Let me apologize first off if this is somewhere else on this board, but I searched and couldn't find it.

Now the question:

I usually record with a friend in his home studio with all of his equipment, but I moved into a place with all hardwood floors with a really unique room sound. So, needless to say I am wanting to record here. However, the only piece of gear that I have is my Tascam Portastudio harddisk recorder. I have done quick demos and such with it and they turn out fine but I want to take it a little further. There are a good selection of cheap preamps available and I was wondering if a cheap tube preamp actually sounds better than a cheap solid state. You should probably know that I crave that warm sound so anything with the word tube in it automatically catches my eye. However I realize that alot of these things are cheap (ART, PreSonus, Behringer... etc) and perhaps just throw a tube in it to sell to people like me. I am mainly looking for style, not clarity. I will be recording Vocals, Acoustic & Elec guitars, Accordion, Harmonica, Pedal Steel, Drums, Glockenspiel... etc...

Any thoughts?

Just my opinion, but if you are considering less expensive pres, go the solid state route. Tubes, power supplies to operate them, etc all cost money for the manufacturer to use, passing that cost on to you...$75 worth of solid state components can give you some very very good sounds, whereas $75 of 'tube' gear may be much lower in quality.

Just an opinion, but if you save a few more pennies and score the RNP from FMR Audio, you will have a pre that can hang with some pretty big boys...and will not be obsolete before you get it out of the box. I've used the RNP on most of the sources you stated with excellent results.

I'm inclined to agree with Wireline on this -- add a tube to a mediocre low-end preamp and it's still a mediocre low-end preamp.

Of course, I have to admit there's not a single tube in my studio unless you count the old television in the corner, so what do I know?

If you use all condenser mics, then you might not want to even bother with an outboard pre. You'll likely not see a big difference between a cheap pre and the pres in your Tascam with condenser mics. However, if you use dynamics or ribbons (which are a form of dynamic mic as well), then a better quality but low cost mic pre such as the FMR RNP can really open up some sonic possibilities. For some reason, and I'm not sure why, only better preamps bring dynamic mics to life. It's sort of like having a dirty mirror that's got grease and smudge and dust all over it. Then, you clean it off and you want to look at yourself.

Be careful out there, though, on the low end, I've not ran across many mics I'd want to use a dynamic mic with and the FMR RNP is probably my favorite of the bunch. I consider it a poor man's Great River MP-2NV, which I consider to be the best preamp on the planet.

I think it's easy to romanticize about tube equipment, and for some gear, like guitar amps, I say go for the tubes. There's no debate.

Unless your recording rig consisted of 1950 era Ampex or Revox gear you will most certainly have solid state circuitry somewhere in the signal path -- as in mic pre (possibly), A to D converter, the computer or external recording technology...obviously we'd have to look at it piece by piece.

I think today's solutions include or consider the internet and the digital world -- so the most you can muck around with are tubes here and there but definitely not the whole thing (unless you go analogue).

I don't even know where to begin...