As an extremely happy owner of Komplete 3, anyone who is just getting started in the world of MIDI synths and samples shouldn’t even think about. Just buy it! Komplete 5 for $400 is a stupidly cheap price. I thought that Kontakt 3 (included) alone would cost that.

Komplete 3, while using older versions of most of the included synths/samples and missing Massive and Akoustik Piano, handles about 85% of my MIDI sound needs. In fact, the only time I reach for anything else is when I need real drum sounds and sometimes real bass sounds. (I use Superior Drummer 2.0 and East West Hardcore Bass generally for those.) With that said, I do reach for the Stingray samples quite a bit in Kompakt.

I remember when they cut the price in half on Komplete 3 several years ago and they were charging $600 for it. I thought this was an insane value (and it was!). To jump into the world of MIDI sequencing for only $400 should be illegal. If you are considering going the MIDI route, I can’t recommend Komplete 5 any higher. You will be happy!

Check all the features of Komplete 5.

The Quest
Long story short. I’m a recovery guitar player turned recording guy. The quest for the Holy Grail of guitar tone has always burned in me. I’ve got plenty of killer guitar toys like the Rivera Knucklehead, Peavey 5150, and 1971 Marshall Superlead and a killer signal chain for recording electric guitar (Royer R121 > Vintech 1272 > Distressor EL-8x > Mytek AD96). I’ve always felt like there was something missing in my recordings.

So when we approach this review of Amplitube 2, I want to make it clear that I have all the fun toys and I’m still not 100% satisfied with my guitar recordings. There is something in the way. I have a feeling that many of you out there using killer amps and killer signal chains feel the same way.

Amplitube 2 offers numerous mic and mic placement options

An Old Purist
There was a day not too long ago (spring of 2008) when I felt that the electric guitar emulators were nothing more than toys. Back then, I was well known for being able to listen on Bash This Recording http://forum.recordingreview.com/f11/ and immediately know if I was hearing an emulator or the real thing. Then something crazy happened. I got it wrong!

So when I approach this review, I want to make it perfectly clear that I know what the real amps can do. I record guitar amps more often than I eat breakfast. I’m always a little late to jump on the new technology because I stick to my guns until it makes sense to get new and improved guns.

Amplitube 2 includes a comprehensive set of pedals

Features
There are some products where you know right out the gate that you have something that extremely well thought out. Some products just leap out at you and you say “Wow!”. I feel this way about Cubase. It’s the main reason I never upgraded past Cubase SX3. (That’ll change soon with Cubase 5.) I feel this way about Amplitube 2. It’s clear that these guys know exactly what they wanted in terms of features and put some serious effort into making something that kicks major ass. I’m impressed.

Do You Want These?

• Tons of pedals?
• Tons of guitar amps that really sound different?
• Tons of power amps that really sound dramatically different?
• Tons of guitar tone controls?
• Tons of guitar cabinets?
• Multiple mics?
• Multiple mic placements?

You got ‘em!

You know I hate listing features. Just check ‘em out here.

Amplitube 2 is extremely full featured. It took me well over 20 sessions with it before I found something it couldn’t do. (I’m one of those guys that immediately looks for that one thing a product can’t do. It’s a flaw.) The only problem is I can’t even remember what that “can’t do” function was. It clearly wasn’t that big of deal.

Amplitube 2 Includes Numerous Amplifiers

The Sound
First off, I want to say that I don’t believe in emulating. I don’t bother. Trying to mimic another sound is not only boring, it seldom works right when nothing in the chain seems to have changed. So I’m not going to compare the Recto preset in Amplitube with a real Dual Rectifier. Why? I’ll tell you why. Because I don’t care! I don’t need an A/B test to confirm my convictions. Either the tone excites me or it doesn’t. I’ve already stated that I’ve recorded all kinds of real amps. I’ve never gotten the dream tone! So what do I care if I can perfectly emulate something that isn’t even 100% ideal. That makes no sense to me.

Real amps take serious work to get up to par. In some instances we can get what we need in 2 minutes, but it’s usually more like 30 minutes of tinkering. Sometimes it takes all day. The reasons for that are something I don’t have time to get into here but I cover in depth in Killer Home Recording: Electric Guitar.

With Amplitube 2, you plug in. You hit a few knobs and you are there. You can certainly tweak later if you so desire, but I’ve found that snagging an exciting sound seldom takes more than 2 minutes. It seems like all the conventional obstacles have been removed. What obstacles am I talking about? I’m talking about that X factor that keeps my real amps from sounding screamingly awesome on recordings. That road block simply doesn’t exist in Amplitube 2. The Amplitube 2 tracks sit in the mix very well without any of the excessive low mid stuff I often fight. In other words, the Amplitube 2 tracks sound finished on the way in. I don’t feel the need to shoe horn them into a mix like I find myself always doing with real electric guitar tracks. I don’t mistake excessive low-mid crap for “thickness” with Amplitube 2 like I often do with real electric guitar tracks. (I’ve got a damn room mode that always seems to hide the mud in my electric guitar sounds I have to solve!)

Does Amplitube 2 sound as good as a real amp? First off, that’s an overly simplified question. Which real amp and which tone are we going for? Will it do the EVH brown sound as good as an old 50 watt Marshall Plexi through a $2,000 cabinet with 20 watt speakers? No. It won’t. At least I haven’t figured out how to get that one. Will it come close? You bet your ass it will! Will it sound good doing it? Definitely! What’s funny about this topic is a Rivera Knucklehead won’t do the EVH brown sound nearly as good as the vintage Marshall rig either, but it will also sound damn good trying. (Again, emulating is stupid!) The same could be said for just about all amps. There are only a few that really nail that sound.

If you check out the Real Guitar Amp vs Emulators Shootout on Killer Home Recording: Electric Guitar you’ll find that the sound from emulator to emulator to emulator varies quite a bit. They vary so much that it’s difficult even for a guy like me to pick out the real Knucklehead. Why? Because these modern emulators like the Amplitube 2 do have real tone. They do sound good. On their own, I’d probably lean in the direction of the real tube amp in terms of flat out tone. (If a killer real amp gets a 100%, Amplitube 2 gets a 95.5%.) However, by the time I screw up the tone of the real amp with mics and such I end up losing 10% and that’s with the tools I mentioned above. (Royer R121 / Sennheiser MD421 / Shure SM57 / etc > Vintech 1272 > Distressor EL-8x > Mytek AD96). Most home recorders aren’t going to have such tools at their disposal.

