ART Tube MP/C Reviews

Handy tool for home recording projects

Just the fact that a tube preamp, optical compressor, limiter and DI Box are built into one chassis gives you an idea of the possibilities of how this piece of equipment can be used. I used it while recording vocals and acoustic guitar. I found the overall tonal quality to be good, considering the price. However, the increase in levels that the preamp provides, control over the compressor and limiter and sending out a balanced out are great to have in your home studio.

Manufacturing imperfections

Burred finish around the buttons which cause scratches and doesn't look great.

Excellent clarity when using dyanmic microphones close up

The compressor lacks some of the features you may have come to be used to, but honestly that is of little concern in my application. I simply set it up and left it. It delivers perfectly on the use case I have, which is simply to increase the gain of a popular streaming microphone that audio interfaces often struggle with. In this regard it is fantastic, delivering tons of clean gain, with a lovely warm character, smoothing out the vocals and making them feel more clear and present, mitigating somewhat the proximity effect of dynamic microphones while still leaving the resulting audio sounding rich and full of character. It isn't a totally invisible compression, it does colour the audio, but in a way that's very pleasing and makes your vocals sounds nicely processed. No one in Zoom or Teams complains about my audio quality. If you need a simple, but high quality gain boost between your mic and audio interface that can be set up once and left to get on with it's job, this is hard to beat at the price. Solid, all metal construction, convincingly clicky dials, nice bright LED's, it feels very high quality and built to last.

Great product

Works great. Excellent value.

Quality and flexibility

I used it with condenser mics, ribbon mics, dynamic mics on guitars, basses, snares etc.. it's amazing. It has a right balance between compression and saturation and you can tune it in an easy and intuitive way. This is one of the main tool in my studio. I would like to have the stereo version.

quality, sound, all the way worth it

this tube belongs to the expensive compact tubes so I got what I expected for the price.

the knobs and controls are great. and so are the switches too. they tighten soft but not too soft to lose grip. the device even fits for some professional usages cauz of its well build quality.

the tube takes its place. its perfectly present and my guitar sounds awesome with this little amp.

I just gotta say that the output gaining is a bit less. I dont have very much space between a good output gain and a peak over in volume. but to go on focusing more good features I got a useful input gain switch reaching up to +20 db.

the unit is small and there simply aint enough space for a wide output meter. 4 leds are not much but for many homestudio scenarios its enough.

Very valuable piece of gear

Just does what's needed without costing an arm and a leg. DI, tube preamp, compressor, all in one. Good signal to noise ratio (better than on the cheaper blue ART preamp with the nice old-school VU meter), user friendly controls.

Not a lot of features you don't need nor use anyway. Performs well. No issues. We have a winner here.

Good entry level tube preamp

Bonus is the compressor that gives a light pumping effect, especially in vocals.

very good built quality, good even be used as touring gear.

Pros:

very nice warm sound

built quality

portability

Cons:

none

Great value entry level preamp

Great value for money, but at the price level it has to be admitted it is an entry level preamp ... a very good one though and I've enjoyed using this little preamp a lot. I was pleased with how good it worked on cleaner settings with a microphone. It is able to produce a good variety of very musical sounds.

It allows you to get some good variations in sounds and tonal character from it's extra controls in the opto compressor / limiter.

The way it combines a hybrid 12AX7 (ECC83) valve preamp section with the company's 'Vactrol' optical compressor seems to works in it's favour for that variety of good tones - clean and valve "coloured".

The optical compressor has only limited controls but does it's job well with those options that it does have.

Metering for the Gain Reduction, Tube Drive, and also Output Level help to get the signal right when it comes out of the unit. Not a pretty sound when the MP/C itself overloads so it is best not to let the input signal stray too high.

simply a great litle tool for the small studio

what's not to love about this Little box. good sounding preamp with some tube carracter and built in low cut, an opto compressor and transformer balanced output..

it looks good with its solid feel aluminium chassis, LED meters for gain, gain reduction and output level

the sound is, no surprice, just like the old TubeMP wich I'm guessing most people know these Days. but with the added low cut and compression, you get a ready to work with result in minutes. something that fits the track without too much work .. great for lineing bassguitar

the only thing i dont like is the "gain +20db" switch, wich appear to be a 20db pad relabeled and functioning backwards...?...I dont get it...so if you need more gain for your vocal mic, you press "gain+20db" instead of using pad when your signal is too hot...same thing really, but backwards campared to almost ever mic pre I've ever used

it might not compete with the "boutique" pre's costing 20 times as much, but all in all, a great Product at a small price

..I hope people "get it" so it doenst go out of production like the old Tube-Pac...

Good in general

This is a good product but because of its format and design it's a little but hard to use and understand. It has good sounding even thou I think it sound bad when you over steer it. Better and easier things for vocals exists but we've used it for preamp to bass and recordings and then it's fantastic

Versatile tool with loads of gain.

Fabulous little thing. If you've got a ribbon mic that needs 60dB of gain, or if your recording input signals are a bit weak, put one of these in the input chain. Can take instrument level input to be instead of a DI box, and also provides phantom power for condenser mics.

Small enough and tough enough go in a laptop bag, and to set up on a desk or table next to a laptop.

Can be used straight and clear, or wound up until it colours or distorts. Clear manual, easy to use controls. I use it even in preference to a channel strip a lot of the time.