I love this thing. 
by Kip from New City, NY USA, August 2008
Music Background:  Songwriter

I bought this TubePre preamp years ago. I originally wanted a step up from the built in pres on my Digi001. I loved using it over those 001 pres. Recently, I got another $300 range dual tube preamp, but I ended up selling it and going back to this TubePre. I love this thing. It's my favorite on acoustic guitar with an Audio-Technica Pro37, and my favorite on vocals with a Rode NT1000. Makes an excellent direct box for recording guitar or bass into your DAW as well. For the price, you can't beat this pre. It's useful in so many ways, I may buy another. Only down side is the light for the meter burned out within the first year. Oh well.

  Great Product!!! 
by Jay Anthony from New Orlenas, May 2008
Music Background:  Producer, Enginner, and Song Writer

I purchased the PreSonus TubePre to see how good it works running sounds from keyboard workstations to pro tools and i was very suprised, very thick warm sounds which makes it easy to mix.I didn't get the chance to use it for vocals yet but pretty sure it works great too. I strongly recommend this pre amp if you in recording engineering and producing. OO yeah and its a very good price lolz

  Versatile, sounds great 
by Anonymous Sources from Saint Louis, MO USA, March 2008
Music Background:  Semi-pro musician, hobbyist, home studio

I upgraded the tube in this preamp and run my '77 Rhodes Mark I through it into a pretty dated solid-state Fender Bass amp.. the results are pretty amazing. Also works well with a bass through the same amp and as a pre-amp for recording purposes. 2 outputs let you use it as a DI box, too. I highly recommend this product, and pretty much everything I've tried from Presonus has sounded great, why don't they just invest in some freakin power switches? Just an annoyance, but come on what's the deal? Anyway, beef up your tone... check out this pre.

  Perfect. 
by Josh Conti from Titusville, FL, January 2008
Music Background:  Engineer, Producer, Musician

After buying 2 Studio Projects C1 mics from Sweetwater awhile back (and i bought 2 because of how amazing they are), I realized that I needed to clean up my mic sound by bypassing the internal 48v phantom power on my board. Im not made of money so I had to shop the lower tier preamps... since i had used presonus equipment before I decided to pick up a Tubepre and after plugging it in for the first time I was impressed. For under 100 bucks this little box had cleaned up my signal and warmed up my mics. I had always appreciated the sound of my C1s but after running them through the Tubepre, i liked them even more. I record alot of vocals and Im not a fan of using compression or massive amounts of eq to make a voice cut through a mix and this unit helps me bring the vocals out just the way i want them to. I was recording a female alt acoustic artist (vocals, guitar and percussion tracks) at a friend's project studio and after putting his Rode NTK next to my C1 and Tubepre chain (both mics running into a m-audio 1814 connected to a custom pc running protools m-powered)and during mixdown I and the artist both kept favoring the C1 tracks over the NTK tracks. So much so that when I was listening to the final track in my car, I realized that I had relegated the NTK tracks to a background/ambience role and the C1 tracks I had moved to the front of the mix. I love my Tubepre and I bought a second one sometime ago so i could run both C1s one their own preamp. I would not hesitate to recommend this to anyone for any application and any mic. The only thing I dislike on this unit is the lack of a power switch. It's annoying to have to reach around all my gear to unplug it everytime I use it. But the present mids, transparent highs and deep bass and the warmth of a 12ax7 tube far outweigh the lack of a switch.

  Awesome 
by Kory Knabenshue , February 2007

This is a cool product. I have used it for mics and guitars. The cool thing about it is you can have a mic plugged into the XLR input and play through the 1/4 inch output. You can also use the 1/4 inch's together at the same time as using the XLR's together. So you can use it for a guitar and a mic at the same time and to different amps or speakers.

Definitely a great value. 
by LCD from Maryland, USA, March 2006

Plain and simple... for $100 this is about as good as you can get. Warm sound, reliable, great on vocals and instruments. My only gripe: NO POWER SWITCH! But I work around it. If you're on a budget, this one's for you.

hmmmm 
by nick from nj, April 2005

while i agree with the other reviewers that this is a great sounding tube pre at a fantastic price i must say that my tube burnt out and got real noisy after only about a year of use, and when i tried to open the unit to change the tube one of the screws was stuck and ended up getting stripped....now i am left with a useless 100$ tube pre.....i like it, but i would move up in quality on my next one

Totally worth it!!! 
by M.Knox from Philadelphia, PA., January 2005

OK. I purchased this strictly for vocals and I have to say for the price tag I am impressed to the fullest. This unit adds warmth to your vacals as soon as you plug it and it sounds very natural which is very important to me. As a HipHop producer most of my clients love this sound and so do I. Very simple to use plus it seems to work even before you turn up the drive. It has plent of gain for anyone in any situation so dont be fooled by the price tag. This is quality not crap! By far the best in its price range. I plan on buying the rest of the units that accompany this one, I cant wait. If your worried about budget this is the solution!

TubePre better than it should be. 
by Todd Zimmerman from Kalamazoo, MI, January 2004

This tiny preamp is much better than it should be for the price.
While I am not really impressed with it as a mic preamp (vocals),
as an instrument preamp it really shines. It sounds great on a direct bass signal.
There are drawbacks, no power switch, rear I/O only, wall wart...
but what do you expect for a unit that costs next to nothing.
If you are looking for something with more character than your mixer's preamps,
this is worth checking into.

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