Real World Electric Guitar Recording Problems
I do a lot of different types of sessions. One day I’m doing a live band. Another day I’m doing MIDI techno programming. I do quite a bit of guitar recording as well, but how often are my amps used? I’d say 30% of the time. If I really wanted to have the ability for crushing guitar sounds all the time, I’d need more cabinets. I’d want at least three of them. I need a modern metal type of cabinet (Recto / Orange / Bogner). I’d need a vintage cabinet like a late 60s Marshall with 20 watt speakers. I’d need an open back Fender-style cabinet. I’d need a smaller cabinet with maybe an 8″ or 10″ speaker of some kind.

Then when plugging a Recto into my G12H30 equipped 1×12 cabinet isn’t happening, I can figure out something that will. I’d love to tell you that the old Marshall cabinet is the best cabinet in the world (for 95% of all music I’d say it is) but there are times when the band is going to prefer something else. Who is going to accommodate that? The band? Yeah right! 2% of all musicians in bands take their tone seriously enough to have “their sound”. Most just buy something with Mesa Boogie on the cover, plug in, smile, and make their credit card payments.

So simply putting together a signal chain as mentioned above that pushes $5,000 isn’t good enough. If the guitar doesn’t mate with the amp and the amp doesn’t mate with the cabinet, all that is pointless. I’d take a guitar > amp > cabinet setup that all work extremely well together over the fancy recording toys any day of the week.

So, to make a long story short. If you don’t have all the necessary tools, you are playing a game of hit and miss. Of course, this also assumes that you are taking the time on your recordings to try out all your cabinets. How many home recorders spend a day on the amp head and a day on the cabinet? This is what the big boys are doing. If you are not, you’ve already compromised and you are at the mercy of the gods. Spin the wheel and hope you get the tone you are going for.

The only ideal solution is to have all available tools at your disposal. This is the main reason I love the Amplitube 2 emulator so much. Maybe the Gibson SG Mr. Guitar Player uses feels a little wrong with amp #1, we just move on to amp #2 or use cabinet number #2. This ability to match the guitar with the amp / cabinet works the same way a real setup would, but without consuming the cash, space, and time it takes to implement the real thing.

Downside(s) of Amplitube 2
On my ancient computer system (Athlon 64 2800, 2GB of RAM) I can only get 2-3 instances of Amplitube 2 running simultaneously with latency at 160 samples. I suspect this will be a non-issue with the Quad-core computer I’ve been eyeballing. This slows down workflow quite a bit. It would be nice if I could just fire up 5 instances without having to render / freeze tracks. I don’t consider this the fault of Amplitube 2, and I suspect my next computer will have no problems. Just be advised that if you are using Amplitube 2 on an old computer that freezing / rendering guitar tracks is a vibe killer.

Reliability
Amplitube 2 has been 100% reliable. Using it nearly every day for a month I can’t recall having one single problem with it. Again, this is a testament to the caliber of products that IK Multimedia is cranking out.

Conclusion
Amplitube 2 kicks ass. I’m considering selling all of my real amps now why they still have a little bit of value because they may not in 2 years. Is Amplitube 2 perfect? No. The technology is very close and I suspect that in another 2 years the emulator stuff will be so good that no one will think twice about using it.

I think the best testament to the sound of Amplitube 2 goes like this. I am producing a band. They have some rocking songs, but for the most part they don’t really sound like a “guitar band” like Guns N Roses or something. The plan was to record the guitars DI, use Amplitube 2 as the “scratch tone” and then later reamp the guitars through a real amp. Well, as the record as progressed the guitar player said, “Brandon, I don’t want to reamp. I’m 100% happy with this.” I agreed. What was to be gained from reamping? In this case, I was actually worried about what we’d lose. Today and I went back to listen to the tracks. No one on Earth will ever know these were done with an emulator and in fact, I suspect I will get compliments on my guitar sounds. I’ll put money on it. In other words, Amplitube 2 is a winner even if you’ve got 3 very desirable real amps collecting dust in the corner.

I suspect that if I sold all my guitar amps and was forced to use Amplitube 2 for the rest of my days, it wouldn’t bother me one bit.

The contest was a lot of fun! Okay, it wasn’t that involved. I guess that’s why it was fun! I didn’t have to do anything!

Make sure to check out the full line of Cascade Microphones as they are really pushing the $$ to performance ratio. I’ve been very impressed with their mics.

Brandon

First off, I want to start off by thwarting away any potential tech support that Manley may have to deal with. Even though this is a Manley preamp, you can record girls with it too. In fact, it may even work better on girls. (I didn’t do that shootout).

Sorry. It’s a terrible joke. No one laughed the 14 times I told it during shootout times either but I insist that somewhere out there someone will laugh.

The Idea Behind The Manley TNT

First off, Manley makes some high-end junk. In fact, I can’t even call it “junk”. I guess I need to search the Thesaurus for something a bit more eloquent. Done! Manley makes high-end stuff. They target big boy studios with their gear and they strike me as the kind of company that worries little about hitting a price point. They have one goal in mind (domination) and they don’t seem to be overly concerned with how much you have to pay for it.

Manley set out to create the single most versatile 1U rack space preamp on the planet. They tossed a tube design on the cleverly named “Tube Channel” and then snuck in a solid state design on the boldly named “Cool Channel”. (Manley’s reputation is stout enough that they don’t have to bore us with another abuse of the word “warm”.) On each side they included an array of impedance options. I won’t bore you with the actual impedances, but there were at least three on each channel. They included a DI (which also contains an array of unique impedance options…VERY COOL!), a smart high-pass filter on the Cool Channel, an average intelligence high-pass filter on the Tube Channel, a thing called “Iron” on the Cool Channel, and a switch called “Color” on the Cool Channel.

For those of you who read the high-end audio recording fantasy publications (which IS essentially porn without all the drugs or pony tails) you may be up on the Manley SLAM! Limiter. The preamp on the Manley SLAM! is the same thing as the Tube Channel on the TNT.

Blah blah blah…You can read about the features and all that junk in the Manley TNT Manual or on the website. Let’s get down to my views on this damn thing.

Features In Action
Smart High-Pass Filter - Okay, it’s not THAT smart. It’s not an auto-detect gadget or anything stupid like that. I just like the fact that The Cool Channel gives me a choice between 60Hz and 120Hz for the high-pass. 120Hz is a bit extreme for some applications and that’s why I want it. There are many sources that have absolutely no need for anything up to 120Hz and for those I can say “See ya!”. When we want to be subtle, we can leave quite a bit more in. This may not seem to be all that life changing, but it came in handy more than I had realized. 85HZ is a common high-pass frequency and seldom do I consider it ideal.

