Recording - July 2012 - 34

BY PAUL VNUK JR. AND ALLEN GOODMAN

Chandler Limited
Little Devil and Germ 500 MKII 500-Series Preamps and Little Devil Colored Boost and Germanium Drive Guitar Pedals Little Devil Preamp
Matching the fire-engine red look of the previous Little Devils, the Preamp is a single-space, fully enclosed 500-Series mic pre. It has a class-A amplifier circuit with custom-wound balanced input and output transformers along with a transformerless 1/4" input. Controlled burn A large black input knob with 66 dB of gain is complemented by a smaller output trim knob. Also present: the usual suspects of phantom power, phase, and a low cut/hi-pass switch set at 100 Hz. As with many mic pres, you can alter a signal’s tone and presence by driving the input into the output. If Chandler had stopped at that you would have a solid, slightly vintage-toned mic pre, but in between the input gain and the output trim are a pair of controls that give this Devil its fire! Bright and biased A Brightness switch adds a touch more top end. A Feedback/Bias knob opens up a wide range of sonic possibilites. Chandler took the variable feedback feature from its Germanium preamp and went several steps further, allowing simultaneous change of bias of the gain stage and the feedback. The Bias part is similar to what you would find on a tape machine, where starving or exciting the bias adds grit and goo all the way to unique colors of saturated overdrive. At low levels of Feedback (counterclockwise) the Preamp gets quieter and cleaner; when pushed clockwise, Feedback blossoms into louder and harmonically fuller tones. It’s also a DI and a signal processor While microphone connections are made on the rear of your chosen 500-Series enclosure, the front panel also includes a switchable 1/4" DI input along with two additional switches that determine the Little Devil’s use. One switch changes the impedance between low and high, which is handy when using the Devil as a bass or guitar DI, and also works on the mic side to alter the sound of dynamic and ribbon microphones by affecting how their signals are loaded. An additional switch changes the unit’s input from a mic level signal to a line level signal and allows the unit to be used as in-line audio processor to add some fire and mojo to your cold digital tracks. The Devil is in the details The Little Devil Preamp is a tweaky piece of the highest order and offers a wide range of sonic choices. This preamp can be small, soft and clean, big, bold and forward or fuzzy, buzzy and even over the top lo-fi. Despite this broad range of choices it manages to maintain its own aural identity and not fall into clone or tribute territory. My biggest question was how it would compare to one of my favorite Chandler pieces, the TG-2 preamp, of which I have 4 channels in my studio. To my ears it nails the TG-2’s mid section nicely, but the Devil has a fuller, almost Neve-ish low-end weight, and the real difference is in the highs. I find the TG-2’s high-end to be blunt, forward and quite in-your-face. The Devil Pre’s highs are a tad brighter, slightly airy and more around you than at you. Both units can go from tame to aggressive, but each in its own way.

Chandler Limited makes high-end microphone preamps, equalizers, compressors, and more. The company proudly states that “Your Devil is handmade in the USA by real people” using “time proven through-hole audio components, discrete transistors, and large transformers just like they did in the golden age of gear.” Chandler offers five distinct lines: The Neve-ish LTD series, the TG series of EMI reproductions, a Germanium line, and Chandler’s newest entries, the 500-Series Little Devil modules and the Guitar Pedal line. Rather than being a clone, a copy or an “inspired by” series, the Little Devils are original designs by Wade Chandler Goeke, and the pedals start off with well-established Chandler designs and add tone tweaks and features to make them guitarist-friendly. Back in our June 2010 issue we looked at the Little Devil EQ and Compressor. This month Paul takes a look at the newest addition, the Little Devil Mic Preamp, and also at the revamped Germ 500 preamp module. The first two Chandler pedals, the Germanium Drive and Little Devil Colored Boost, are reviewed by Allen.—MM
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RECORDING JULY 2012

Recording - July 2012

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