A question about mic preamps...

Is there an alternative to a preamp? I'm just wondering, because I don't have one, but I have plenty of other stuff, so maybe the alternative is laying around somewhere. So, any help is much appreciated.

What are you recording? What type of mics? What device are you recording into?

I'm recording myself in studio and mixing that with other tracks of my band. The mic's a Shure SM58. I'm recording into a small recording thing my friend has, I'm not sure of its specifics.

You shouldn't need a separate mic preamp unless you are having trouble getting a decent recording level or if you're getting unwanted distortion on your playback tracks when you listen back to what was just recorded. Most recorders now have fairly decent preamps built in.

Mine doesn't; it's upsetting. It's a bit old, from what I figure.

What other stuff do you have? there might be something in there you could use.

I have an old mixer, cables for anything you could ever need, an old recording interface, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

If you run your mic through a channel on your old mixer, then connect it to the recorder you are using, you can use the mixer as your mic preamp and the channel volume to control your recording level.

The recording device most likely requires a line level input, your microphone puts out a mic level signal (too low to be detected by a line level input). That's why you need some sort of pre-amplification, so it can be boosted to line level.

Most mixing boards have mic preamps built in (edit: per bassman's post, test this), if yours doesn't have one, there are plenty of outboard preamps available.