The bottom line is, its probably worth 29 bux. I had one 5 years ago or so, the biggest factor here is the price. If it was 100 bux, that would be different.
Any of those starved plate pres sound horrible anyway when the tube is driven, but some sound pretty good for the money as just a pre, or as mentioned, DI. Good example is the VTB-1..... I still have one, aND I wont sell it for 40 or 50, its worth it more to just keep it in the dugout ICOE.

Now if someone is a penniless high school kid with 2 chickens a week as an allowance, any of them are worth the money, just so you can record something, and get your ears wet! Saying that blowing the 30 bux on it will keep you from getting the DW Fearn you want, probably doesn't apply here.

You'd be surprised with the sound some penniless high school kids can squeeze out of a $29 pre and a digi001 I've seen incredulous engineers with albums on the billboard tops questioning me the gear that was actually used.

Check the myspace profile on my signature

APOHStudios.
thanks for the comment.
much appreciated.
i guess i'm trying to see the forest rather than the trees in all this.
and be fair to the mp and its product niche.
i have recorded with high end gear in the past.....
its not like i havent.
thus here i am here...listening to songs where i did tracks/vocs etc useing
the hi end stuff and comparing to tracks recorded with the mp for a giggle.
and SURE..there is SOME...difference.
but...imho.....the gulf is not huge, (but mebe i dont hear it...lol..)
particularly if one is willing to condition the track post recording with some plug in/eq tricks.
(people even do post recording conditioning useing hi end gear.)
and i'm left wondering whether in the end the consumer will
hear much of a difference.
sure..a top audio engineer will ....i'm sure.
but its the consumer that interests me.
i never claimed the mp was an amazeing pre.
just ....i feel its not as bad a product as some people claim.
and i feel it produces a result that is more than useable.
all i can say is i turned someone else onto it on another forum recently
who is pretty demanding and used lots of gear, ...
and posted back happiness with it.
thus i dunno....there seem to be two visceral opposing camps on the subject.

frankly APOHStudios.....if i werent on pension....ive a mind to go out n rent some hi end pre's
for a day, then throw in some "ringers"..like the mp and my own diy mic pre in with the hi end ones n post examples n see if people can tell the difference....lol.

the other point is .the mp from what i understand has huge sales numbers.
can it be that sooo many people are wrong ??
dunno. i'm just an englishman trying to be fair.

Remember the blind listening mic preamp tests which placed Mackie mixer pres up there with Neves and Avalons?

A great friend of mine who was a composer and engineer was among the listeners and he had the final results CD. Unfortunately he passed away recently. I never got to hear the CD but i do believe sometimes people can hear something different from reality just because of a price tag. He told me the test was legit.

I still have the original ART Tube MP pre that I bought like 10 years ago, and still use it. Like someone already noted, the trick is to not drive the input hard. Still works OK for me as a passive bass guitar DI or as a contrast to colorless mic pres. It is not crystal-clear or transparent sounding, so don't expect that.

For $29, you can certainly find a use for it. I've heard far worse mic preamps that cost more than the ART, but as in anything, the experience & skill of the user affects the outcome as much or more than the quality of the gear.

Not to mention, the room is more important than any of them. Of course, the player and instrument quality matter also. But then, some people like Beck and NiN sound quality .......so in a way, I guess none of it matters?

Noize, on "Dancin in the Moonlight" did you use your Apogee as pre's for the AC guitars? And what mics did you use on the AC guitars? Thanks.

noize.
very sorry to hear bout your friend.

its funny you should mention the mackie pre's.
nothing i could put my finger on.
but there was just "something" i didnt like in the vlz's.
when i tried them. thus i never purchased a early vlz.
also "something" with the eq's.
i thought i might be nuts till i got some impressions from others.
(cos lots of people seemed to like the mackies. )
i guess in the end its personal preference.
you make a point about mebe folks are affected psychologically by price..
but the way round that is to do blind tests with different pre's
where the listeners dont know the price of each and where the pre's are hidden away.

a couple of things ive noticed with the mp is not to invoke the 20 db
switch, and not to push the gain too hard as the other poster said.
i ran a test one day....20db not invoked. and for more gain...
sending the output of the mp to a line mixer for added gain
prior to sending to the sound card line input. seemed to work pretty good.

Manning,

Your voice clip seems to have a warbly sounding, offset stereo-chorus type thing sound to it. I know the background bits are not supposed to be up front, but if you post something like this, you should not have any effects at all on it, so as to hear what a mic or pre sounds like isolated.

No, that's also the DBX mini pre with a cheap soundcard. The mic was a studio projects I think.

