who is rocking a high end mic pre in their recording rig?

[Speeddemon]

This is a big reason why 57's, and especially ribbon mics, sound like dog poo plugged into most of the mic pre's built into recording interfaces.

I've used a 57 with my scarlett and it sounded just fine. Ofc it could sound better as i've done test recordings only in my untreated apartment room which has shitty acoustics.

And as have many others recorded with a 57 + scarlett combo on youtube, they too have had really professional sounding results without any external pre's.

In the case of a 57 it may be less obvious with just 1 or 2 tracks. What Fusedbrain is talking about, is stacking a whole bunch of tracks, recorded through a simpler pre/interface, and especially the part of matching a ribbon mic to a pre can be touchy.
Impedance is more of a factor for ribbon mics than others.

FWIW, I'm not disputing that you can get decent/good sounding tracks through a Scarlett pre; lord knows I've recorded my first band through way lesser pre's... Tascam 4 track portastudio (yes, on cassette!), the Yamaha MD-something 8 track, that only accepted specific mini disks with a maximum recording time of like 14 minutes or so.... then I went through a whole bunch of all-in-one boxes, starting with the Korg D16.
If that thing had phantom power, 2 auxes and a larger HDD, I might still be using it as a scratch pad recorder... That was leaps and bounds better than the tape/MD stuff we used before.
Owned the Boss BR600, Korg D1200MKI & II, Yamaha AW1200, Akai DPS24 (the big boy, sold it a year ago), Zoom R8 and worked with Roland VS-series too.
But once you *do* make that next step in a pre, and it could be as simple as one of those Warm Audio ones, you'll notice some improvements, that may be less tangible.

 

[Thunkful]

In the case of a 57 it may be less obvious with just 1 or 2 tracks. What Fusedbrain is talking about, is stacking a whole bunch of tracks, recorded through a simpler pre/interface, and especially the part of matching a ribbon mic to a pre can be touchy.
Impedance is more of a factor for ribbon mics than others.

FWIW, I'm not disputing that you can get decent/good sounding tracks through a Scarlett pre; lord knows I've recorded my first band through way lesser pre's... Tascam 4 track portastudio (yes, on cassette!), the Yamaha MD-something 8 track, that only accepted specific mini disks with a maximum recording time of like 14 minutes or so.... then I went through a whole bunch of all-in-one boxes, starting with the Korg D16.
If that thing had phantom power, 2 auxes and a larger HDD, I might still be using it as a scratch pad recorder... That was leaps and bounds better than the tape/MD stuff we used before.
Owned the Boss BR600, Korg D1200MKI & II, Yamaha AW1200, Akai DPS24 (the big boy, sold it a year ago), Zoom R8 and worked with Roland VS-series too.
But once you *do* make that next step in a pre, and it could be as simple as one of those Warm Audio ones, you'll notice some improvements, that may be less tangible.

yeah, with probably more than those 1 & 2 tracks the difference would probably be more audible. Personally i feel like that i might only need about 2 guitar tracks maximum for the 80's Hair Metal stuff.

 

[JTyson]

Convertors do make a huge difference, when we updated to the Apogee's, the convertors were much better and it was a huge difference in our mixes compared to the old setup.
Just my 2 cents

Well yeah, given the fact that your whole preamp/mic chain is already quite high-end to begin with. The R121 has been on my wishlist for ages, although a dedicated guitar mic became less of a requirement, once my Torpedo Live was acquired.

But for a guy struggling with a 57 and some M-Audio/Presonus level mic pre's, I'd say money is better spent on other things than the converters.

Oh, no doubt, we picked the Apogee because it fit what we were doing really well. We were surprised how much better it sounded than our old interface and ended up attributing it to the convertors. There are probably some other factors too. besides the convertors.
The 121 is actually really neutral on stuff, a 57 pairs up with it nicely and adds a bit of teeth on its own track. It does sound good on just about anything, but I find myself adding other mikes because it is so neutral sounding. Mostly talking about guitar tracks though.

 

[panhead]

Im rockn the realistic version from radio shack it`s fuckn awesome just ask Larry and Krull

 

[crankyrayhanky]

In the case of a 57 it may be less obvious with just 1 or 2 tracks. What Fusedbrain is talking about, is stacking a whole bunch of tracks, recorded through a simpler pre/interface, and especially the part of matching a ribbon mic to a pre can be touchy.
Impedance is more of a factor for ribbon mics than others.

FWIW, I'm not disputing that you can get decent/good sounding tracks through a Scarlett pre; lord knows I've recorded my first band through way lesser pre's... Tascam 4 track portastudio (yes, on cassette!), the Yamaha MD-something 8 track, that only accepted specific mini disks with a maximum recording time of like 14 minutes or so.... then I went through a whole bunch of all-in-one boxes, starting with the Korg D16.
If that thing had phantom power, 2 auxes and a larger HDD, I might still be using it as a scratch pad recorder... That was leaps and bounds better than the tape/MD stuff we used before.
Owned the Boss BR600, Korg D1200MKI & II, Yamaha AW1200, Akai DPS24 (the big boy, sold it a year ago), Zoom R8 and worked with Roland VS-series too.
But once you *do* make that next step in a pre, and it could be as simple as one of those Warm Audio ones, you'll notice some improvements, that may be less tangible.

yeah, with probably more than those 1 & 2 tracks the difference would probably be more audible. Personally i feel like that i might only need about 2 guitar tracks maximum for the 80's Hair Metal stuff.

I was going to say a quality preamp makes a 57 come alive and it is a must add for anyone recording. It's almost like the Scarlett and others like it are too clean.
Bu then I remembered that Glenn video where he was advocating some cheap mixer board (Mackie? Behringer?) saying that was some top guy's secret weapon to getting gnarly hi gain guitars. I think adding something like that is cheap and worth exploring.