tube mic pre
The only thing I really miss about vinyl is the warmth and overall better sound you get on a large system. Just curious if anyone has used a tube mic pre to warm the sound for digital djing.
One of the main reasons people think analog sounds “warmer” and or better is that analog distortion is much more gentle on the ears than digital distortion. Ear fatigue over time is much less. Often, people will “mix” down their tracks by laying down to analog tape because you get a “natural” roll off/limit from saturating analog tape, while distorting digitally can be quite nasty and harsh. Also, from your original post, you wouldn’t want to use a tube “mic pre”, just a regular tube amp, unless you know that there’s at least 20db of headroom over line level of the “tube mic pre” you plan to use.
We been looking around for some stuff to review to add real analogue warmth to mixes and i tell ya it aint easy finding stuff. There is not much out there that has the right inputs and outputs, nearly everything out thereis made for mics and guitars.
Do you mean tube amps? or analog tape machines? If tube amps, MacIntosh make some nice ones and there’s even more out there if you want to get really esoteric but they’re VERY costly. If it’s tape machines, there’s a lot of 16 & 24 tracks tape machines that have been “ditched” by recording studio’s for digital recording setups. I do audio in the film industry and there’s ALOT of old 6 track analog recorders out there but you need sprocketed tape for them that’s not so easy to come by. Bento, just know that you’re looking at “audiophile” type gear here, not the kinda stuff that most DJ’s could get access to. That being said, if there’s truly money to be made and/or a market for it in the electronic music/DJ world, I’m sure there’s a company that will step up and make a product or products. 
I like the idea a lot. Many of my sets (especially the Ableton sets that are all original material), tend to sound very thin and brittle on sound systems.
This is what I’m saving for:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FatTrack/
This thing is awesome for recording, playback, mixing, summing. Very powerful box and supposedly sounds amazing. With the tubes and EQ you could get your mixes sounding very punchy and warm
Additionally, you could always run a loop of vinyl crackle and pop on one deck behind all your MP3’s 
The idea was to do a round up of the accessable gear, halfway affordable stuff people could use live - idealy with a line in and out.
^^it’s got line input, unless they don’t go through the tubes, but I think they do. You’re right though, it’s far from affordable
I wonder how much work it would be to make your own little box ? I only need 1x stereo input and output cuz i mix internally. Would make an interesting project, a tube box made specifically for djs to add real analogue tube distortion.
If you’re going to to the effort of making one I’d try splitting the signal with hi-pass, mid pass and lo pass filters at the crossover points of the eq of your mixer to three tube amps. A Multiband DIY tube amp with gain controls would be DOPE.
Perhaps something from this site… DIY Vacuum Tube (Valve) Amplifier Projects - Hi-Fi Audio
SirReals, you seem to know a little about this stuff. Which of these, if any, do you think would work.
^^^aaah you beat me to it Drew
I think this is the one we need:
Cheap(~$27AU), easy to build, has RCA in/out, and sounds fantastic per this quote:
[quote]
Some of you will likely be turned off by the very low cost of this kit. Before you pass judgment on this little kit, do note that Audio-Technica uses a JAN 6418 sub-miniature tube in its model AT3060 condenser microphone which sells for about $600US. Music professionals often describe this microphone as having a warm classic tube sound…
Sound
The very first build (stock kit) blew me out of my favorite listening chair. This subsequent (upgraded) build seemed a little restrained. Or is it just better balanced? I did feel the first build was a bit foreword which may make this build sound a little reserved by comparison. Also I had a few hours of listening time on the first build and as any thermionic fanatic knows, new valves can have an extended break-in period. Because of their size I would guess that the JAN6418 needs no more than ten hours of continuous play to “settle” them. They do not have a huge life. Setting the filament voltage at a low 1.2V should give one to three years of hard play with little detriment to sound quality. Higher filament voltages will drastically shorten tube life. The tubes are about $2 each and I bought an extra ten tubes.
