What should you upgrade first: Mic or Preamp? | FAQ Friday

Upgrade mic or preamp

It’s Friday, which means we are back with a marvellous FAQ Friday!

Before we jump into some questions, though, we have another exciting giveaway for you! Audient is back and is allowing us to give away 3 more of their incredible new EVO 4 interfaces!

With the rise in podcasting, streaming, and gaming, Audient wanted to make audio accessible to everyone. EVO is designed to address the affordable audio interface market with a new range that offers an intuitive user experience, with application-specific features and stunning aesthetics, while still retaining the quality you expect from Audient!

The EVO 4 is packed with professional-level components and functionality that deliver high-quality performance and stunning audio. It also features an innovative, simple to use Smartgain function, which analyzes the signal and automatically sets the gain for the peak moments. This feature is fantastic for a beginner or for someone who is more experienced, but wants to work quickly in certain situations!

Enter the giveaway below!

The featured question from today’s FAQ Friday video is this:

Which one is the smarter move from vocal recording, upgrading mic or pre-amp? What is your recommendation in general terms of mic vs. pre-amp upgrade?

For this one, it often comes down to the mic or the preamp you have. If you have a really outdated preamp, that isn’t giving you great sound anymore, but have a decent mic, than I would update your preamp. Or if you have a slightly outdated mic, and can afford to upgrade, then I would upgrade that!

In general though, I do find it is best to focus on upgrading your mic first! With digital technology, really inexpensive preamps will give you great sound, so it isn’t always necessary to spent tons and tons of money on those. Also, an expensive preamp is not as visible or noticeable to clients or other people that may be coming into your studio, but they will notice a high-end mic right away!

In addition to looking great, I find that upgrading your mic will give you a much more noticeable upgrade in sound quality than upgrading your preamp. For example, the preamp in the EVO 4 that we are giving away, is quite affordable, but paired with a great mic will give you fantastic sound!

Upgrade your pres as you develop and as you can, but if you are making a choice, then I would say you will almost always get more bang for your buck if you upgrade your mic first! This is what people notice most, and what will give you the better increase in sound quality.

Don’t forget that we are giving away 3 more EVO 4! Scroll up to the top to enter!

The NAMM Giveaway is also still going on! Click here to enter that giveaway!

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