 You've probably seen pro studios make use of mic preamps and you may have wondered why would I need one and how would I use it? Hi folks, I'm Mike and I hope you will have you ever wondered why you may need a mic preamp Or even how to use the mic preamp or which mic preamp is best for your interface We'll be looking at all of those questions in today's video now I happen to have the Audient ASP 800 So we'll be taking a little bit of a closer look at that as well And I'll be using that in a use case scenario where I'm going to make a little demo for you to listen to But before we get into all of that, let's just ask why would you want a mic preamp? A preamp takes a weak signal and it amplifies it to a usable level Now it's almost certain that your audio interface has preamps inside as well as a whole bunch of other components and circuitry To deliver all of the features that you expect Now it may be in some cases that the quality of the preamps has been sacrificed in order to achieve all of these wider goals On the other hand with something like the ASP 800 it is dedicated to this task Physically it has all the space it needs for this and also the budget which goes into the device is focused on that task I definitely think that one of the main reasons you may choose to get a mic preamp is for quality Now I've been using the ASP 800 for around about six months or so and it's absolutely crystal clear with everything that I plug into it Even when I'm driving it really really hard Now it may be that you're really happy with the performance and features of your existing audio interface And you simply want to extend the number of inputs available to you And getting a mic preamp like the ASP 800 is a great solution for this Now there's a couple of different ways that you can do it You can do it in the analog way and the ASP 800 has this DB25 connection on the back And with a breakout cable you could connect up with say XLR connections or quarter inch jacks That's not my preferred way to do it because I think it's much better to use an ADAC connection That is a digital connection Now I've already made a video in actual fact about how to do this exactly Where I connected the ASP 800 to audience ID 14 mark 2 So if you want to check that out check the link in the description down below It's a sort of a how to and you'll find out exactly how to do it and it's really quite straightforward Now you don't have to match the brands together So you could use the ASP 800 with another brand of audio interface for example As long as it has that ADAC connection in Okay so that is a requirement for that Now it's not confusing once you've got it set up Because it's not like your door etc sees two interfaces It'll simply look like your existing audio interface just has a whole bunch of other inputs Really quite straightforward to use and it's crystal clear as well Because you're getting that digital connection between the devices Now a lot of people when they're using preamps like these to extend an interface Do it because they're going to be recording drums And that's because drums require a lot of microphones to be recording simultaneously But I think there's a lot of other use case scenarios in actual fact Even if you're recording say a duo with two acoustic guitars being recorded in stereo And two vocals you're already up to six inputs there And if you want them to be quality inputs That could be a really good reason to get something like this So things like bands, choirs, church groups, school groups All of those are really valid reasons to extend a small interface With an interface like the ASP800 Especially as I say if you want to get that quality Now a few months ago I recorded a small acoustic group as a test run for the ASP800 But before you get to hear that let's just have a quick chat about the setup involved The whole session was recorded on a laptop with the ASP800 connected to an Audient ID14 MK2 audio interface giving a total of 10 available inputs We were able to provide a variation of mixes to the performers By using the Head Amp 6 headphone amplifier from ART Given that we were not in a treated room I opted to record the two vocals With a Shure SM7B and a Shure MV7 both dynamic microphones The bass guitar was recorded with both a DI signal and a Shure SM57 on the cabinet By the way the bass was recorded using a special channel on the ASP800 Which I will discuss later Finally the acoustic guitar was recorded using a matching pair of Neumann KM184 Small diaphragm condenser microphones You can find links to all of the gear used in the description down below In total six simultaneous inputs were used for this session With what you could describe as a pretty mobile setup So let's have a listen to this short demo We should have left we should learn We should have shown before we burn We should have crawled before we walked We should have kissed before we turned We should have looked before we turned You should have held me from the start I never thought I'd need to Never let me Could have talked We could have learned We could have taken back returned How did we ever dream so low By the way a big thanks to Wayne Chandra for playing acoustic guitar on that track Now as I said earlier you may choose to get a mic preamp for quality reasons And you may like the crystal clear nature of something like the ASP800 But you may choose a mic preamp because it colors the sound Because the components and circuitry inside actually add some character to the sound It may in fact only have one preamp on board But you want to use it for that reason And there's many preamps you can get for that reason Now as I said the ASP800 has these really clear preamps But it does have a couple of channels where they have circuitry on board To actually add that color and character to your sound This is the EMX and also the iron circuitry They both have a little bit of a different character With one adding some sort of harmonic saturation And the other one having more of the style of a tape saturation Something like that Now I use them both for the bass guitar on this recording And I have to say they're fairly subtle And I think that's the way they should be But they do add something a little bit character and warmth to things Especially when you drive them reasonably hard So if you've been thinking of getting a mic preamp I hope this has answered some of the basic questions for you If not, ask in the comments down below And I'll try my very best to help you out Now if you're really interested on exactly how you connect up Something like the ASP800 to an audio interface with ADAT Then you'll definitely be wanting to watch this video Which I mentioned earlier on This is where I connect the ASP800 to an Audion ID 14 Mark II It's really quite straightforward once you know how Thank you so much for joining me today And I'll see you in the next video