Recording - February 2010 - 34

B Y PA U L V N U K J R . PreSonus Studio Channel A handy and affordable channel strip with nice sonic benefits For close to fifteen years PreSonus has been outfitting studios and musicians with gear that ranges from the budget to the boutique—computer interfaces, signal processors, monitor controllers, mic pres, mixers and more. This month we look at the company’s newest signal processor: The Studio Channel. It’s a channel strip that starts with a Class-A vacuum tube microphone preamp and follows that with a VCA-based compressor and a 3-band equalizer. PreSonus already makes a well-respected channel strip called the Eureka (reviewed in our September 2004 issue), and while the Eureka and the Studio Channel do share similar layout and functions, the big difference is that the Eureka is solid state while the Studio Channel is tubebased, using a 12AX7 tube (as do the PreSonus TubePre and BlueTube DP). The Studio Channel’s stylish midnightblue metal chassis is solid and should easily handle the stress of day-to-day use. Its rotary knobs are firm, and while I would not call them “stepped” like you find on some higher-end gear, they are clickdetented for easy recall. Every button is smooth and brightly backlit. Rear connections and front-panel controls Found on the back of the unit, input is a straightforward choice of either an XLR microphone or 1/4" line in. Output is a choice of balanced TRS or XLR jacks. Power is handled by an external DC wall wart, and there is an expansion slot for the future addition of a digital output card (currently in planning). The Studio Channel, unlike the Eureka, has no individual inputs and outputs for each of its three sections, nor is there an external send/return loop. The tastefully color-coded fascia (green pushbuttons, white rotary pot knobs, orange VU meter and associated two knobs) is clearly delineated into —from left to right— the Tube Preamplifier, Compressor, VU meter, Parametric Equalizer, and an overall Master Level knob (–80 to +10 dB). Tube Preamplifier: This section on the far left sports a 1/4" TS Instrument input jack (not for line-level signals, only for direct connection of a high-impedance signal like guitar or bass—plugging into this jack bypasses the mic preamp). A Gain knob regulates input gain of the XLR Mic input and the 1/4" Instrument input (44 dB of variable gain, from +10 dB to +54 dB), and a Tube Drive knob controls how much of the input signal is routed into the tube stage. Above, four pushbuttons switch in or out phantom power, polarity reversal, 20 dB pad, and highpass filter to roll off low end below 80 Hz by 12 dB. Compressor: The full-featured compressor section has rotary pot knobs for Threshold (–40/+20), Ratio (1:1 to 10:1), Attack (0.1 to 200 ms), Release (0.05 ms to 3 S), and Make-Up Gain (±10 dB). Pushbuttons switch in or out the following: Soft Knee (In)/Hard Knee (Out) compression curves, Auto Attack/Release (disables the A/R knobs and invokes a factory-preset response), EQ-precomp (In) or EQ-post-comp (Out), GR>Meter (causes the VU meter to show either the compressor’s gain reduction or the Studio Channel’s output level), and Bypass (of the compressor section). Metering: The VU meter is big and bright and can be switched between gain reduction and overall output monitoring. Equalizer: The three-band parametric equalizer offers the following controls: Two rotary controls each for Low and High, three for Mids, and two pushbuttons. The Gain is the same for all three, at –10 to +10 dB. The Freq knobs are Low 20–300 Hz, Mid 200 Hz to 3 kHz, High 2 kHz–20 kHz. The Mid band also has a Q knob, fully sweepable from 0.7 to 2.5. Both the low and high bands offer a push-button choice of fixed 0.7 peak or shelving Q. The equalizer, just like the compressor, can also be bypassed. The sound of the strip The big question, how does it all sound? The mic pre sounds quite good and is a step up from most preamps found in current budget mixers and in most entry level USB and FireWire recording interfaces. I compared it to the Mackie Onyx preamps, which are found in mixers and FireWire interfaces bearing the Onyx name. I have always held the Onyx in high regard as RECORDING FEBRUARY 2010

Recording - February 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - February 2010