. Not one gear head (in the UK, Anorak) could hear the difference and I could only "sort of" hear the difference because I knew the edit point.

Having placed the above on record if you would like to buy something AWESOME because you can then do it and ENJOY , BECAUSE you can not because you should.

Here you go ....

AWESOME and probably goes up to 11

http://www.dv247.com/studio-equipment/manley-voxbox-valve-channel-strip--15207

Dan-O · The Gates of Troy Joined: 17 Jan 2005 Posts: 1638

I had an Avalon 737 for a few years and unbeknownst to me, it had a bad capacitor which kept blowing tubes. At the time, Rick Riley had been going on and on about this little pre amp that was recommended to him from a Nashville music engineer, the Martinsound MSS-10. He let me play with his for a few hours one day and I did a back to back comparison with a brand new Avalon on loan from Guitar Center. My engineer friends could barely tell the difference. Perfect and the icing on the cake: it's solid state. No tubes, no warming up. Just plug-in and play.

However, recently I purchased a UA Apollo Twin Duo for my travel rig. Had George Whittam set up a preset using the API rack real time plugins. Holy crap. I'm now considering keeping only the mic and scrapping the rest of my hardware chain.

Philip Banks · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 9:04 am Post subject:

If I could see a way it would work with my ISDN codec I think I'd buy it.

ricevoice · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 10:39 am Post subject:

Another great solid-state (tube-free) option: the Focusrite ISA430 MkII ... killer pre, and a very versatile channel-strip with lots of knobby things to play with. Pairs great with a 416, I upgraded to it from a dbx 286a about 4 years ago and couldn't be happier.
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Matto · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 11:08 am Post subject:

Thanks for the suggestions. I currently have the Focusrite ISA One, which I love. I can only assume the quality carries into their other products as well.
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DenaliDave · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 12:35 pm Post subject:

Well, I did hours and hours, weeks and months of researching preamps.

It all comes down to what you want.

Do you want any kind of color/character to be imparted on your sound? Do you want a Neve, API or Trident console sound? People are used to hearing those flavors...

Or, are you in the "wire with gain" camp? Keeping the signal as pure and close to what the microphone picks up as possible?

Now, I'm in the former camp. That said, there can be instances where the "wire with gain" can go to far. I haven't used a Grace M101, but the #1 complaint seems to be that it's to clinical/cold sounding. To transparent, almost to a fault.

If you decide to go with a preamp that's going to impart some kind of color/flavor/character/warmth is how it pairs with your microphone. Generally if you have a transparent sounding mic, you can color it up with a preamp easily enough. If, however, you have a colored mic like a U47 or something, it gets more difficult to get a good colored preamp to match.

The VoxBox is highly regarded, so is the 737.... tough call! I've heard more VO people pleased with their Manley boxes vs. Avalons.

I have an M5 and while it's a great preamp, there are little things about it that make me waffle on Avalon. The output is unbalanced, the power supply is insanely large and there's no on/off switch. It's not really a rack mounted unit, so I don't see why it wouldn't have a switch. The fit/finish while it appears beautiful has a sort of "skin deep" feeling to it. I can't really explain it.

Remember, the Avalon 737 is a tube amp, the AD2202 is solid state (like the M5).

Overall I get the feeling that the price is inflated for the product. It's graet, don't get me wrong...and I'm sure the 737 and AD2022 (the multi-channel M5) are also wonderful...I wonder if one isn't paying for flashy looks and name power vs. actual sound.
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Rob Ellis · M&M Joined: 01 Aug 2006 Posts: 2385 Location: Detroit

for a TLM 103 I would suggest a Neve-ish pre to counteract its sometimes bright top end. The 416 is less sensitive to pre-amp matching.

Zach Meissner · Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:08 pm Post subject:

I'll second what Philip and Dan said individually, the Manley voxbox and the Apollo twin. You can get the Manley Voxbox as a realtime dsp plugin for the Apollo.

Best of both worlds!

Voxbox from UA
http://www.uaudio.com/store/unison/manley-voxbox.html
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Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

If you love the ISA One, then likely you love it for the very pronounced but nice Lundhal transformer in it. http://www.lundahl.se

If I was using a TLM 103, I'd be happy with that combo that balances each other out.

I had a CAD E100 s that was very much a FET mic and didn't work great with the ISA One, nor with my voice. I do better with something clean. I wish I had kept the ISA One now that I'm using the new model Rode NT-1.

I'm back to using my ten year old Yamaha MG 16/4 mixer. Just have to remember to keep the line input down as low as possible on my interface and let the mixer do the heavy lifting and it sounds great.

That said, all three of your choices in the OP sound great. What about an Avalon M5?

The headphone jack and monitoring in the ISA One is really nice.
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DenaliDave · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 10:42 am Post subject:

Lance Blair · M&M Joined: 03 Jun 2007 Posts: 2281 Location: Atlanta

Yes, those iD22s sound great. A lot of amazing tech has come to gear in the past few years. Smile

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DenaliDave · Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 3:00 pm Post subject:

Matto · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 7:53 am Post subject:

I reckon I'll try everything out in the new space first with the ISA One and Avid Quartet. Then I'll look at getting the new preamp.

Thanks folks - this has been really helpful!
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Jason Huggins · Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2016 10:11 am Post subject: