The hype is pretty overblown, that's for sure.

Referring to another post in the thread, 3M didn't do Master Muncher
1000's, that was Ampex, the 3M would've been a 56 series maybe.

Artist, production, room, mic, type of toilet paper, drugs, mic pre,
something like that maybe in order of importance.

But good tools are always handy, and as Scott said, a lot of the low
end stuff really is iffy, and in the '70's no serious studio would've
been caught dead with something like the commonly used low end stuff
of today. The closest stuff to that then would've been a Valley People
TransAmp or an MCI 600 style input, which was even a little later.

Dan Kennedy
Great River Electronics




Scott Dorsey wrote:
pete wrote:

So why is there the obsession with preamps? I see all the time the
comparisons... this vs. that, the supposed classic Neve 1073 sound,
this one is best on vocals, that one is best on drums, all the
overwhelming preamp choices, the "vintage" sound, the "tube" sound,
preamps better suited to rock, preamps better suited to folk...is it
all just overblown hype?


It's not all hype, and it is sort of nice to have a few different colors
to work with. And the truth is that most cheap gear today has really
awful built-in preamp sections, so there is a need for outboard gear.

But most of it is marketing, yes. It's easy to sell someone a preamp
and hard to sell them a new room.
--scott