ProAudio Review - November 2008 - (Page 46)

www.proaudioreview.com Endless Analog’s CLASP—an interface linking DAWs and classic analog tape machines—is a testament to the evergreen desire for analog processing in the studio. Now $20,000 can equip a reasonably highly capable DAW-based system, and minimalist personal studios—which represent the largest market segment—can be productive with an investment of 1/10 that amount. The console and recorder of the 1980s control room were accessorized with little more than a reverb plate and a few compressors. A studio chose its console based on its designed-in characteristic sound. If you were a Neve-based studio, you attracted clients who preferred that sound over the sound of the studio across town with the API or Harrison console. Downsizing, personalization, and changes in the way most studios operate today contributed to the manner in which “basic” studio equipment has evolved and how it is accessorized. With few studios physically equipped to track a full band or orchestra playing together in a room, the demand for a recording console console modules have been racked up and sold, so a plethora of new and fairly accurate replications of the older console modules appeared in rack-mount format. In addition, we now have many new products from companies such as Great River, Millennia Media, and Tonelux that carry on the tradition of high-quality design and manufacturing, but with more contemporary sound and features. Old school console survivors— such as API, Solid State Logic, and Focusrite—are now also offering new modular processors and preamps with one foot planted in “Unlike much of today’s digital gear, there’s more to using an analog recorder than simply buying it and plugging it in feeding these beasts is a serious commitment” with a large number of inputs has greatly diminished. A taste of “the warm analog sound,” even when working with just a few inputs, resulted in clever engineers and entrepreneurs packaging input channel modules from decommissioned large-format consoles into convenient rack-mounted signal processors, bringing characteristic sound of a vintage console to the modern digital control room. Most of the available genuine traditional design and the other in modern manufacturing and interfacing methods. Compressors and limiters used in studios of the 1980s were borrowed from related industries. The limiter was a staple in the broadcast studio, primarily to prevent overmodulation of the transmitter. As a standard component in a disk mastering system, the limiter was used to prevent the cutting stylus from jumping out of the groove, ruining the master and perhaps damaging the cutter head while allowing a higher average level to be cut on the disk. As multitrack recording became the norm in the studio, the desire to compress individual tracks to fit them into a complex mix as well as to keep the signal as far above the tape noise floor as possible sent new customers into the broadcast market for their UREI LA2 limiters (as well as dumpster-diving for the hard-to-maintain Fairchild 670 limiter that was being replaced in mastering labs). There’s still a demand for the many new analog compressors in the marketplace—some re-creations of the classics of the ‘70s and ‘80s, and some new designs. One problem that has flummoxed a lot of digital studio owners who crave the traditional Shawn Murphy, Scoring Mixer analog compressor or a classic equalizer in line when tracking is this: Where the heck should you plug the darned thing in? The configuration of a mic preamp integrated with a digital-toanalog converter—often incorporating a FireWire or USB computer interface—leaves no opening in the line level signal path for an ana- 46 ProAudioReview | November 2008 http://www.proaudioreview.com http://www.ribbonmics.com http://www.ribbonmics.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ProAudio Review - November 2008

ProAudio Review - November 2008 Contents Technically Speaking First Look 2008 PAR Excellence Awards New Studio Products Studio Sense Review: Solid State Logic Matrix Review: Arsenal Audio by API R24, V14, and R20 Mini-Review Review, Second Opinion, and Benchtest Review: A-Designs HM2EQ HAMMER Review: Sontronics Sigma Phantom Powered Ribbon Microphone Analog In The Studio: Nostalgia Ain’t What It Used To Be New Live Products Worship Audio Review: Community VERIS Series Loudspeakers Installation Profile Single Slice

ProAudio Review - November 2008

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