Anytime you can dig out micro detail and recorded nuances you WILL get a richer, wider, fuller more detailed sound stage. That’s what this preamp can do in spades. Good depth, wide breadth and sharp detail revealing fine recorded detail with no hard edges. Every track I listen to now delivers fine detail previously hidden. Tone and resonance in voice now has an extra layer, finer, breathier than I have heard before. Massed strings sound like the space about them was recorded rather than the instruments themselves, airy almost thin. Oboes don’t sound like I remember and every key touch is transported into the room. Piano is a little more “sweet gong” like than all-out bell like. But no register appears to dominate. Bass / rhythm (left hand (lower notes)) are in perfect balance with right hand melody / lead line (higher notes). The piano sounds balanced-tonally, addictive.
The base kit from Oatley Electronics is well worth the $27AU price tag. The original kit may sound too forward though. For about $20 more you can transform this basic kit into a very tonally balance high performance preamp. Or just build yourself a retro-thermionic portable valve headphone driver to go with your space-age mp3 player, iPod or steam driven portable CD player. For 27 bucks, how novel?
Mark Houston
DIY Convener, Melbourne Audio Club [/quote]
Yeah a muliband tube diatorion woukld be pretty boss i gotta admit, ill look into this personalky though id build the crossovers directly into the unit rather than relying on another mixer to do the frequency splits.
Hey, if this works you’ve a nice addition the the DJTT store…
I just called the dude from oakley electronics because he is here in australia to get some advice, he said hes been considering making a new kit to do exactly what we need it to without adding any gain to the signal which is exactly what we it to do. The current kits will add a little bit of gain but not much at all.
Ill be in contact with him via email to talk about the new kit so we should be able to come up with something with exactly what we need. Turn around time shouldnt be very long either, he rekons it will take a couple weeks to come up with a kit once he gets started.
If this does go through ill be sure to get my hands on a kit for a review on blog
I mainly use it in my recording studio, but using the apogee ensemble as a live amp sounds fucking great! The Duet is the next best thing, but no headphones out…
That’s awesome! Good work BentoSan. I would think if it is anything like the other kit, hopefully it won’t cost too much.
I was reading in the forums however, and it seems as though the little tubes the kit uses is sensitive to micro-phonics (physical vibrations), so that issue would have to be addressed. It seems that people are putting rubber grommets around the tubes to fix this issue, but I think most people who make these aren’t using them in booming clubs
Indeed i did address this issue with the guy creating the kits as something to take into consideration, i also pointed him to this thread so if you have interest in such a kit speak up as he might be listening Be sure to post what you want out of such a kit here too and ill make sure that he hears exactly what you guys want out of such a kit.
The kits are also sensitive to RF interference and are not supplied with a box, so you need to find a good box thats going to block out RF interference. It would also be a very good idea to put some good rubber feet on the box to help dampen the vibrations. No doubt i am actually going to test this out on a proper system in a real life high powered bass situation before posting any findings about the kit.
Also yes it will be very similar to the other kit with only a couple minor changes, so you can expect pretty similar sorts of results.
Wow! I’m glad I posted this. Seems I’m not the only one looking into this. I think we may be getting off track a bit though. I know there are great tube amps & tape machines out there, but who really wants to lug around all that gear for a live show. Let alone spend that kind of money. 4 lines in & 4 lines out. (there are 2 of us on 2 laptop setup with 2 controllers mixing internaly.) something with enough headroom to get a decent amount of analog compression to roll off the harshness of the distortion & give a more rounded bottom end. Maybe I might be asking for too much but it sure would sweet.
I agree ^^^
I’d like a simple box that purely gives analog warmth to brittle mp3’s, that’s potentially decent for putting in line for recording as well
Thats exactly what this kit will offer, it will be nice n small - probably battery powered (batteries will last a while and you could probably mod it to be powered by a wall wart). Simple no nonsense portable tube distortion