Note: The more I do this music recording thing, the more I prefer to solve problems the second they arise. I don’t want to have to reach for a high-pass filter when mixing. I want it to be right from the start. I feel this “smart” high-pass filter is a good idea.

The Tube Channel has the usual dumb high-pass filter, but it’s set at 80Hz. I found this useful because the tube side is generally used for meatier sounds anyway. We’ll get into that.

Mega Impedance Options – I loved having the option of selecting different input impedances on the Manley TNT. The character of the recorded signal can change dramatically by varying the impedance. I could tame brittle sounds by selecting lower impedances and I could make signals that were a touch low-mid heavy a bit more aggressive by increasing the input impedance. This is all Engineering 101 stuff, but it worked exactly like it should have with the TNT and better than most.

Apparently, Manley designers went out of their way to create an impedance switcher that doesn’t affect gain. In a lesser circuit, switching to a higher impedance would usually increase the level. It’s clear that Manley has no qualms with going the extra mile.

Iron – Everyone always talks about the Lundahl transformers. Apparently they ain’t cheap. Many of the Cascade ribbon microphones double in price when you add a Lundahl transformer. I don’t get too deep into that side of the equation often, but basically the TNT Cool Channel lets you decide how much of the transformer you want to use. This is not a simulation. This is not a plugin. This is a real world splitter gadget that lets you run the signal through a real, “iron” transformer. The result is a possibly outstanding increase in harmonics.

Manley Guy Interjection:

We use Lundahl INPUT transformers, so you’re dealing with them when you adjust the input impedance. However, the IRON control is affecting the OUTPUT transformer, which is a custom Manley design (and built here in-house). We had to specially design this transformer specifically for the IRON function; using a stock one from someone else (or from us!) wouldn’t have cut the mustard. We mention this on page 9 of the manual - the last paragraph on that page has a little blurb about it.

I have this view on recording gear that if you can’t make something sound crappy when you overdo it, it ain’t good enough. I like bold, obvious gear that I have to restrain myself from going too far with. This may be why preamps often bore me a bit. I’d rather play with a compressor with attitude ( I LOVED playing with the Complimiter 610, for example) By cranking this transformer up to 10 you can easily add way too much harmonic content to certain tracks. It sorta reminds me of sending a low end heavy track to a Distressor with the the release on zero. It adds sort of a distortion. It’s not something I’d ever imagine using on 10 often, but using it on 3 does some great things in my opinion in a way where the singer would never ask “Do you hear a distortion sound?”. They’d only notice their voice cutting through the mix a bit easier. I’m always looking for harmonic content. That’s why I like the SPL Twin Tube plugin so much, for example. This iron knob is only found on The Cool Channel.

The reason I’m always looking for ways to sneak in harmonic content is fairly straightforward. Harmonic content has a way of making a track feel brighter without EQ. When we blend in just the tiniest amount of distortion underneath the signal, some great things happen to the way that track sits in the mix all at levels that are essentially indistinguishable.

Color – It’s a shame they couldn’t label this “Cock N Balls”. I’m guessing it wouldn’t fit on the label. Maybe they could have named it “Blacks”, “Whites”, and “Hispanics” but that wouldn’t be fair to the Asians. Regardless, I love this color thing. Never has racial integration been so fun!

Again, I want knobs and switches that knock me on my ass. I want to hear BOLD differences….the kind you need to type in caps. (HINT! HINT!) While I thought 60s and 70s were time periods and not parts of the rainbow, I have to admit that these mods have some BOLD color. The default setting is “clean”. As you can imagine, it doesn’t do anything. It’s very useful in those times when you simply want the TNT to do its job (which is excellent on it’s own).

The 60s color immediately made me say “DAMN!”. I wasn’t expecting such an obvious difference. They didn’t hold back any punches. The character immediately leaped into this Janis Joplin vocal sound kind of thing. Okay, so it’s not 100% Janis and my idea of “leaped” is based on high end gear companies that should label their buttons “placebo”, but it’s definitely a big step in that direction. I’d love to record a whole record with the 60s color. Some of my clients would be pissed. Some would kiss me.

I hate the 70s. (With notable exceptions) That was my mom’s era. I come from the school that says that parents are supposed to hate your music. (Listen up, 16-year old wuss boys trying to impress Dad with your Eric Clapton t-shirt!). The 70s color sounds like you spent the previous decade with too much drugs and too many The Who concerts. It sounds like they took an impulse of Pete Townsend’s hearing and applied it here. Okay, not really. Let’s get serious.

I didn’t feel like The Partridge family or Skynard when I used this setting. I’ll tell you what it did remind me off. It just SCREAMED Melloncollie and The Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins. I’m probably way off base on this and some high end jerk bag is going to tell me they used the same console as was used on The Night At The Roxbury soundtrack. Regardless, every time I hear tracks done with this, I felt that way.

To describe it, it’s a relatively dark setting but with a bunch of harmonic content WAY lower than that of the 60s. It’s like instead of putting harmonics at 2k and 8k like in the 60s mode, they put them at 400Hz and 800Hz (without sounding “tubby”, “boxy”, or any other scary words that can come from those frequencies). Note, I’m guessing 100% on where this harmonic content lies. I have no intention of making an entire album with this setting, but then again, that may be a good reason to do it. At least Manley has the balls to include a mode that I don’t want to use all the time. Awesome!

Real World Color Application
I was doing a session for a chick who had a sparse arrangement in the verse and a mega dense arrangement in the chorus. When I got the vocal nice and thick in the lower midrange on the verse, it didn’t cut through enough in the chorus. Normally, I’d reach for EQ and get a headache with this one. Instead, I found myself switching from clean mode in the verse to 60s mode in the chorus. It gave me exactly the cut I needed without sounding EQ’d. Bad ass! It was as if they built this feature for me.

Of course, don’t label the “color” setting as gimmick or effect only usable in specific situations. Not even close! This color setting is a real deal problem solver. While it is a bold sound, its usefulness in a real world mix is absolute. Check out Preamp Shootout #3 in Killer Home Recording: Vocals and it’ll be immediately obvious to you just how valuable this color button is AND how impressive the “iron” knob is..

The Sound – Regardless of what source I used this thing on, the Manley TNT is a freaking winner. On bass DI, it really did something incredible. It was much like taking Ron Jeremy’s Extendz….or maybe it reminded me more of the dog in Van Wilder. The Tube Channel of the Manley beat everything I had in the preamp shootout with either bass DI or micing a bass amp and The Cool Channel came in second. When it came to acoustic guitar, The Cool Channel won, in my opinion. It had the most upper midrange “sparkle” without getting clicky in the top end. On vocals, the variety of options is bad ass and extremely useful. The Manley TNT scored very high on every vocal shootout and clearly won one of them (at least to me). I really break all of this down on each shootout but I have to say that I was always pleased with the Manley TNT. It’s the kind of thing that makes me re-question my deprecated views on preamps I’ve had in the past.

