strangeandbouncy
Well-known member
Hi Guys,
Peter has very kindly lent me one of these to try. I have been using it daily for 3 months or so now. This is something REALLY special. I have tried it for vocals male and female, percussion( tamb. shaker, cajon, etc,) and d.i.'d acoustic, electric guitars and bass. Also as a single room mic . I have a number of fabulous mic pres already(API, Helios, Pye, Audix, Glensound, my own concoctions with Neve input trannnies, Gainbloak, and API output trannies etc etc. I am A/Bing all the time with that which I'd normally use for any particular purpose(no pun intended!). Hands down, this rules the roost chez strangeandbouncy. The level of detail is astonishing, top, middle and bottom. I would sum up by saying that the sound is extremely unfatigueing yet very clear and present. I cannot wait to try a bunch of these on a drumkit, where I am certain they would excel too. We use Dean St quite a lot for drums, and they have 8 1073's and a 16 channel discrete Melbourne as well as Wonder, Great River etc. I am looking forward to a shootout soon!
The artist I am working with has the most problematic voice I have yet encountered in 25 years. Not one of my large collection of mics(tube and otherwise) works for him, and in the end, we ended up with a £300 Beyer m160 ribbon mic, which kindly ignores his sibilance entirely. This left him with quite a reasonable but muddy sound with an API, too soft a sound with a rented Massenburg, and, you guessed it!, absolutely spot on with the LA-Z.
I also tried some 2520's in this pre. They didn't stay in for very long at all. Peters DOA just won outright on every source for me. The level of detail is superb, and they sound faster, with a cleaner top end, and just as much grunt lower down. On a vocal, there is much more detail in the midrange.
I tried out the DI quite a lot too. I have never really like using the DI input on Pre's like the API in the past. They can sound a bit flat, missing out on all that iron. I am in love with the EMO passive DI boxes for guitar and bass, and personally love the colour they bring to the table. I was surprised to find that we frequently preferred the sound plugging straight into the LA-Z, especially with electric guitar that was being severely mangled in Ampfarm or Sansamp. - Nice to learn something new!
The dual gain stage is actually very cool, with quite a subtle range of tones available. Where this really comes into it's own is on di'd guitars going through say Ampfarm where a slight tweek of the relative levels can really turn on the creme! Friday I discovered even more fun can be had using a 600ohm constant impedance attenuator after the pre, and instead of the unsubtle beak-up I am used too, a much more controllable pallette ensues.
I don't often use a highpass whilst recording, but I won't hesitate to use this one if I need to. Does what it says on the tin. Smooth and effective. Just rolls off the bottom with no smearing to my ears.
All in all, I'd say Peter has cracked it with this one. It looks great, wonderful construction, easy build, and a sound to die for. (What more do you want? Magic-eye metering? A free holiday? A hit record? The six winning lottery numbers?)
If anyone has any questions about how they perform, please don't hesitate to ask.
Kindest regards,
ANdyP
Peter has very kindly lent me one of these to try. I have been using it daily for 3 months or so now. This is something REALLY special. I have tried it for vocals male and female, percussion( tamb. shaker, cajon, etc,) and d.i.'d acoustic, electric guitars and bass. Also as a single room mic . I have a number of fabulous mic pres already(API, Helios, Pye, Audix, Glensound, my own concoctions with Neve input trannnies, Gainbloak, and API output trannies etc etc. I am A/Bing all the time with that which I'd normally use for any particular purpose(no pun intended!). Hands down, this rules the roost chez strangeandbouncy. The level of detail is astonishing, top, middle and bottom. I would sum up by saying that the sound is extremely unfatigueing yet very clear and present. I cannot wait to try a bunch of these on a drumkit, where I am certain they would excel too. We use Dean St quite a lot for drums, and they have 8 1073's and a 16 channel discrete Melbourne as well as Wonder, Great River etc. I am looking forward to a shootout soon!
The artist I am working with has the most problematic voice I have yet encountered in 25 years. Not one of my large collection of mics(tube and otherwise) works for him, and in the end, we ended up with a £300 Beyer m160 ribbon mic, which kindly ignores his sibilance entirely. This left him with quite a reasonable but muddy sound with an API, too soft a sound with a rented Massenburg, and, you guessed it!, absolutely spot on with the LA-Z.
I also tried some 2520's in this pre. They didn't stay in for very long at all. Peters DOA just won outright on every source for me. The level of detail is superb, and they sound faster, with a cleaner top end, and just as much grunt lower down. On a vocal, there is much more detail in the midrange.
I tried out the DI quite a lot too. I have never really like using the DI input on Pre's like the API in the past. They can sound a bit flat, missing out on all that iron. I am in love with the EMO passive DI boxes for guitar and bass, and personally love the colour they bring to the table. I was surprised to find that we frequently preferred the sound plugging straight into the LA-Z, especially with electric guitar that was being severely mangled in Ampfarm or Sansamp. - Nice to learn something new!
The dual gain stage is actually very cool, with quite a subtle range of tones available. Where this really comes into it's own is on di'd guitars going through say Ampfarm where a slight tweek of the relative levels can really turn on the creme! Friday I discovered even more fun can be had using a 600ohm constant impedance attenuator after the pre, and instead of the unsubtle beak-up I am used too, a much more controllable pallette ensues.
I don't often use a highpass whilst recording, but I won't hesitate to use this one if I need to. Does what it says on the tin. Smooth and effective. Just rolls off the bottom with no smearing to my ears.
All in all, I'd say Peter has cracked it with this one. It looks great, wonderful construction, easy build, and a sound to die for. (What more do you want? Magic-eye metering? A free holiday? A hit record? The six winning lottery numbers?)
If anyone has any questions about how they perform, please don't hesitate to ask.
Kindest regards,
ANdyP
![[silent:arts]](https://cdn.imagearchive.com/groupdiy/data/avatars/m/0/172.jpg?1620371656){kind=avatar}
