• Registered: 2012-02-15
  • Posts: 6

Topic: Informations about mic-preamps

Hi everyone,
I own a vocal floor pedal with a bad mic-preamp (not by TC-Helicon, obviously!) that ruins my voice in live concerts if I use it in series between microphone and mixer, and I can't use it in a parallel loop on the mixer because it doesn't allow this configuration (it would also be a problem to link it to the mixer from the stage).
So I'm going to buy a TC-Helicon vocal processor, still not sure if a VoiceLive Play, a VoiceWorks or a VoiceWorks Plus.

I found online a comparison chart among several old TC-Helicon products: Voicelive 1, Voiceworks, Quintet, VoicePrism etc, and it states that mic-preamps of these products are all based on the same amplifier (Burr Brown INA 163).
This chart has the TC-Helicon brand and graphic style, so I presume it was released by your company.

Since I'll need to plug the processor in series between microphone and mixer (as these products are intended to) I'd really appreciate to know this kind of technical information about preamps of the current models.
If you can't give the exact amplifier models, could you at least tell me if VoiceLive Play shares the same mic-preamp of VoiceWorks plus and/or VoiceLive 2?

Thanks, and thank you for this very useful forum!

  • From: Victoria, BC
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 739

Re: Informations about mic-preamps

Hi anvedi,

Since VoiceLive 1 we've designed discrete mic-pre's in house. There's virtually no quality or physical difference between the pre-amp you'd find in a VoiceLive 2 and the Play. If I remember correctly, the transistor front end in VL2 offers 1.5db more SNR than Play. Extreme Edition is slightly better than that.

The only other difference is that the VL2 uses digital control for pre level and the Play uses a physical level knob.

Hope that helps!

-Craig

Craig @ TC-Helicon's Website

  • Registered: 2012-02-15
  • Posts: 6

Re: Informations about mic-preamps

Thank you Craig, I compared technical specs of some TC products with those of a good live mixer, and they are very similar: S/N Ratio, EIN and THD, but I found the last parameter in VoiceWorks plus manual only.
So I guess that also VL Play has around the same values for output THD (less than -98 dB), right?

  • From: Victoria, BC
  • Registered: 2011-07-25
  • Posts: 739

Re: Informations about mic-preamps

Hi anvedi,

The Play and Play GTX THD is roughly .01%

-Craig

Craig @ TC-Helicon's Website

  • Registered: 2012-02-15
  • Posts: 6

Re: Informations about mic-preamps

Thank you Craig,
it's great to have an immediate feedback for every question about a product directly from the producer. And even before buying it!
Keep working like this!