Tube VS Solid State
This dumb old war will be going on longer than our dumb old US Vietnam-style wars. They’ll still be arguing about tube vs solid state when the US is busted into 7 regions who all hate each other because of Jesus somehow. Is there a difference between tube vs solid state? Yeah, there is a difference. The tube thing seems to have lower frequency harmonics. It’s a bit meatier. Is this subtle? Sometimes. Sometimes it hits you in the head with a frying pan.

The Tube Channel is a BIG sound, but it’s also quite a bit darker than the Cool Channel. It doesn’t do the sparkle thing as well and it certainly doesn’t have the air that the Cool Channel does in the mega top end. However, it’s got great low mid harmonics and it’s low end sounds gigantic. When you need something to sound BIG in a mix, the Tube Channel is THE way to go. However, I wouldn’t want to track everything with the Tube Channel. I think things would get a little too far out of hand. In fact, for most tracks my initial inclination would be to reach for the Cool Channel.

The Cool Channel does pretty much everything right. It has this “near Neve” style aggressiveness to it however, it seems impossible to get The Cool Channel to sound boxy particularly when employing the 60s color. I find my Vintech 1272 had a similar aggressiveness but it would get boxy the first sign of trouble. This is a turn off to me and now that I know better I can see why I’ve not been overly thrilled with the Vintech 1272 over the years in certain applications.

The Great River EQ-1NV had a character that was at least from the same city as the Manley Cool Channel and had a very similar accent but the Great River didn’t have the 60s color switch to engage when recording a truly problematic singer. I don’t mean to take anything away from the Great River. In fact, I really liked that preamp too…a whole lot! However, I wanted to point out that Manley went well beyond the call of duty by packing in additional color. They could have just put a damn volume knob and a high-pass filter and called it a day. Instead they’ve created real solutions to real home recording problems. Yes, I’m impressed! Yes, I feel like they catered to me exactly!

The Dark Side
Alright, so I’ve told you about “the force”. Now for The Dark Side. There is only one thing that this thing completely sucks at (literally)….the wallet! It’s not a cheap box. However, there is a bright side to dumping this much cash into 2 preamps, particularly for studios that are mostly overdub style studios. Investing this many Ben Franklins into the TNT is going to provide you with more tonal colors than any other preamp I know of. If there are even 2 preamps out there than can pull off the big tube sound and pull off a very Neve-style sound and have all the flexibilities when it comes to transformer saturation, impedance, and the color thingy I want to see them. I’ve never encountered it. I know the Focusrite Liquid Channel could be an option but I’m a little apprehensive of the emulators by instinct alone.

Basically, it goes like this. It’s gonna cost you a lot more than $2,700 (street) to get this many preamp colors. Of course, none of us are engaged in color collecting contests. However, I’m convinced that, especially without additional gadgetry, no preamp is perfect all the time. It seems that when one preamp brings out the good stuff on one source it brings out the bad on the next source. For those of us who need to track everything basically through the same 2 channels I think the Manley TNT is a total freakin’ winner!

Reservations
If you are an experienced recording dude, you know where the preamp sits on the totem pole of recording junk to think about. Preamps don’t make up for crappy instruments, crappy songs, crappy performances, or crappy room acoustics. PERIOD. So if you are recording at home with a 2 channel audio interface with crappy studio monitoring and $7 in your bank account, don’t bother. If you’ve got the cash and nothing else to do today, the Manley TNT is WAY cooler than buying a high end riding lawn mower….then again, so is paralysis. (That joke isn’t meant to make fun of people in not-so-ideal physical conditions or professional lawn care dudes. It’s meant to be a sledgehammer in the face of suburbia USA.)

Conclusion
I’m buying the damn thing. Enough said!

Audio Clips
Want to hear the Manley TNT head to head against the following preamps? Check out Killer Home Recording today! You can hear the Manley TNT go head to head with the following preamps on male vocals, female vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass amps, bass DI, and drums.

Martech MSS-10
Truesystems P-Solo
Great River MEQ-1NV
Presonus ADL600
Trident S20
Vintech 1272
Presonus Studio Channel
RNP
Firestudio
Presonus Digimax D8
M-Audio Octane

After over 30 days of nothing but shootouts, I have to say that it’s nice to be back in audio recording action again. I can now see why the bad guy in Good Morning Vietnam was ticked when he got sent back to Guam. There is no action in Guam and there is no action in shootouts either. As fun as it may seem to have access to a thunderous array of studio recording equipment, I must admit that it becomes more a mindless, ditch digging experience of running through the motion take after take only the change in mics or preamps breaking up the monotony. The music is secondary with shootouts. Not only does this flaw inherently flaw the shootouts, it also takes all the fun out of it.

With that said, I learned a ton about recording equipment after conducting all these damn shootouts and now I have to decide what the hell I want to do with my own gear. At the moment I have a $14,000+ credit card bill so it looks like I’m going to be having an Ebay day very soon!

I’m always weighing the cost/reward ratios of all this gear. Should I shell out the $2,800 for a Great River MEQ-1NV (top notch preamp and EQ) or could I get by with an M-Audio Octane and maybe an Oxford EQ (maybe go-to EQ these days). It’s a complicated decision. It guess it boils down to which is going to have a more adverse effect on me personally….the lack of sonic benefits of the Great River or a lack of $2,800. I really need a new recording computer….hmmm.

As painful as it is to leave the safety of my recording music status, I now need to venture back into equipment shootout land and discuss all the gear reviews and zillions of soundclips I have coming up.

The Recording Equipment

Microphones

• Peluso 251
• Cascade Fathead II
• Behringer C3
• Karma K6
• MXL V63M
• Royer R121
• Gefell M930
• Oktava MK219
• Groove Tubes AM51
• Groove Tubes GT57
• Karma K35
• AKG 414
• SM57
• Audix I5
• AT4050
• Shure SM27
• AT4040
• AT2020
• M-Audio Nova
• AT4033
• Studio Projects B3
• Shure SM7b
• Karma KP-80
• Neumann M147
• Peluso 47
• Karma K10

Preamps

• Martech MSS-10
• Manley TNT
• Truesystems P-Solo
• Great River MEQ-1NV
• Presonus ADL600
• Trident S20
• Vintech 1272
• Presonus Studio Channel
• RNP
• Firestudio
• Presonus Digimax D8
• M-Audio Octane

I guess that’s all for now. I just wanted to say how great is feels to be recording music again and not just conducting pseudo-science experiments and explain what I have coming up.

