Mic Preamp for Clear High and Smooth Vocals?

[puremusic]

What mic preamp would you choose for clear and smooth vocal highs?

I'm looking for something that'd be a good match with a U87. I've been listening to Avalons, Neves, the Twin-Finity, and more and I think my ears are about to fall off so I need a break and would like to hear some other opinions before I sink a lot more time into tracking down demos and listening.

Everyone's playing guitars into these things rather than singing decently, if I can find a demo in the first place.

[medienhexer]

If you can afford to, try and buy a channel strip with EQ and compressor. I found the SPL Gold Channel to be an improvement over the FureFace’s neutral pre-amps in terms of sound, but only after spending some time finding my settings for my fatman channel strip, did I notice an improvement to how well I could hear my own singing during recording which affects the performance. You can also relax a little in terms of controlling your dynamics that way. The results are more polished and don’t need a lot in terms of processing afterwards.

Overall, from my own research, I like the Focusrite ISA a lot, but the ones which stood out from blind tests in forums, and which would be a class up and not just a different flavor are the Neves. Most balanced, somehow most direct, up front sounding. No brittleness, or harshness, least exagerated plosives, everything seems to integrate better. You pick either clean or vintage and they just do their thing best of breed (to my ears).

[lfm]

If budget was unlimited I would look at UA and Grace Design as well.

But really please with the Audient ASP 800 I bought this spring. Not used on vocals yet, but incredible result on acoustic guitars and DI input for bass as well. Preamps are same as they use in their consoles. What is nice is that line input also go through preamps enough to get nice harmonics on it.

If to use analog outs, you need a Tascam cable 25-pin D-sub, but if you have ADAT on audio interface you don't need that.

[puremusic]

Yes I'm curious about Grace Design. I will give their stuff a listen when I can.

[khanyz]

The mic and pre combo is important. For smooth vocals I use a ribbon mic (SE Electronics R1). I lucked into a nice combo with a dbx 376 strip. It was on sale, and I bought it on a whim, but it’s worked great. I did changed the valve though.

To me at least, you need lots of headroom, for clean vocals, but clear is all about the EQ and De-esser, which is why I like the 376. For a ribbon mic you need even more gain so watching noise levels is important. I don’t actively reduce it in hardware, just make sure I’m not adding any needlessly, and edit it later, if excessive.

[Jim Roseberry]

Avalon with C414 is common with high female background vocals.

GML mic preamps are amazingly quiet and accurate.

If you're looking for a more expensive preamp, you're probably looking for something that's going to put a sonic stamp on the audio. The more you can articulate specifically what you're looking for... the easier it'll be to find it.

I love Neve style preamps. The Portico-II is one of the best musical purchases I've made.
Literally everything (DI bass, mics, etc) IMO sounds better running thru it.
I used to struggle with DI electic bass. Thru a cheap DI, the sound was dull and lacked "balls" (pardon the expression).
Reddi Box sounded OK. Avalon U5 sounded pretty good.
Straight off the Neve preamp, Fender and Musicman basses sound great. No EQ necessary.
Mics that can sound strident with cheaper preamps suddenly sound fantastic thru the Neve.
It's not the most exciting musical purchase (not like a new instrument), but it's like getting an upgrade on everything.
All your mics/instruments will benefit.

World-class front-end gear is expensive, but (IMO) it's one of the best investments you can make toward achieving better sounds/recordings. Getting things "right" up front is one giant step towards improving your recordings.
Far easier to mix... and require less processing/fussing

[Sparky77]

UAD has some sweeeet ones.

[Bombadil]

On a reasonable budget, FMR Audio Really Nice Pre-Amp and Really Nice Compressor. Both are highly rated and won't break the bank.