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A mic preamp is a type of amplifier with the purpose of bringing mic level signals up to line level for use with professional equipment. Microphones output mic level signals and need preamps if they are to be used with mixing consoles, recording devices or digital audio workstations. There's a lot to know about microphone preamplifiers and their role with microphones. In this article, we'll discuss mic preamps in great detail to better your understanding of these largely necessary audio devices. A microphone preamplifier is an active electronic device designed primarily to supply gain to a mic signal and output the signal at line level. Mic level is the typically nominal level outputted by microphones. It ranges greatly between -60 dBV and -20 dBV. Line level is the professional standard for recording/mixing audio with a nominal level of +4dBu (1.78 dBV). A microphone preamplifier is designed to take a microphone signal at its input; apply an appropriate amount of gain (typically adjustable), and output a line-level signal. With the levels mentioned above, a good microphone preamplifier should be able to apply at least 60 dB of gain to bring low-level mic signals (typically from dynamic or ribbon mics) up to line level. Ribbon microphones, which notoriously output very low-level signals, sometimes require their own specialty preamplifiers. These preamps are able to provide a great amount of clean gain so that the ribbon mics can be used effectively.