Rediscovering MOTU Pre-Amp Plug

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 5:37 pm

You know... perhaps we take some things for granted. I had a little jam that I posted in another topic that I did just as a test of my recording chain. Synth > Avalon U5 > HD192. Sounds nice. I used an organ patch out of a Proteus 1 and spiced it with some Altiverb and it sounded pretty good.

Then... Duh... Lightbulb. I put the Pre-Amp plug on the stereo B3-type track, found a preset, tweaked... instant Jon Lord grunge! Instant testosterone injection on the B3 sound! Just goes to show... at least to me... how we overlook sometimes the uses for the included DP plug-ins. I may post a short snippet before and after just to illustrate.... it's a cool thing!

** I bounced an example. 4 bars organ without PreAmp. 4 bars organ with PreAmp. Last 4 bars, switching it in and out of phrases.

http://www.jamessteele.com/Preamp-Organ-Demo.mp3

Of course it would sound better if I had some Leslie simulation and brought it forward during the sustained chords. Deep Purple baby!

giles117 · Post by **giles117** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 5:40 pm

Preamp gets used a lot when I want a nice dirty sound. Even on the gentle setting it has a nice little undercurrent distortion. I use it on vocals and bass a lot.

kwiz · Post by **kwiz** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:31 pm

giles117 wrote:Preamp gets used a lot when I want a nice dirty sound. Even on the gentle setting it has a nice little undercurrent distortion. I use it on vocals and bass a lot.

No doubt, it has been a secret weapon of mine since I started using DP.

Splinter · Post by **Splinter** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 7:56 pm

Adds some nice "bite" to drums too. Especially, programmed drums.

Tritonemusic · Post by **Tritonemusic** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:10 pm

Nice to see some people get good use out of this plugin (other than myself).

There is one thing I always have to be aware of when using it. If using a stereo instance, the "PRE EQ" section will affect phase quite dramatically. This can be easily tested by increasing the "GAIN" levels in the "PRE EQ" section. As you add more gain, you'll notice that the stereo image starts to widen and phase gets way out of hand. Set the Master fader to MONO and see how much of your signal has disappeared! The TRIM plugin can help quite a bit by narrowing the stereo field. That way you still get the overdrive, but without all of the phase issues. You guys probably know this already but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:21 pm

666 wrote:Nice to see some people get good use out of this plugin (other than myself).

There is one thing I always have to be aware of when using it. If using a stereo instance, the "PRE EQ" section will affect phase quite dramatically. This can be easily tested by increasing the "GAIN" levels in the "PRE EQ" section. As you add more gain, you'll notice that the stereo image starts to widen and phase gets way out of hand. Set the Master fader to MONO and see how much of your signal has disappeared! The TRIM plugin can help quite a bit by narrowing the stereo field. That way you still get the overdrive, but without all of the phase issues. You guys probably know this already but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.

Hey... no I didn't know that thanks! This has been education for me today, just not caring so much about the material and playing with plugs. Actually I wanted to widen the organ sound, so between PreAmp and Altiverb I inserted MOTU's Chorus plug with the preset "Wide Stereo" which was fun.

I'm goofing off today, just experimenting. Fun!

sdfalk · Post by **sdfalk** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 9:52 pm

I'm Sound Designing a looow budget horror movie and Preamp and
Sonic Modulator figure a fair bit on one characters voice.
It's nice to see other people getting some mileage out of DP plugs.

Timeline · Post by **Timeline** » Sat Aug 26, 2006 10:26 pm

I used it recently with Hypersonic hammond w/ leslie & coral. It did just as you guys say.

You might like the preamp VG2 adds for guitars which has decent sims too.

mikebeckmotu · Post by **mikebeckmotu** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 9:46 am

the MP3 sounds nice - thanks for reminding me about the preamp plugin. I occasionally go to the effects section of the manual to refresh my memory about the DP plugins. I'd say I'm overdue.

I wasn't sure if you were saying you needed a Leslie simulation or you simply didn't use one on the MP3 sample, but just in case, I'm pretty sure there is a free one (Audio Unit) at mda-vst.com on the effects page.

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 11:32 am

mikebeckmotu wrote:I wasn't sure if you were saying you needed a Leslie simulation or you simply didn't use one on the MP3 sample, but just in case, I'm pretty sure there is a free one (Audio Unit) at mda-vst.com on the effects page.

You know... I was thinking that if I wanted to make the organ more convincing to MY ear (keep in mind it started out as a patch on a Proteus 1) it would be cool to give it some Leslie effect on the longer sustained chords. I'll go check out the site you mentioned... although I don't own a VST wrapper.

standingwave · Post by **standingwave** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:03 pm

It's also good for 'limp' snare drums too to give more bite etc

James, VST wrappers are fairly cheap, audioease do one as do FXpansion... I've used the audioease one with DP for years without a single problem.

Just imagine the world of freeware vst plugs that awaits you....

Jim · Post by **Jim** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 12:31 pm

I use Pre-Amp's compressor section alone on Kick some times when I want it to thump.

David Polich · Post by **David Polich** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 1:41 pm

I second the vote for Sonic Modulator along with Pre-Amp. If you find yourself wishing for Antares Filter or PSP Nitro, Sonic Modulator does basically the same kind of thing - and it gets really wicked if you combine it with Pattern Gate.

And again - these are MOTU plugs we already have.

newrigel · Post by **newrigel** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 2:03 pm

sdfalk wrote:I'm Sound Designing a looow budget horror movie and Preamp and
Sonic Modulator figure a fair bit on one characters voice.
It's nice to see other people getting some mileage out of DP plugs.

Sonic Modulator ROCKS!

YouTube · Post by **James Steele** » Sun Aug 27, 2006 3:38 pm

standingwave wrote:James, VST wrappers are fairly cheap, audioease do one as do FXpansion... I've used the audioease one with DP for years without a single problem.

Just imagine the world of freeware vst plugs that awaits you....

Yeah, I remember! I used to have the OS 9 version of VST Wrapper and I did download many VST plugs... a lot of them were... ummmm... "marginal" but there were some cool ones. I'll perhaps bounce over to the Audioease site and buy a copy.