ART Tube MP V3 Tube Microphone Pre-Amplifier with Variable Value Voicing

What a great pre amp, before my mic's were dull and quiet, added this and you can make almost anyone sound good, even me! The different settings help you get the right tone for the different venues. Very well made, looks good, performs great. Did I say I liked it?

Absolutely astounding difference in warmth if you are recording vocals. Use this as a DI.

This is a well made and good looking little box. The pros are it adds a nice warmth to the vocal sound and is very easy to use. My acoustic guitar (Fender CD140) sounds great through it, but in fairness it already has a Fishman preamp built in to the guitar, but none the less the ART works nicely as a DI box in that sense and adds a very nice warmth to the sound due to the valve. For me the cons are that for the microphone I'm using (a Rode M3) you have to have the input and output pretty much up to full with the power boost & phantom power switches on to get a boost. I would have expected a lot more head room personally. Also there's no on/ off switch, so you have to either take the power plug out or switch it off at the wall. As this has a small valve in it I would have expected a stand-by switch on it to encourage longer life from the valve. I've never owned a preamp before so can't comment how this stands up in a bench test to other models, but I'm guessing that for the price this is a pretty decent bit of kit. If you're looking for a Pro piece of kit, then you're going to need to pay a lot more for better quality, but if you're looking for a cheap solution for a small project studio, then this is fine. I wouldn't pay any more than £60 or £70 for it though.

Awesome bit of kit. Buy one.

Have to confess, I didn't buy this product from this company but nonetheless it is fantastic. I have a Sure SM57 mic and was trying to record acoustic guitars into my Creative X-FI Extreme Fidelity soundcard unit on my PC. I couldn't get any volume at all into Cubase and it sounded terrible. I thought it was my mic just gone bad after 15 years of service so bought another SM57 and to my despair, same problem. Only after looking round on the web did I educate myself that SM57's are designed to take massive amounts of volume and have very low output. The best forums said you needed a good pre-amp and to look at the Art products. Just made my first few recordings with the V3 and the recorded sound is truely awesome. I playing back through KRK VXT4's and it sounds, well, like the acoustic guitar is in the room with me. Fantastic, cannot recommend this product enough.

I was excited by the pending arrival of my V3 as I was looking forward to working on some vocals at the weekend in my very humble studio of a sound card, software and the old but awesome SY85. The parcel arrived and, damn, it was the wrong one. It was the V3, but without the variable valve voicing. I wanted the voicing. I got in touch with Amazon who then put me in touch with Absolute Music. I spoke to a guy named Paul. The ordered was fixed on the day and I received the correct parcel the next working day. I was very pleased with their customer service, and I will definitely use them again. Great work. As for the item: encased in steel; using a valve instead of transistors for a warmer sound, the V3 delivers a very large (compressed/clipped) signal when using the various settings of up to 40dBs with an extra boost of 20dBs (for use with a condenser mic) on the input, with a further 10dBs on the output. It also has phase reverse for use with more than one mic. The V3 looks and sounds the part. A recommended buy for amateurs and professionals alike.

OK but hissy.

This was originally twice the price and has been out for about four years now. I wanted this to warm up the sound of some piezo pick ups on my acoustic guitars and I have to say it does this very well. There are other versions that do not have the "voicing" but that is the important part. It runs on 9 volts ac and not dc. If the power supply does break, and they can, replacements can be had but not easily from high street suppliers. I have not had it long enough to comment on reliability but it is a quiet unit that adds that valve warmth without bringing anything negative to the sound.

Get this product instead of spending money on getting a new interface or a new microphone , this costs less than the price of a new good interface or microphone and it greatly improves your recordings. Just keep in mind there’s some white noise when using it , so just use a noise gate.

Kleiner handlicher Vorverstärker. Ich benutze ihn live auf der Bühne, um einer (billigen) E-Mandoline mit einem sehr leisen Tonabnehmer mehr "Wumms" im Klangbild der Band zu geben. Funktioniert prima, und die Klangregulierung verleiht dem etwas blechernen Klang des Instruments deutlich mehr Wärme.

