Recently I did a preamp shootout between 4 different preamps. Focusrite, Manley, Shadow Hills, and API preamps were all tested. I recorded an acoustic guitar using a U87 through all these different preamps, one at a time. The client/musician for the project was Ryan Brun.
Before the shootout, I did some research on miking the acoustic guitar. I found two articles one from Sound on Sound and one from about.com. One of the things from the Sound On Sound article that I did for the shootout was place the mic in what they called the “vanilla” position. This position “points the mic roughly at the junction between the instrument’s neck and body, where you can usually achieve a fairly good balance of the body and panel resonances while simultaneously catching a good dose of added liveliness from the strings themselves” according to Sound on Sound. In the about.com article, they recommend a condenser mic for acoustic guitar, which I did use.
The preamps that I used in the shootout were the Focusrite ISA828, Shadow Hills Mono GAMA, Manley Force, and the API preamps in their “The Box” console.
Of course, all the preamps sound slightly different. The Focusrite was the most clear sounding, with the least amount of low end and crisp highs. The Manley was warmer sounding, and slightly dirtier. There was a more low end to the Manley. The Shadow Hills was similar in quality to the Manley. There’s a knob on the Shadow Hills that makes it sound very different. For this recording, the knob was set to “Discrete.” Finally, the API sounded similar to the Focusrite, but had a little more low end. The highs were still present, but in a different way than the Focusrite.
Overall, all of the preamps sounded good, but for the job of recording an acoustic guitar, the Focusrite gave me my favorite sound. My ranking of favorite to least favorite would be:
- Focusrite
- API
- Manley
- Shadow Hills
I put the Manley over the Shadow Hills because though they had a similar tone, the Manley sounded much more unique in my opinion. But I want to know your opinion! Give me your own personal ranking and reasons why in the comments.