Brandon

This is part of my Gear Reviews For Humans series.

If you didn’t read my temporary review of Ampeg SVX, let me summarize.

The Ampeg SVX is amazing. Just buy it!

Now for the real review.

I’ve been a bass DI fan for a long time. I got tired up micing up bass amps that weren’t doing anything interesting. For my style of working and my situation (The neighbors let me record drums so I try to give them a break with the 8×10 bass cabinets) there have been few instances where the bass amp was necessary.

With that said, bass DI is what it is. I’ve heard great bass DI sounds. I’ve heard not-so-great bass DI sounds. Regardless, there are times where it sure would be fun to screw that bass sound up a little bit (in a good way!). That’s where the Ampeg SVX steps in.

I want to start off by saying that I don’t think the concept of a bass DI is any way flawed. I think it’s an outstanding way of capturing X sound. The kind of bass players that just look at a bass amp as a louder version of their bass are usually quite content with X sound. It’s the bass players that have THEIR sound that require THEIR real amp and the special treatment. There are some bass DIs that sound bad and need all the help they can get.

The Ampeg SVX gives me the tonal control in the places I need it (just like an amp does) in ways that the usual recording toys such as parametric EQ simply can not. With a killer DI, some of the tones I’ve come up with using the Ampeg SVX have been outstanding. I love this plugin!

The Ampeg SVX comes with numerous bass pedals

Features
I’m not going to get too wound up about features. You can read all of those here. They’ve got a bunch of amps, some cool pedals, a bunch of cabinets, a bunch of mics and a couple different mic placements.

Much like Amplitube 2, its clearly an extremely well thought out product.

Sound
Ampeg SVX delivers killer-amp caliber sounds without fighting the room, ticking off the neighbors, or taking the time for mic selection, mic placement, preamp selection, etc. You plug in, twist a few knobs and you’ve got it.

If you want robo deep tones, you’ve got it. If you want mega midrange tones, you’ve got it. If you want distorted tones, this thing seems to do exactly what the Ampeg bass stuff I’ve used can do. If you want more “vintage” sounding bass sounds like from the Ampeg B15 just switch to the B15. If you want to use the modern Ampeg stuff with limiting, graphic EQ, etc just use it. It just sounds freaking good! I don’t know how else to describe it.

To hear the Ampeg SVX in action, I have numerous clips in Killer Home Recording: Bass.

I really like how the voicings of the amps compliment the tone. For example, that extra something that an Ampeg B15 can do to make a track “more there” in the low midrange is represented perfectly in the Ampeg SVX.

The Ampeg SVX allows for numerous mic selection and mic placement possibilities.

Downside To Ampeg SVX
The only downside to the Ampeg SVX is its CPU usage. It’s CPU usage is very reasonable for a relatively modern plugin, but I’m on my last leg with my Athlon 64 2800. I’d expect my next computer will be able to run more Ampeg SVX instances than I could ever stand. At the moment, I have to get the tone I like and freeze it (Cubase feature for printing tracks). This isn’t a huge deal, but it can slow down workflow. Even with a slower, older computer the workflow slow down are well worth the CPU price.

Reliability
The Ampeg SVX has been extremely reliable. I’ve had problems with specific plugins (usually VST Instruments) having issues when pushing the CPU hard, but the Ampeg SVX has been rock solid.

Conclusion
If you want the ability to play around with your bass DI tracks and you don’t have the time, acoustical space, or massive bass amp collection this is a killer way to go. I couldn’t recommend this purchase more! The IK Multimedia dudes/chicks really have their stuff down. Great work!

One of those talented musicians and I were talking the other day. I’m getting ready to produce his record. He says, “Why can’t it be like the old days when it didn’t really matter if your performances were absolutely (mathematically) perfect?”. This is a question I’ve pondered for some time. After years of thought on the subject and a smidgeon of experience, I’ve come to realize that only you perpetuate this robotic perfection thing. The buying public doesn’t care. It can be the old days all over again if people choose to make the kind of records they want to make. The consumer does not know and does not care about any of the things most musicians obsess about.

I believe that bold people make bold decisions. It’s obvious to me that we like our rock stars bold. They aren’t supposed to be normal people. They aren’t supposed to be what you want your kid to be some day. They are supposed to be dead beats with no jobs with way too much drugs. They are supposed to be riding their motorcycle at 120mph through town while dousing themselves and the 15 year old gear on the back in gasoline. Do you really think that this guy lets fear dictate his record? Do you really think he makes a record with his tail between his legs?

Having the balls to stand up say “The part may be a little loose, but there is something bad ass about it!” is what makes a real recording. It’s the kind of balls that goes into putting black chicks on Dark Side of the Moon. Do you really need rigid perfection? In World War II the average Nazi fox hole was dug 9” deeper than the average American / British foxhole. It’s clear that Germans of mid 1940s were more rigid and more mathematical than the Allies. So what! They through Jews into furnaces! This rigid crap has it’s down sides!

When Looseness Goes To Far
When excessive looseness hijacks the emotional intensity of a song, we need to do something about it. You don’t have to have a degree in music theory to hear this. Any retard (Yes, I’m referring to the people who listen to Slipknot….har har) can hear this. So we do another take. Big deal. Once looseness no longer has any direct impact on the intensity of the music, what do I care? I’m about as interested in winning the “Extra Tight Award” (sounds like something they give away at the Adult Video Awards or maybe a Zionist convention, har har) as I am the color of your cd cover. They are irrelevant aesthetics to me and none of my business. I’m paid to help make sure the recording is exciting. That’s it.

It needs to be said that when I sit down to track drums or vocals or whatever, the word “tight” is the furthest thing from my mind. I want exciting! I want thrilling! I want dangerous! While I’m not sure I ever achieve my goals, but tell me what you buy when you go to the music store? Do you look for the “tight” section or do you look for the “exciting, thrilling, and dangerous” section.

The guy that produced Radiohead’s “The Bends” can’t play a single instrument. We’ve heard Rick Rubin’s view on producing. So why is it that these two dudes, who have avoided the musician way of thinking and certainly don’t make scared records, have been wildly successful and been part of music that is often so exciting? My answer is they just happen to be good at measuring music and they don’t use a ruler or a quantized grid to do it (unless the music SCREAMS for that). They use the good ol’ goosebump meter.

