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Gear Reviews
6176 Channel Strip
What do you get when you combine the UA 610B tube mic preamp and the 1176LN compressor? The 6176, of course. Beyond the mic pre and compressor, the 610 section also boasts simple low and high shelf EQs-not terribly versatile but musical in the right ways for some material. See John's review of the...
Gear Reviews
ADL 670 stereo tube limiter
Crazy as it sounds, well-financed producers, engineers, and studio owners have for years been willing to pay upwards of $30,000 for a genuine Fairchild 670 stereo compressor. These back (and bank) breaking beasts were originally used for vinyl mastering and are renowned for their smooth, musical...
Gear Reviews
C 1000 S microphone
With fellow engineer Scott Craggs giving away all his secrets in the MXR review, I figured I should come clean and give away one of my recording secrets too. My all-time favorite guitar amp microphone is the AKG C 1000S electret condenser. Whenever I close-mic an amp, I try to put two different...
Gear Reviews
D-2 Microphone
Since drummers are always destroying tom mics, it's not uncommon that the necessity to try something new on the toms arises. This time it was a Sennheiser 421 that was destroyed and an Audix D-2 that just happened to be sitting around. I was, of course, initially bummed not being able to use my...
Gear Reviews
Dangerous 2-BUS
Mixing out of the Box, Part 1: High End Mixer Shootout In recent months, there's been a bunch of talk on the various online forums about mixing digital audio tracks within your DAW vs. through an external analog mixer. A quick search on the Digidesign Users Conference, Mixerman's board on...
Gear Reviews
Doc?s Proplugs ear protectors
If you've read my past reviews about hearing protectors and noise-canceling headphones, you know that I'm careful with my ears. A few months ago, I discovered an ear protection system that was originally designed for watersports but is now being marketed to the music industry. Doc's Proplugs are...
Gear Reviews
Evolver
Having cut my teeth on a big Buchla modular synth back in my college days, I have always wanted to put a modular analog synth into my control room. Two things kept me from doing this: space and money. Then I stumbled upon the Evolver at the last NAMM show, and my dilemma has pretty much been...
Gear Reviews
Live 2 Real-Time Audio Sequencing Instrument
Sometimes the best way to make a new song is to just mess around, dive-in headlong, and improvise until something you like starts to take shape. In other words, jam. Jamming is a fundamental cornerstone of most music created in the last millennium and is probably one of the most valuable tools in a...
Gear Reviews
Lo-Fi Loop Junky stompbox
For a recent project, I needed to find a portable replacement for my delicate Roland RE-150 Space Echo that I was reticent to trust in the hands of Air France. A few hours at various music stores yielded many inexpensive and versatile possibilities by Line 6, Akai, and Roland, all of which...
Gear Reviews
M3A DAW Monitor
Like many small studio owners, I don't use a true mixing board. Instead, I use the Pro Tools virtual mixer along with a MotorMix digital mixer worksurface attached to the MIDI ins and outs of a Digi 001. It's convenient, cheap, and saves me valuable space. The downside? For a year, I didn't use the...
Gear Reviews
M-80 Bass D.I. +
Something old, something new from MXR. New first. When I was shopping for an affordable bass DI, I was intending to pick up the Sansamp on Larry's recommendation in these pages long ago, but somehow I ended up with the MXR Bass D.I. + instead. It was about the same price, sounded similar (in the...
Gear Reviews
MP20 Two-Channel Mic Preamp w/ Stereo Bus
The PreSonus MP20 is a microphone and instrument preamp consisting of dual Class A discrete input buffers followed by a dual-servo gain stage. This design translates into a low-noise, high-gain box. The following features are available on each channel: gain, 80 Hz rumble filter, 48 V phantom power,...
Gear Reviews
N72 mic preamp
I recently had the opportunity to check out the Seventh Circle Audio N72 mic preamp with the CH01 chassis and PS01 power supply. The N72 is available fully assembled or in various kit forms. With the help of the instructions from the webpage and the schematics, I assembled my kit in six hours. The...
Gear Reviews
TR8 Tuned Reference biamped monitor
Two or three years ago, I read a review of Event's 20/20 monitors in this very magazine and promptly bought a pair. (I had been using a pair of Infinity home stereo speakers, not entirely unsuccessfully.) Coupled with a Hafler amp, I got the whole set up for about $500 and was pretty happy with the...
Gear Reviews
Tube Amplified Direct Box
If you didn't know, musician-wise I'm primarily a bass player. As a bass player, I have always been somewhat unhappy with the sound of my bass when recorded. I've accumulated a stack of moderately expensive DI boxes that do a good job, but I've never heard the basic feel of a DI approach what I...
Gear Reviews
Variax modeling guitar
Love it or hate it, the Pod by Line 6 is here to stay. And now it's got a companion, the Variax modeling guitar. Just as the Pod was intended to replace a warehouse full of amps and effects, the Variax makes a bid at replacing a closetful of guitars. The way it works is pretty cool. There are no...