Philosophical thoughts on preamp vs preamp comparisons...

When it comes to a standard IC (which are usually cheap), cheap mixer, cheap external or interface amps vs. a proper transformer balanced design there is for me a massive difference after the chain has been through a comp. Cheap stuff sounds degraded, "flat" & "2D". Now I know these descriptions irk but there are reasons for it like harmonic distortion, phase, slew, imp and decay. I've seen tests on the purple site where two amps wouldn't even null at -30. There's IME no such thing as truly "clean", there's just a bunch of design decisions to lessen the impact of degredation caused by the topology. What I've always found curious is even with basic measurements, manufacturers explaining their topologies and reasons for it why to some it just doesn't matter.

Don't get me wrong, at a certain level of quality most amps seem to be absolutely fine and I have not nor will I ever use every IC amp out there, some might be great. That being said in the grand scheme of entire productions when we factor everything else, no amp or piece of equipment (unless it's broken) will ever compare to a smashed limiter for "degraded, 2D & flat" this is the realms of undesirable distortion, stereo imaging issues and hardly any dynamic range which subtracts most nuance created by dynamic range.

We still do this today and then debate about amps?! I have to ask, if someone truly believes this sounds better than a technically controlled master then have you not got bigger issues? This is quantifiable in all regards and I know why pro's do it, louder always appears to be better (until you just turn up the controlled version). In a sea of songs where people flip to the next in a second then you have to grab their attention, I understand. However, how many engineers actually think this sounds better?

My point is for all the benefits equipment may give there are so many idiosyncracies, variances, preferences etc. that have a far greater influence. Some say mixing doesn't have a massive impact but I disagree, I've heard too many crap productions made from relatively well recorded material. Although usually in low budget metal when mic's were a thing it's bad recordings and no amount of mixing will fix that. Also sometimes the production itself demands "2D", the ISK 2B tube mic has some phase spillage which makes it sound bigger than a usual mono source mic and it also has a nice bit of harmonic distortion. In a wide acoustic track it's lovely, it fills out the vocals & guitars but I could never use it in a metal song, there's too much going on and a super wide hi-fi sounding chain will only cause clashes resulting ultimately in a low-fi mushy mess.

The sole reason i threw out the question to begin with was, since Ive tried and have come to the conclusion that it is all about the stacking and build up and consistency for me. Back when I realized this, it took my recordings and productions to a completely new level. My tracks ended up with 1-3 plugs instead of a motherload trying to correct and achieve the wanted outcome. Finding the right pres and comps to achieve this was a time consuming project for sure. Listening to single source comparisons was a dead end for me that did not really tell me much of the pres behavior in larger context. Thats what my question initially was about, how others experience it, when i just suddenly began thinking why all the comparisons tend to be single source out there on you tube and the other side is not much of a topic or debate.

No, it has not been about learning curve in that sense, but yes in the sense that the more I was able to invest in the front end, the more I learned about the significance of how that defines the end result in a fundamental way and the mixing becomes dependent and reliant on that and not vice versa. 

I do believe the same philosophy applies for mics, room, instruments etc. The build up of tonal cohesiveness will eventually give a character that is cohesive across the production. Might of course also end up in unwanted results when choosing the wrong tool that might have sounded fine at the time on a single track but not as part of defining the character.

I will take a look at your channels latest vids absolutely, thanks for the tip.

The mic absolutely has more impact than a pre in most cases. And the same applies there in choices of mic characters used across the production. Their character will build up just the same. Sure we often have to do compromises due to economical realities. But how to reach close enough to the coveted sound of course varies. And you are absolutely right in knowing your gear and the outcome of matching. 

This is of course also a debate of aesthetics to some extent. Do we aim for consistency and cohesiveness, compromising on some tracks for the greater good, or do we aim for perfect tracks across the field and giving away some of the big picture. Tool-choice is an art of its own, and even on very high level productions today you occasionally come across elements not sitting and sterile, identity-less productions, despite being technical masterpieces. I think in the time of consoles, certain randomness and mismatch was naturally eliminated. And I do believe the stacking was one factor of recognizable sounds and productions we came to know and covet.

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I think a lot of it is this: most haven’t been in a professional situation where the scenario is you walk in look at what’s in front of you and think “ OK this is what I’ve got now how do I make it work for me ?”. Vs going on the website of your favorite dealer and the 100’s of pre’s and going “ what should I buy.”
Most don’t understand that up until the early 2000’s most top studios only had a handful of outboard pre’s, most tracking other than lead vocals were done with what’s in the board. Now granted this example is about recordings done on API and Classic Neve, but you will notice that in Recording Rumors and Tusked not a single mention of outboard preamps.

Have you seen enough footage of these sessions to conclude the mic placement is the same? Instruments? 100% curious.

depends on the pre. many of these modern live boards and interface pres use absolute butt ic opamps. many interface pres use pga 2500 and need a pad before the pre. then there are additional chips and gainstages. it's really hard to make even a prism pre sound like an rme pre despite both using pga 2500 from how different their conversion sounds. RME can have some additional gainstages. Compare that to THAT chip pres like Lynx or THAT chip pres controlling opamps like Apogee. You cannot make them sound the same. You can pick out differences. Push them, you often activate additional gain stages that add extra distortion. So cleanish to toneful/crappier/plastic to crap often and you're not even clipping.

Ah, yeah. Nigel Godrich has a pretty distinct sound to his stuff, especially drums.

Preamps don't matter much to me, until they do. I have my preferences, but my biggest preference is for a quality transformer balanced preamp for most sources. the end result still always sounds like one of my records no matter which preamp I use for which source.

Biggest differences i hear come when mixing other peoples work that was tracked with cheap interface preamps. raw tracks are often bland and need lots of iron to get some tone and weight in the mixes. Much harder to make them sound "like a record".

Second biggest differences are in the extremes - neve vs api on a kick drum make the lows do very different things. Neve vs api vs clean/transformerless preamp on overheads do very different things in the top end. Reamped guitar with distortion and harmonics galore to me usually overshadows the small differences between preamps in the mids.

plus, there are notably large differences for wild vibey stuff - altec 1566As get used when i need some extra something in the lows, a lofi-ish vocal, or a distortion box.

I will say i hate walking into a studio with 12 different preamp pairs and deciding which preamp to use on what part of a drumkit. i prefer a console, and in these situations i usually just ask the assistant to patch in what they like, or say "neve on kick and toms, clean on overheads, whatever you want for everything else". Still sounds like I recorded it, because mic choice and placement makes a bigger difference than a 1073 clone or a 3124 or a sytek etc.

Very good thinking.

What do you think some of the best options would be? Neve 1290 family, API/CAPI 312 family, Focusrite ISA110, Grace, Jenson 990 twin variety, others?

I want 16 of the same thing! and if i can't have that i'd like 6-8 of the same thing. and if i can't have that i'd at least like 4 of one thing and 4 of another. but having 16+ channels on a good sounding console and only thinking about whats in the rack if something is lacking is my favorite way to work.

I agree with you here.

Stacking is a very real thing.

That’s why when I’m recording 24 tracks of BV’s I don’t use a 1073 or CA-70. The sound gets too thick and dominant.

I always use a clean solid state pre that’s more “straight wire and gain” and a wide bandwidth and then there’s air and clarity to the BV’s.

I don’t like to paint a picture with same brush, I like to have a few different sizes and textures in the jar (so to speak)