On the Audio Recording Forum today a new member, Formula77, said that he preferred to play his own drum parts either on a real kit or a edrum kit, but often needed to quantize those parts. http://forum.recordingreview.com/f66/bfd-vs-drumagog-vs-toontracks-18218/ For the life of me, I can’t think of a reason why a person would want to bother playing a part and then de-humanize it. If I want techno or hip hop drum beats that are snapped to a grid, I’ll just use the mouse. I’m not against that style of production when it’s called for. However, it seems a bit self defeating to humanize a part and then dehumanize it. It’s like intentionally using a Strat when you have access to a Les Paul and then using gadgetry to make the Strat sound more like a Les Paul. Maybe this production technique is a time saver for our new member, but I’m beginning to feel the aura of “fear of looseness” in the air.

I think all this snapping drums to a grid is a complete waste of time. What is the point of the real drummer if we are just going to make the drums sound unreal? Does this production method REALLY require a person to start out real and then make it unreal. Is there a chemical change in there that requires the real element just temporarily? Why couldn’t we have just started with the mouse to begin with?

I just don’t get all this “snapping” stuff on real tracks. This may be what Collective Soul does these days, but what do I care? Is Collective Soul still making money? I’m sure this is what Fall Out Boy is doing too. However, is this quantizing of real drums what makes Fall Out Boy so successful? Hell no! This excessive need for robotic perfection has a whole lot more to do with insecure producers (or producers who prefer the sound of a real drum performance converted to a quantized drum performance) than it does the music itself. Fall Out Boy still sounds like Fall Out Boy on Letterman or whatever. They could start with those live Letterman tracks, do their overdubs, and release it as the next album, and there wouldn’t be one single Fall Out Boy fan who noticed. Not a single sale would be effected and there wouldn’t be one less illegal download for it.

Production Gains From The Fear Of Looseness?
A few buddies of mine went through the major label boot camp and recorded an EP in the “big boy” modern rock way with the sole purpose of shopping that EP to labels. On those 5 songs, they spent 13 days recording electric guitar. The guy playing those tracks is one of the tightest, smoothest players I know. They were doing all kinds of tricks to make sure the guitars were in absolutely perfect tuning. I’m talking about copying and pasting every instance of the “E power chord” here and the “A power chord” there. They did all kinds of crazy stuff to keep the guitars in tune. They did layer after layer after layer doing all the modern trickery all the while being completely obsessed with perfection.

I wouldn’t say they were afraid of being loose. I’d simply say they were obsessed with perfection. The end result? A good sounding rock recording that is nowhere near the league of Hoobastank, Seether, or any of the modern rock bands known for their gargantuan production.

So What?
In the end, life is way too short. You don’t have time to make scared, boring recordings and there is no guarantee that your recording will be more exciting simply because you over-analyzed everything. Some things need to be rough about the edges. Sometimes that thing that makes you say “Screw you! I like it how it is!” is the very same thing that allows you to write ballsy lyrics that really make an impact. To kill one is to kill the other.

There are grammar errors in this blog. Apparently, you made it through it, however. I could wuess out and hire someone to proofread this mess. I could wuess out and remove my jokes making fun of Porn stars, Jews, and Slipknot fans. I’m of the opinion that the second I write blogs with my tail between my legs is the second you go over and read some other asshole’s blog.

Have the balls to have a personality!

The name of the series is Killer Home Recording. Here are the eight titles:

Killer Home Recording: Put Your Rig Together
Killer Home Recording: Audio Engineering Essentials
Killer Home Recording: Bass Recording
Killer Home Recording: Drum Recording
Killer Home Recording: Acoustic Guitar Recording
Killer Home Recording: Vocal Recording
Killer Home Recording: Electric Guitar Recording
Killer Home Recording: Murderous Mixing

Putting the infrastructure together for the member area has been hell. I’ve been very, very specific about features I wanted for my membership area and that has caused setbacks. (I sometimes wonder if I try to make things too good!).

At the moment:

– the text for the member area is 99% finished. I know I have grammatical issues and I guess I’m going to have to scrape up some cash to get someone to proofread this stupid thing.

– the graphics are 95% finished. I’m very close to having all graphics needed.

– The audio shootouts are 2% finished.

I’ve decided that if I really want Killer Home Recording to be the most effective method for crushing the learning curve of home recording, I’ve got to do what I initially set out to do when creating this site. I need audio clips, audio clips, and more audio clips. I’ve got $30k of additional gear sitting in my studio and a maxed out credit card.

The goal is to take the next 30 days to do shootout after shootout after shootout to answer all of your recording questions. We’ll tackle the obvious questions like: What’s the best mic for $300? $500? How much impact am I going to see from mic, preamp, compressor, or converter upgrades? We’ll also get in to much bigger issues to see if they make an impact. How important is the room for acoustic guitar recording? Should a guitar amp be left on the floor? Should a drum kit have a carpet rug underneath it? Is a Neumann going to blow away a cheap vocal mic? Are new strings required for electric guitar recording or are they too bright?

We tackle all of these and a zillion other questions in Killer Home Recording.

Conclusion
So that’s the update. I’ve got 30 more days of shootouts, a little bit of text, a little bit of graphics, and Killer Home Recording should be released. I’m excited by Killer Home Recording. I couldn’t have imagined having access to such powerful information that answers essentially all of my audio engineering questions right from the start.

This is part of my new series of gear reviews called: Gear Reviews For Humans

The End!

• Installation – The Ilock made the install a bit buggy, but nothing a few four letter words couldn’t fix.
• Reliability – I had a few instances where the plugins would not load in a mix. In one situation I ditched the SPL plugin and fired up a different plugins because it was a “crucial session” type of thing where I didn’t have time to troubleshoot. Other than that, reliability was excellent. The Ilock is a pain in the ass. I don’t care if it’s the “standard” security method for high end plugins. I deducted a point because the Ilock is expensive and it is sometimes buggy.
• Usability – Any mammal can work the EQ Ranger plugins. It’s your basic graphic EQ. The SPL Transient Designer plugin is even easier. You have two knobs that are clearly labeled “Attack” and “Sustain”. These things are fairly nice to the CPU. While they probably aren’t as CPU friendly as the stock Cubase compressor or EQ, they used quite a bit less CPU power than I expected for high end plugins.
• Sound – The Transient Designer is a must-have tool for anyone doing rock drums! I’d be lost without it. A client commented that I had nailed the Dr. Feelgood sound (he’s not picky) on a particular recording using Superior Drummer 2.0. I would not have been able to do it without the Transient Designer. It does something that compressors can’t quite do. You can do some really crazy stuff with it on other instruments as well.

