What preamp/DI do you use for the A6?

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

Hello. On my way to get an A6 and have some questions for you all.

1. I´ve heard it can be tough to get enough volume level out of an analog synth, and some people use the DI input on preamps to remedy that. Anyone care to tell me if you use a preamp for the A6 and how?

2. I also plan to get the Great River mp-2nv stereo preamp. Why not try using the DIs on the preamp for A6? Any comments? scratch

Thanks

davep · Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2005 4:34 pm Post subject:

It may be true that a few older analog synths have low output levels, but almost all modern synths have plenty of output signal level, including the Andromeda. You can plug it directly into the line inputs of any mixer with no problem. You may want to use an outboard preamp (with line level inputs) for getting a particular sound, but you won't need a separate preamp to boost level.

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

Line in and no DI, huh? Hmm, thanks for the tip. blackeye

I guess I´ll skip the stereo preamp and get punch/do coloring of the A6 with a compressor plugin or something instead.

sunny pedaal · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 1:29 am Post subject:

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

sunny pedaal · Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:23 pm Post subject:

aux out or main out of the a6 are simply put into my mixer ( soundtracs) or , when live, straight into a roland jazzchorus120 ( gitare) amp/ combo.
this is good enough for me noise hardly seems to be a problem.
what i meant by distorted inputs is when connecting ( anything ) into the A6's inputs ( in 15, in 16 or in 1->16) the sound always seems disformed/ a bit distorted. especially when going over the 5 ( default value is 10 ! ) but to be honest always . sounds a bit like processing a sound through an old korg ms-20, certainly not the clean roland ( system100) or moog quality i hoped for.
guess it's a matter of quality of components used , not of simply amplification or DI.
( this symptom however has nothing to do with the internalsoundsource/ osc-filters etc of the A6 itself . when making a sound on the A6 there's only disturbing noise or distortion if i put them there )
hope i'm a bit clearer now.
so if you want to invest some extra money : a good mixer (b.e. mackie) is maybe a better bet.
greeting, sunny

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

Thanks for input, but I guess I wasn´t too clear about what I´m really looking for:

1. Should I use a preamp to record the A6 into my computer, or is it better to just plug it into my a RME HDSP 9632 soundcard?

2. *If* I should use a preamp, should I use DI or line in *on the preamp*?

I´ve got different answers here on different forums, there doesn´t seem to be consensus on this.

sunny pedaal · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 6:12 am Post subject:

1 for louder sounds the soundcard will work fine, for softer ones a preamp should be better ( better digitalisation when level is nearer to 0 db )
2 line in .
greetings sunny

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

sunny pedaal · Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2005 1:47 pm Post subject:

yes , that's why it's called (pre-) amp.
to get a sound properly digitalized it should be not too soft otherwise ( technical story) not the full 16 bits are used and therefore you'll lose quality.
a inputvalue on your soundcard of about -6db to 0 db is optimum.
however it could well be that you find that the rme records well enough
( when it's a 24 bit-card the problem is less anyway) so just try it out first.
i myself like to make rather softsounds on the A6 as they are more clear, so on my mixer the preamps are always needed to amplify the soundlevel up.

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

Thanks a lot for the replies, I appreciate it!

Smile

sunny pedaal · Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2005 2:03 am Post subject:

welcome

purpurkatten · Joined: May 27, 2005 Posts: 131 Location: right here

Quote from jbuntz on the Gearslutz forum:

"This is one of those things that I haven't heard a good answer to. Rhodes pianos and other older keyboards all had a high impedance instrument out on them so they could be plugged into a guitar amp or somethign similar and work better with a DI than a 600 ohm line in. I guess I should just get in to the manual and see what the output impedance is on a triton, motif, etc. But in the end, trust your ears."

So, does anyone know what the output impedance on the A6 is? Can´t find it in the manual. (I haven´t bought the A6 or a preamp yet, so that´s why I would like to know this before that...)

sunny pedaal · Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2005 12:36 pm Post subject:

as far as i know the fender used electromagnitic pickups , much like guitars.
the A6 however like most other synth's are best connected to line in ( or the low input of b.e. a roland jazzchorus amp).
hope this answers your question
greetings, sunny

sunny pedaal · Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2005 5:13 am Post subject:

by the way , it seems that on my A6 the individual voices out are much louder than the mix outputs. don't know if that's normal for the A6.

ThreeFingersOfLove · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 5:03 am Post subject:

It is normal. Also the Aux outputs are a cleaner since they don't pass from the effects.

Yannis
Cool

sunny pedaal · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:17 pm Post subject:

in fact the mains are mixed with the effects.
also i guess the main volume pot isn't of such a good quality thereby making the sound worst than the aux outputs.
the fact that the solovoice outputs are louder must be due to the afterwards mixing and otherwise "editing" of the sound . stupid phenominum to my opinion.

ThreeFingersOfLove · Posted: Thu Nov 17, 2005 11:01 pm Post subject:

The sound quality of the A6 has nothing to do with the pot itself. If there is fizzing or clipping it's attributed to the mixer levels, both post and pre.

The A6 distorts rather easily so for best results keep the levels low. I would say no more than 40-50 for pre-mixer and 50-70 for post-mixer. (Altough many of my patches are in the 80 or 100 settings and they sound amazing).

Cool