Do mic pre-amps really make a large difference in quality?
It may or may not seem subtle at first, but it all definitely adds up. Plus, a good pre can be used for anything, vocals, guitars, you name it. They are designed to replace the stock mic preamps in your board, which typically are chips, and don’t sound as robust as tubes or discrete circuits. Ask your local gear dealer how they’re set up – many engineers bypass the board altogether, avoiding the chips in the channel modules too. I notice that on a lot of major label recordings the WAV is flattened out. If you’re referring to the musical waveforms having clipped table-tops, that’s not a great goal. It’s not musical sounding, though it can be acceptable.