  The Ranger EQ series sounds great. It never sounds harsh even when using max boost. Most importantly, it lets me mix with the creative side of my brain! I’ll never make fun of graphic EQ again (except in the live sound world har har). The voicings of the various Rangers (Vox Ranger, Bass Ranger, and Full Ranger) are pretty much exactly where they need to be. I do feel the names are misleading because I LOVED the Bass Ranger on drums. I used the Vox Ranger on saxaphone with great results, etc.

• Cost - SPL Transient Designer - $350 (street). Ranger EQ Series: Volume 1 - $350 (street)
• Overall Value – A person could limp by without the Transient Designer if they had to, but it’s MIGHTY nice having that plugin around. MIGHTY NICE! With the right compressors you could come fairly close, I guess, but the Transient Designer is now my go to plugin for parallel compression. You can count on finding two instances of the Transient Designer on all my drum mixes from now until enternity. The Ranger EQ Series is good. Damn good! There are many EQ options out there and at this price it’s not going to win any bang-for-the-buck awards. However, it does provide quite a bang.

The Beginning!

Installation
The SPL plugins use Ilock protection. As with all (supposedly) increased security there is a loss of liberty. I was new to the Ilock game. That stupid thing cost me $40. Oh well. I first installed the Ilock on my home computer and installed the SPL plugins on my home PC which I use with Cubase LE (exclusively for making sure stuff works before moving it over to my non-internet) recording computer.

On my home computer, the installation was a breeze. I already had the Ilock working fine on my home computer, when Cubase LE loaded, it asked me if I wanted to authorize the plugins. I said “yes” and that was the end of that.

On my recording computer, I plugged in the Ilock, plugged in my flash drive to snag my plugins, and the installation process began. Apparently, when I tossed my USB flash drive into slot #2 it disabled the Ilock. Not knowing for sure if the Ilock was working correctly or not, I restarted my computer and fired up Cubase SX3. I was told that no Ilock could be found and so the SPL plugins weren’t loaded.

I moved my Ilock to a different USB card (I have an additional USB 1.1 card because there is a chipset conflict with Cubase SX3’s dongle and my motherboards USB 2.0 ports). Immediately, the Ilock was recognized and the drivers were installed. When I fired up Cubase SX3, there was no mention of any authorization and no plugins to be found. I opened up Devices > Plugin Information and as I figured, Cubase knew they were there but couldn’t load them.

When I clicked on the check to tell Cubase to try loading them again and restarted Cubase SX3, I was asked for authorization and installation went smoothly as it should have.

I guess this isn’t exactly a flaw on SPL’s part other than the fact that Ilock adds just one more thing in the chain to go wrong. GOOOOOODDD! With that said, most high end plugins use this damn Ilock thing for better or worse and that is just the way it is. Whaddya Gonnado?

SPL Ranger Series Volume 1


First and foremost, all 3 of these are graphic EQ plugins which give you different frequencies to play with. I have to admit that I feel a bit of snobbery towards the graphic EQ plugins. I generally viewed them as what the car audio idiot with his hat on sideways would use. (Switch to Mighty Mouse voice) I, WITH MY SUPERIOR AUDIO POWERS, USE THE PARAMETRIC EQ FOR EVERYTHING! (End of Mighty Mouse voice).

With that said, I’m aware of the fact that API makes a graphic EQ, API 560, and there must be SOME reason for that. Mr. Thumpboy certainly doesn’t have an API EQ in his dope ass ride.

Graphic EQ and Parametric EQ: Totally Different Animals
The SPL Ranger Series taught me a little something about audio life. Graphic EQ and Parametric EQ are totally different creatures! They both have their place in audio land. In the future, even if I’m not using the SPL Ranger series, I’ll certainly be using some graphic EQ. I recommend anyone who isn’t using a graphic EQ to pick up one immediately.

So why the change in opinion? Why do I like Graphic EQ? I’ll tell you why! I don’t have to think when I’m using a Graphic EQ. The intense process in my brains that tries to pinpoint the frequency of whatever it is I’m hearing isn’t used. I simply grab a fader and move it. Done. The part of me that puts brain power into the amount of cut and bandwidth is also eliminated. I feel like I’m playing with a guitar amp more than an EQ.

For example, when I open up the Oxford Parametric EQ (which I like A LOT!), every time I immediately tighten my abs. I know I’m about to get hit. I have to think a little extra when using that plugin. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just the cost of the added control that parametric EQ gives. The only problem is you miss out on the possible benefits of Keanu-Reeves style mixing. Sometimes it’s nice going through life with a brain the size of a walnut and mixing is no exception.

I found that when I fired up the SPL EQ Ranger plugins I just tried to make “stuff” sound good. It was faster and more fun. I especially liked using them on high gain electric guitars, which as you may know, is not an instrument I like to EQ. I felt like when I was using the EQ Rangers Series that I was enhancing stuff as opposed to feeling like I’m reducing problems as I usually do with parametric EQ. I liked the fact that frequencies and bandwidth were fixed. Either the EQ was going to work or it wasn’t. I liked approaching EQ with such a disposable mindset.

The Sound
I’m not a guy who gets too wound up about this EQ sounding better than that EQ stuff. The few times I’ve really been blown away by an EQ, I’ve been able to match the results using freebie stuff after the fact. For me, most of the time the differences have been found in the ergonomics of the plugin which influenced me to do this or do that.

With that said, there is something that just sounds pleasant with these plugins. I don’t know what it is and I can’t describe it in words, so I’m not going to. (Maybe it’s because I got them for free!) I just want to say that these plugins sound good to my ear. I didn’t do any hardcore A/Bing. I didn’t use scientific testing. I just liked using them.

Each of the different plugins in the series has it’s own set of frequencies. The Bass Ranger EQ, The Vox Ranger EQ, and the Full Ranger EQ all give different frequencies to tweak. I didn’t get too deep into how one Ranger compares to the other Ranger. However, I do have to say that when I was in need of creative tweaking of just about any track, the EQ Ranger Series was fantastic. I really enjoyed using these plugins!

Sparqee (Robo Forum Member) and I were discussing the role of EQ on the forum the other day and we both pretty much agreed that what makes an EQ really stand out is it’s ability for to solve the problems you hear quickly. I found that the Vox Ranger tested very highly with this criteria.

