Microphone Preamps

At its most basic, a mic preamp takes the low output from a microphone and amplifies the signal to a higher line level. The mic preamps built into most audio interfaces will do that. A microphone preamplifier is a device that prepares the microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are usually too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles, multi-track recorders and other recording devices with adequate quality. A preamp is one of those essential items for your studio. If you use a condenser microphone, which requires 48v phantom power to work, you'll need a preamp. But, of course, any microphone benefits from a good preamp, including ribbon and dynamic mics. The audio signal from microphones is weak, so they need a preamp to translate it into a stronger "Line level" signal.