Good first studio preamps on a (tight) budget

[snakecained2]

Indeed. Excellent highly affordable kit. DAV Electronics or D.A.V is the work of a Mr Mick Hinton, formerly of Decca engineering dept.
He maintains the philosophies of design in that heritage and sounds very clean but not bland.
Really good value all round.

 

[k brown]

Indeed. Excellent highly affordable kit. DAV Electronics or D.A.V is the work of a Mr Mick Hinton, formerly of Decca engineering dept.
He maintains the philosophies of design in that heritage and sounds very clean but not bland.
Really good value all round.

Currently made with the THAT 1510.

 

[allergies.for.all]

I'd suggest picking up a RAMSA board from the 90s.

https://reverb.com/item/81558769-ramsa-wr-s4416s-analog-mixer-mixing-console-1990-s-very-clean

They can be found super cheap. You'd effectively get 16 channels of VERY GOOD preamps with more than enough gain to get your dynamic mics up. The board definitely has character - the pres are pretty clean at low gain and break up nicely when cranked. The EQs are very flexible. Each channel has a direct output. It also serves as a strong intro to learning how consoles and routing works, which will be good to know. .

 

[gar381]

Ramsa boards were nice in their day. Here is another 70s possibility for you even nicer.
Tangent !! VERY clean and quite with good headroom.

These are fully modular and very fun to hot rod. I put CAPIs ACA in one just for fun !!
P&G 3000, 8000 series or Alps K series drop right in with no metal work mods. The
Channel modules in all series have basically same signal flow. While the EQ is 3 band fixed
its actually quite musical.

The a series have built a internal psu.
The ax series have an external psu with phantom.
The series 4 adds 4 submasters.

Various Tangent versions (8,12,16,240,24 channels) come up on e-bone from time to time
for little money so keep your eyes open !!

The pic is my old studio partner in our CR in the old days with a Tangent 2402a feeding an
Ampex MM1000 and mixed on an Ampex AG300. Made some great recordings with this setup.

GARY

 

[allergies.for.all]

Ramsa boards were nice in their day. Here is another 70s possibility for you even nicer.
Tangent !! VERY clean and quite with good headroom.

These are fully modular and very fun to hot rod. I put CAPIs ACA in one just for fun !!
P&G 3000, 8000 series or Alps K series drop right in with no metal work mods. The
Channel modules in all series have basically same signal flow. While the EQ is 3 band fixed
its actually quite musical.

The a series have built a internal psu.
The ax series have an external psu with phantom.
The series 4 adds 4 submasters.

Various Tangent versions (8,12,16,240,24 channels) come up on e-bone from time to time
for little money so keep your eyes open !!

The pic is my old studio partner in our CR in the old days with a Tangent 2402a feeding an
Ampex MM1000 and mixed on an Ampex AG300. Made some great recordings with this setup.

GARY

GARy that it supposed to be a secret!!!!

 

[gar381]

GARy that it supposed to be a secret!!!!

SO TRUE... sorry I spilled the beens !! lol

G.