The Ranger Names
Don’t get too caught up by their respective names. I know that attaching instructions to a product’s title increases sales (How else can one explain the popularity of the Boss Metal Zone?). I thought the Bass Ranger was excellent on drums. It seem to hit the sweet spots just like it did on Bass. I used the Vox Ranger on a saxophone with excellent results. Maybe that’s just my need to break the rules! Look out, cops! I’m on the rampage!

Graphic EQ Limitations
I don’t consider graphic EQ to be all that great at hardcore problem solving. I had a bass guitar that would explode every time a “B” (7th fret, E string) was struck. The Ranger series is not going to fix this. That’s a job for a much more precise kind of tool. Overall, I consider The Ranger series to be the kind of buddy you get drunk with and try to pick up chicks. The Ranger Series is not going to debate the merits of a capitalist society with you. I switched to the Oxford parametric EQ for that, used a super tight Q of 16 and cut an extremely thin sliver out at the frequencies that were leaping out on the B note. Problem solved. Maybe the Oxford and I can sit down and discuss Existentialism.

SPL Transient Designer


Overview
The SPL Transient Designer plugin is good for 3 things: Increasing attack, increasing sustain, and kicking ass. That’s it. (My step dad always said I was only good for 3 things, too, but they were decidedly more negative! Oh well!)

I come from rock drum land. I want to hear a BUNCH of extra crack when I’m sending a snare to aux send for parallel compression. Nothing I’ve ever used is as good at overemphasizing this attack than the SPL Transient Designer. Still to this day the free Kjaehrus Classic Compressor is still my second favorite. In rock drum land, I also want an additional fader/bus with tons of sustain added. I want a fader to bring up the explosion sound as needed. This is one of the most important secrets to mixing rock drums. My typical tool for the job is the URS 1980 compressor. It is very good for this. The Transient Designer is better…most of the time. The Transient Designer added a hint of chaos to the sound which is awesome some times and not-so-awesome other times.

Attack Slipping Through
I’m not sure if it was glitch or what, but I noticed that when I really cooked the Sustain knob sometimes the attack would increase dramatically too. I never really figured out how or why this would happen, but it was obvious during certain snare rolls when certain snares would randomly leap out. I’m not sure if I was just using too aggressively or what but I ended up adding a limiter after the SPL Transient Designer to catch these. Big deal!

Great With Sample Layering
I’ve gotten into this sample layering business quite a bit with drums lately. My clients are eating it up. I’ve found that I can only take the sustain increase so far until all the bleed gets unmanageable. However, when I’m using sample layering and there is no bleed, I can go balls-deep hog wild. I think this is where the SPL Transient Designer really shines. When you can just rip a track in half leaving little more than dried blood and something that resembles old pizza you can get some POWERFUL drum tracks. The kids love it!

Creative Uses
The Transient Designer can be fun when used on “wrong” instruments too. Putting this thing on bass is fun. You can emphasize the attack. You can completely kill the attack in an obtrusive, disgusting way if you choose to overuse it. Good! The best way to tell how good a plugin is is to see how bad it sounds when you abuse it. The SPL Transient Designer definitely passes the abuse test with flying colors. If you can’t turn up a plugin all the way and see the client get mad and quiet for at least 5 minutes as you pretend to like the sound, the plugin needs to be trashed. You can EASILY piss off the clients with this thing.

Of course, all this pissoffability (I’m calling Webster right now. That should be in the dictionary!) isn’t going to work at excessive levels in a mix, but when used with “tasteful” discretion it’s the mega secret to monstrous mixes. At least, this is how I rationalize the ridiculous nature of my mixing style.

Conclusion
These plugins are obviously in the high end market. They sound that way. They are priced that way. The Transient Designer is a must for anyone doing modern rock / metal drums. It’s just that damn good! The Ranger EQ Series is an excellent set of graphic EQ plugins. If you’ve got the $350 and nothing better to do with your time, why not? Get ‘em!

]]> http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/plugins/spl-transient-designer-and-spl-eq-ranger-review/feed/ http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/news/recording-gear-reviews-for-human-beings/ http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/news/recording-gear-reviews-for-human-beings/#comments Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:42:59 +0000 brandondrury http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/?p=148 I’ve got quite a few gear reviews coming up here at RecordingReview.com. As the Killer Home Recording series gets released, the need for me to provide gear reviews will increase, I believe.

I want to say that I’m tired of gear reviews made for dogs. (Apparently, there are dogs who are willing and able to read recording gear reviews). You see, my dog lays on the bed about 22 hours per day. The other 2 hours he breaks stuff, pees, and poops. The end! He has spare time!

I, however, am a human being. I’m writing a home recording book, trying not to fall too behind on a forum (and failing!) , trying to improve my search engine rankings, working out the graphics for my book, discussing code with my programmer, trying not to burn the meat on the skillet, and trying to keep the woman miserable. Oh yeah, I have 3 gear reviews that I’m behind on, a laptop with no Firewire port that I have return and about a billion other things to do.

You get the idea. My dog has more free time than I do!

All of us are busy people. As Brooks from Shawshank Redemption said, “The world went and got itself in a big, damn hurry”.

Why Waste Our Time?
I recently opened up my favorite recording magazine, Tape Op (which is generally badass), and some dude described a handle to a preamp for an entire paragraph. Move over Tolkien! We have a new king to the waste-my-time throne! I’m shocked the guy didn’t describe the mouse he was using to write the article or the chair he was sitting in or the mood of the UPS guy who delivered it. When does it end?

No Handle Reviews!
I don’t give a damn about handles for my preamps. I could see mentioning a handle on a 4×12 cabinet. (I like Boogie cabinets, but those handles HURT!). I don’t lift preamps often and when I do they don’t weigh enough for me to care about the handle. The preamp with the best handle in the world gets 0 additional points.

Gear Is Not Art!
I don’t care what anyone says. Gear is not art. It’s there to make art (or noise in my case). While I do have some swords I need to hang up, no one with any sense tosses a rackmount piece of gear on the wall. I don’t care about the outside appearance of recording gear. Therefore, I will not make mention of the way an EQ plugin looks. I respect the fact that your time is just as limited as mine.

Note: Ergonomics do play a part with any tool and in the event that way a unit looks effects the way I use it, I will make a note.

Short And Sweet
I’m going to do my gear reviews differently. I’m going to post the conclusions first in a bulleted list. I’m going to post the prices right after that. I’m going to get in, kick ass, and get out. If you want to read the whole thing, knock yourself out. If not, I saved you some time.

Some gear manufacturers will wonder why they only got a 300 word review. To these manufacturers, I can only say that I said what I needed to say. If they have complaints, I’ll gladly address them. However, my brevity is a function of respect to my users, not laziness.

Brandon

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