Signal to Noise

One of the boardmembers over at Gear Slutz decided to do a pre-amp shootout. He recorded the same drum and guitar signals on each of his six pre-amps, and he was blown away by the warmth of his Demeter VTMP-2a pre-amp. Not expecting the result he received, the guy ran his thoughts by the other boardies, and here’s some of the feedback he got:

I just shot out the same Demeter this week and loved it too. Very warm on vocals.

You mean the one with almost NO options except a three step gain knob, phantom power, and a big output fader? Oh yeah, it has a DI, too. These pres were at an old garage studio I used to work in. I recently bought a U87ai and that thing for $1500. Honestly, the Demeter was kind of a throw in. I just love happy accidents! I mean, what are the chances that a tube preamp is going to crush a handful of Class A, discrete, transformer based units on kick and snare?

When I think back….everything Demeter I’ve ever used had an inherit fatness to it. I always just chalked it up to distortion! I recently listened to a record I did in 1993. The lead vocal chain was AT4033>Demeter Tube Mic Pre>Tube Tech EQ. Man, that sounded so *right*. I just finished mixing the best record I’ve made to date. The Bass was played by an incredible player using a beautiful sounding Lakeland Bass—chain: Demeter tube direct box>DBX160VU. Wow!