Recording April 2022 - 54

REVIEW
PreSonus: Revelator USB mic
A go-anywhere multi-pattern USB mic and software bundle
REVIEW BY BILL STUNT
P
reSonus has an enviable track record of developing affordable,
high-quality audio hardware and software. Its Revelator 'studio in a
mic' package shows this off by bundling an attractively priced multipattern,
DSP-enhanced USB mic with a deep suite of audio software and
utilities, illustrating once again the PreSonus way of adding useful extras
to every product it offers.
R2Dtude
Revelator displays all the PreSonus
hallmarks. It's solidly built, attractive,
and smart. Mounted on its cleverly designed
desk stand, the mic has a cool
droid-like look. The stand seats the mic
high enough to afford easy access to the
USB-C and 1/8 " headphone connections.
There is a channel cutout at the
rear of the stand's horseshoe-shaped
base for routing cables. Revelator is
bus-powered, so its design and absence
of a power cable make for a tidy workspace.
If you prefer or need to use a
floor or boom stand, Revelator comes
with an adapter that screws into the bottom
of the mic.
On the face of it
The front of the Revelator is adorned
with a pair of buttons and a volume
knob, each with multiple functions. By
default,
the knob controls
54 RECORDING April 2022
the
output
level of your headphones. Pressing the
Monitor button turns the knob blue. In
this mode, the knob is used for adjusting
the balance between your computer
audio and the mic. Turning to the left
increases the input level relative to playback
and the inverse to the right. Pressing
and holding the Monitor button turns
the knob green, controlling microphone
preamp gain. The knob will flash red if
the level is too hot. Finally, pressing the
knob mutes the mic.
The Preset button cycles you through
onboard DSP EQ, compression and FX
presets. Pressing and holding the Preset
button bypasses processing. Four presets
are available directly from the mic
at any given time. You can choose from
the supplied list or create your own and
load them into onboard user slots. How
you do that gets us to one of the coolest
parts of this bundle, the Universal Control
application.
Set the controls for the heart
of the mic
The Universal Control app is where you
set typical interface settings like bit rate,
sample depth and buffer size. It is also
the GUI for the mic's DSP functions. Here
you can select the mic's polarity and make
frequency, dynamics, and FX adjustments
to the input signal. The onboard 'Fat
Channel' EQs, compressors, gate, and
limiter are the same 'State Space' modeled
processors that PreSonus supplies with
its mixers in the StudioLive range, such
as the 32S console that's at the heart of
my studio!
Onboard effects include reverb, delay,
and various filters. The mic input channel
has a dedicated reverb send with a
return fader in the UC mixer. There are
controls to tweak the type, size, and
pre-delay of the reverb, as well as insert
and set a high pass filter. You can save
any changes you make as presets for future
use.
The UC app has mixer controls for routing
and blending loopback audio from Skype,
Zoom, or system audio sources. This makes
it easy to set up livestream performances
(with or without backing tracks), interviews,
podcasting, and for narrating gameplay,
instructional, or review videos. While the
mix is controlled in the app, the actual mixer
lives onboard the mic. This hardware
Recording April 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording April 2022
