Sorry for what is probably a noob question. I searched the forums, but didn’t find the exact insight I’m looking for. I’m saving up to invest in an OT, but have a question for those who are current owners. I’m hoping to do a fair amount of vocal sampling, but am hoping to keep my setup minimal.
Is anyone here going straight from a dynamic mic like an SM58 into the 1/4’’ input on the OT? I realize it’s the input is line level, so I’m wondering if a preamp is required between dynamic mic & OT. I’d like to avoid extra things to tote around if possible. I don’t need the highest quality – this will be primarily for live use. But at the same time, I do hope to not have a really high noise floor. Any insight would be much appreciated. Thanks!
you will indeed like to look into some kind of preamp, since just plugging the sm58 into the octatrack and cranking up the input gain won’t give you a good signal…
somewhere in this forum this issue has already been discussed and i remember someone recommending a battery powered field recorder like the zoom h1 as a mic, since it naturally has a preamp built in for its internal mics.
i use a roland r26 field recorder that way for some vocal recordings/looping in the studio, live i tend to use a dynamic mic with a cheap guitar pedal preamp, but had the best quality at a live gig recently with…well…just a small mixer (since the setup grew to mandolin, violin and vocals), but that’s another bag of knobs to carry around…
Thanks for the help all! The lack of a Hi-Z/Mic input is a little regrettable (imho) – mostly for the sake of simplicity in setup, but obviously not impossible to work around. And Elektron obviously did squeeze in a TON of other features into the OT. I’m assuming I’ll have to do a similar Hi-Z / Lo-Z conversion for my active pickup from my acoustic guitar fed into the line level inputs as well…oh well. Thanks again!
One easy way to deal with this problem is to get a small mixer such as a Mackie 402VLZ4. That will let you connect one or two microphones plus some other stuff to your Octatrack.
another way to do it is to connect your mic directly to the ot
then make one of the tracks as thru, then to put a compressor on of the effects and choose the proper gain volum
make sure you choose the right input on the playback menue
I use this approach with my e835. It works. Comp in one fx slot EQ in the other you can get a fair enough recording. I’ve been considering a Joe Meek 3q as they are small and cheap, and would free up my fx slots for further experimentations
The Sunday Driver is a brilliantly designed impedance-matching drive unit. It operates over a wide range of voltages (can be battery-powered) and is really beautifully constructed. I use it all the time for electric and double bass–never want to play without it.
It has two modes: clean driver with gain, or gain with a subtle, colorful roll-off of high frequencies (the “Sunday” mode.) Either way, it is small, always useful, and well engineered.
you don’t necessarily need a preamp for a mic into OT (although it is undisputably better).
you can use the distortion on the filter effect to boost your input signal in addition to Amp and Thru levels.
Tested and worked fine with shure sm 58 and sds 565.
I picked up a cheap used Presonus Bluetube preamp just for this type of purpose. It’s a half-rack sized stereo preamp I can throw in a backpack and take anywhere.
I decided you never know when a mic pre will come in useful and this one also offers ( low plate voltage) tube distortion. Sound good for what I used it for which is a slightly dirty up a sound.
