Rocktron PC Preamp

The PC Preamp is a preamp that is designed for recording vocals guitars, bass, or whatever you want directly onto your PC and it includes a CD rom that has a multi-track recording program that allows you to record up to 48 tracks. The included software is ok, but I already had a couple of multi-track programs that I use to record. It would be a great program for anyone that didn't already have some sort of multi-track software on their PC. There is an XLR mic input and a 1/4" input on the front and auxillary inputs on the back for mixing in a drum machine or cd player to jam with and record.This unit is very simple to operate since it is set up in a similar fashion to an amplifier with basic controls for gain, level, shape(eq control similar to those found on Crate amps), hush/compression, reverb, and auxillary input level. The manual is small, but there isn't much of a need for a manual since it is so simple in design.

I was attempting to use this unit to record guitars, bass, and especially vocals since it has a microphone XLR input right on the front of it. The built in distortion is fair at best, the reverb is pretty good, and the shape control works as expected, but my big disappointment with this unit was that it is veru noisy. Even with the hush turned alll the way up it still has alot of hiss and hum I tried moving it away from my computer monitor, but that didn't really seem to help much. The hush is only works on the distortion channel and it supposedly becomes compression on the clean channel, but I was really wishing that it was hush on clean channel too. When we tried to record the vocals there was a lot of noise that really needed to be gated in some way. Plus the "compression" on the clean channel didn't really seem to do anything to the sound of the vocals or clean guitars running through it.

I have only had it for about a week and I am planning on shipping it back to the company that I bought it from for a refund so reliability isn't really a concern.

The PC preamp is a great idea on paper because a lot of people would love to have an all in one preamp that they could use to record guitars, bass, vocals, drums/drum machine, and mix it all down with the supplied software, but the PC preamp just doesn't live up to all that it promises. I could live with the so-so distortion sounds if it was at least quiet because I could always use my amp or pedals to get better distortion sounds. With so many people discovering the wonderful world of digital recording on their PC I think that this idea could sell, but it needs to be done better than the PC preamp. I realize that you can't have it all for 259.99, but for that price I would reccommend that you just go buy a decent mic preamp or a small mixer and use that to record