One of the main reasons I choose this later model over the ART Tube MP Studio Original, was for the Output Protection Limiting (or OPL) to protect the hardware I was then connecting this device to, which is an ASUS XONAR Essence STX PCIe card, using it's 1/4" phone Line or Mic Inputs. Using a ten year old standard Radio Shack PA microphone connected via XLR, I can get a crisp microphone sound instead of only getting mostly bass from the cheaper five volt computer electret microphones. RS PA microphone connected via XLR to the ART preamp, and 1/4" balanced phone to the ASUS Xonar STX PCIe card 1/4" Line/Mic combo input. Using no microphone boost, with the microphone input selected within software. For Voice Chat: ART preamp settings: 100% Input Volume, Using +20dB in voice chat, Phase Reverse active, 50% Output Volume with Voice Neutral. Linux or Windows Software settings: Microphone Volume at 100%, with no microphone boost. For Recording: ART preamp settings: 100% Input Volume, +20dB Deactivated, Phase Reverse active, 75% or 100% Output Volume with Voice Neutral. Linux or Windows Software settings: Microphone Volume at 100%, with no microphone boost. NOTE: Above I mentioned I was using the Microphone Input, by selecting the Microphone Input either within the operating system mixer settings or within Audacity. I have since switched from using the Microphone Input, and have now selected the Line Input as the selected recording source, within both the operating system mixer and Audacity. The ASUS Xonar STX PCIe card has combo Line/Microphone inputs, and when the Microphone line is selected, a relay switches/routes the input source through a cheaper electret 5v phantom powered (CMI9780) chip. When switching to Line input, the input source is routed directly through to the Analog to Digital Conversion (or ADC) chip, per RMAA quality reports for SNR benchmarks. Granted, I need to boost both Input and Output volume levels to 100%, including using the +20dB boost for the Line level to be heard. (Perhaps a better mic, which uses phantom +48v might aide here? Shrugs. What does one expect for a Radio Shack generic PA mic? At least it works.) I also purchased an Image Broadcasting Studio Microphone Arm Stand with Shock Mount, alongside my currently owned microphone and desk. Knowing how sensitive computer stuff tends to be, OPL (Output Protection Limiting) is probably worth the extra $40 over the original ART Tube MP Studio Original Mic Preamp. However if you're only performing vocals and no instruments, the Voicing knob will likely always be set at one setting. Pros: 1) Well constructed, with metal casing and rounded edges. 2) My unit included rubber foot pads, for which earlier buyers likely were not given? 3) Reliable analog meter, with a nice vanilla incandescent back light. 4) Good quiet switches and knobs 5) Well labelled, including atop of the unit. No need to lift the device to distinguish rear ports! 6) Conservative blue color. Everything just looks nice. 7) Very quiet. (SNR) 8) Along side my ASUS Xonar Essence STX computer sound card, I can record at a variety of high quality bit rates and sample rates, in comparison of being only limited to the 24-bit/96000Hz of a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. (I've also seen RMAA benchmarks of the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 having less quality than the Xonar STX PCIe card, but still might consider the external solution later for recording analog stereo LP's.) 9) Output Protection Limiting, or OPL. 10) Temperature of the unit while powered on for several days is about 94F, while the immediate area of the bulb may register 104F. (Why people exclaim this unit runs hot, can only mean they use the unit somewhere where ambient room temperatures are in excess of 70F.) Cons: 1) No power switch! And the BEST TIP of all, use Audacity and not the Microsoft Windows Sound Recorder! The Microsoft Windows Sound interface tends to mix all incoming and outgoing sound, and the software Sound Recorder tends to make the recordings much more quieter then they really should be. Audacity picks-up where the Microsoft Windows Sound Recorder left-off, and performs a far better job of line/microphone recording! It took me such a long time to figure out why Microsoft's Sound Recorder was performing so poorly, and should only be used for testing or low-quality work. 2013.03.22 - After using this preamp and leaving it on 24/7 for the past week, having some static or line noise issues. Using a XLR plugs from the microphone to the preamp, and XLR to balanced phone to the sound card. I had the preamp near or just underneath a LED display monitor. When I moved the preamp two to three feet away from the computer and about six inches to the right of the LED display monitor, static would significantly decrease. A light static would then increase if I then stood the preamp within a vertical position near the LED display monitor. Chances are, it is very likely I'm seeing RF interference with the LED display from my knowledge of radio frequency interference. I also tried several different cables, disconnecting the microphone, and grounding each piece of equipment with no success. So I'm going on the theory of RF interference and moved the preamp out of the way of the LED display monitor, approximately a foot to the right, and foot and a half down onto a shelf below the desk. Static has further decreased but a slight static does seem to persist, and I'm now also making sure all XLR and phono cabling is running perpendicular across all other computer signal and power cabling. (My gut says it's definitely LED/LCD display RF interference, as this type of interference tends to fade in and fade out, sort of like building-up static. The only sure way of further verifying, moving the microphone and preamp further away from the computer and LED display.) I also just realized I installed a LED light bar a while ago just above my keyboard. Switching this LED light off, the static seems to have ceased, but the static isn't further reproducible after switching this LED light bar back on.

Esteticamente molto carino. Pesantuccio e bello robusto di metallo. Una volta acceso la valvola si scalda dopo qualche secondo. Il vu meter funziona. Da usare con discrezione perché tende a "colorare" parecchio il suono originale. Le varie varianti di voincing (V3) si sentono parecchio. Buono di conseguenza anche in post produzione per il Mastering di tracce finali

Excellent. Je recommande