$100 acoustic guitar, $100 soundcard, $200 mic, and the dbx mini pre. I was 19 when i recorded that cover in my room.
That's partially why sometimes I think it's funny that some people have gear which costs 10 times more than what I listed, their recordings sound basically like crap, and still they're found in arrogant audiophile discussions about which $4000 pre to buy next, when they couldn't even squeeze some quality out of a $50 one...

cloud....
okey dokey..
today i'll post a mp clip completely dry , spoken voice.
do an announcer thingy plus a dry voc sung for giggles.
once i get my breakfast.
ie....no fx , no eq...completely dry.
au naturel as it hit the daw.

cloud....

heres a completely dry clip.
talk plus likkle vocal dry.
nothing done to it.
everybodys environment is different of course ,
so run your own tests.

I don't need to waste 2 hours proving something to you I learned a long time ago. But I tell you what you could do, instead of questioning others guts and integrity, is go BUY the MicPre CD that 3d audio sells. One of the pres tested is the ART mp. Of course, it will cost you as much as the art tube pre, but...

tone..
crikey.....
nowhere have i attacked anyones integrity.
if it came across like that then i can assure you
it wasnt meant.
this IS a low end thread....and all i'm trying to be is fair to the mp
at its price point.

i only got the mp myself as a result of a senior audio engineer, i think
it was a few years back posting an example of the mp in action on GS,
(i guess the example is in the archives somewhere..)
which impressed me at the time. ....and..in response to people at that time
..like this thread , that were down on the mp.
all the best.
i'm gonna search now for the example on GS.

yeah yeah right... don't lie

well i'm done with this thread.
cos i dont like things getting unfriendly.
ive just spent some time googling reviews of the mp by lots of people.
heres one of many....
ART Tube MP Studio Pre-Amp
apparently barry rudolph did a review of the mp in mix mag.
there are also 5 pages of user reviews at harmony central.
and many other user reviews on the net.

one reviewer i read i think sums things up nicely.....
and this thread obviously reflects it.
in summary.....some are totally opposed to the mp and some are for it.
let me add something i found out googling.
apparently the product was TEC award nominated.
peace to all.

Seriously, about six years ago I tracked a bunch of live instrumental stuff a band I was in did. The chain was two MC012's into to tube MP's into a Tascam CD recorder. Actually still sounds really good to me!

I concur though, don't hit the input to hard, and whatever you do, don't overdrive the tube and expect it to sound good. As reasonably clean, not terribly noisy, incredibly cheap pre, or bass DI...

Just Nick

Crikey!! You're right, my post did sound rather ahole-ish.

No problems, manning1, I really wasn't offended at all, sorry if I sounded like I was. I was actually trying to be helpful with the micpre cd, which is well worth the money.

I generally like the ART mp, and ART gear in general, and I wouldn't sell mine for $60 (2 channel), it's worth more than that to me as a DI like I mentioned. I haven't tracked with it for quite awhile and those old tracks are on old hard drives, etc, so you know, it'd be a hassle to post clips.

I don't have a dog in this fight but it floors me that a guy is comparing an Apogee Mini Me to a $30 preamp and being all triumphant that his four figure box has a better preamp...

Wow. Yeah, you win, bro.

LOFL


The $50 dbx pre is a far more sensible comparison, seems to me. It does cost 2/3 more than the ART, of course. But that's at least within the realm of sensibility. Comparing a $30 mic pre to the pres in a converter box that listed for £1291 (what would that be, pushing $1800?)... that's funny!

That isnt too bad, especially for 30 bux!

Love that thickey Cockney accent also.......

You have done well, I will suggest a raise for you to your boss!

cloud...
cheers.
by the way i dont have a boss.
lest u count my bossy siamese cat...always bugging for treats...lol.
yeh i enjoy doing different accents for fun.

I have 2 Dual MP pres.

For $30 you will not be disappointed.

I have one of those. I got it on the stupid deal of the day from musicians friend. Its not bad. I have a bunch of cheap pres which are now in the basement after I finally bought a board with better pres.

Of the lot the ones I like are

1. DBX 760
2. Symetrix sx
3. ART Tube Channel
4. ART Tube MP.

In about that order. The ART stuff works ok until you try to drive a ribbon with it. The limiter function is ever-so-slightly cool.

Just picked up an ART Tube MP Studio for $30 at GC. Can anyone repost the pdf for the Black Lion mod? Thanks.

I use mine to push my SM7. Its not noisy, the tube is purely cosmetic. Works fine as a DI. Don't go into it expecting much. You're probably better off saving. Haven't heard the GAP but my sales guy is lending me one and a Great River (haven't heard that one either) to try out. I have tried the UA 610 (absolutely loved it) and I have one of the Studio Projects VTB1 which was also an impulse buy that didn't get me to where I wanted to be.