Customer Reviews

ART Tube MP USB Project Series Tube Microphone Preamp With USB

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When researching this product, I wasn't able to find info on its sampling rate capabilities in the USB interface. Just got mine today and was testing it out in a variety of situations, and found a bit more technical info:

USB audio interface is based on the Texas Instruments PCM2902, capable of 8kHz, 11.025kHz, 16kHz, 22.05kHz, 32kHz, 44.1kHz, and 48kHz sampling rates on input.

It worked great for recording a variety of instruments in my tests. Nice and quiet. The limiter can be a bit noticeable if you push it too hard at least on acoustic guitar. Plugging in an electric and pushing the gain up a bit gives a tube distortion that is usable. Just don't run the gain too high or you'll hear a nasty surprise.

Tried out a Rode NT1-A and an MXL 990, both phantom powered condenser mics. Results were clean and smooth, with a nice round, natural tone.

Then I used it as a DI box for live sound. The gain structure of this thing is crazy. Where my guitar with a Martin Gold Plus thinline pickup had a lower gain on the board, this box was putting out incredibly high gain, and the signal needed to be seriously toned down at all the mixers before using it. Once that was done, it produced a nice warm tone to my normally flat sounding jumbo acoustic, making it sound more like the instrument it is.

This toy is definitely a keeper, especially for the money!

Note to any do-it-yourself'ers out there. The interface only lets you record... HOWEVER... the PCM2902 USB interface has inputs AND outputs. It may be possible to modify to get a set of outputs as well. Its also interesting to note that the PCM2902 is stereo. You do the math for the total ins and outs. Anyhow, I probably won't be cutting into mine for experimentation quite yet.

I got this preamp from B&H at a decent price. It came with USB connectivity for easy link-up to PC. I have not tried this yet, but it only adds a few dollars in price to the base ART Tube MP Project Series Preamp and should be worthwhile.

The tube circuit is quite good, adding noticeable warmth to the sound. The built-in phantom power supply works well with condenser mics. The gain and volume controls are flexible and the output is reasonably strong for such a small unit. Both the input and output ports accept either the XLR and 1/4" plugs, with the latter taking precedence when both are connected. Other than the phantom power and 20db gain buttons, there are four more controlling impedance, filter, limiter and phase, giving this little unit complete functionality of a preamp. Overall, a great value.

When you don't need to lug around rack-mounted gear, you need to think smaller. If you're using ONE microphone, you don't need two to eight ports! ART seems to have come up with an affordable solution.

I've used this preamp for voiceovers as well as live performance onstage and was amazed at the clean gain for the price. Paid for itself the first time I used it. The other thing that sold me on this model was the USB port. No drivers needed, just plug-n-play usability that fits in a briefcase.

I put out a monthly YouTube video on my iMac and I have been slowly improving my "production values" by improving my equipment. Adding this preamp for use with a good condenser microphone gave me the improvement I was looking for in my voiceovers.

Before using this preamp, the final, quiet words of a sentence often got lost. You just couldn't hear them. Now, voice levels always stay within audible range. Also, the limiter prevents many (but not all) spikes of sound that were too loud and were often distorted besides.

Finally, my input signal is generally much stronger than before and I don't have to "normalize" the sound track to increase volume.

All in all, this preamp made a critical quality difference for me AND it dramatically reduced post-production fussing and tinkering to raise volumes that were out of the audible range or lower volumes that were too high.

I find the voice quality pleasant and superior to that produced by an Audio Technica USB mic that I was using previously. Basically, the voice quality produced by the AudoTechnica seemed "artificial" or "plastic" - i.e., electronically produced or enhanced. It wasn't awful, really and it probably wouldn't bother some people at all. It just sounded wrong to my ear.

Altogether, the audio on my YouTube videos is much clearer, easier to hear and more pleasant to listen to.

All in all, I am quite please with this product.

Plenty of "bang for the buck" with this unit from ART. I've used it many times, especially doing remote recordings using my laptop to record. Works great. Low noise. CHEAP! You can't go wrong.

Just wanted to let everyone know that the USB diital interface in this unit is only 16 but rather than the standard 24 bit used by pretty much every studio nowadays. It's still handy if you just need to record something quick on your laptop and need a mic pre to do so.

You get clean up to 70 db gain with this preamp. It works great with Shure SM58 microphone. I have tried few other preamps, like M-Audio, ART Dual Channel, none of them provide enough gain to vocal. Best in the class. USB feature is also great, nothing to install and plug and play.

Very convenient tube pre amp. Nothing fancy. Does it what is supposed to do at a decent price.It's very light and the aluminum chassis is sleek! :)

First off, this product will provide you with a somewhat clean way of getting audio into your computer (although there is a bit of tube noise in there, which is preferred by some for its sound), only it will be at a very low level. The downside is that it doesn't work well with all microphones.

Dynamic mics are not a good match with this unit. I have to push in the +20db switch and turn both the gain and output nobs almost fully to the right in order to get enough gain. With that, it works fine, though.

There isn't much room to tweak for just the right adjustments.

This product is OK with condenser mics, and doesn't exhibit the same gain issues it does with Dynamic mics, but I am still not overly impressed with the overall amount of gain on this unit. My cheap Behringer board has far more gain than the ART. It's not even a contest.

This does "warm up" your voice somewhat because it has a tube. Sometimes, I think the bass almost sounds slightly more muddy, but after a while, I have come to like it, provided I have it set correctly. That's it. It's not a miracle product that's going to make you sound like a $1,000 amp. If you're looking for tube distortion, this product is not what you want, because you don't have the adjustments necessary to get the type of sound you're looking for.

I purchased this expecting some tube improvement and warmth. I got some more warmth, but I'm disappointed with the lack of ability to use it with a dynamic mic easily. Is it better than my Behringer audio board? Hmm... it depends on the task I'm using it for.

Someone said that you need to spend a chunk of change in excess of $500 for some, and $1,000 for most preamps to get a "real" tube sound. I now believe it.

The old usb connector is sort of weird, I had to turn all levels up to the max to get a decent audio signal out, I use it for podcasting.