I made a decision a while back that I would not go “all in” on high end preamps in 2021. I just finished paying off all of the studio construction and basic gear needs to be operational and I’d like some time spent building up a larger savings reserve than the one I presently have which is looking a little anemic. Also I need to buy a new vehicle in the spring, but might be able to stretch that out since the pandemic has me not driving anywhere nearly as much. My wife and I are also looking at A-frame popup campers. All of this amounts to my plan of having four channels of transformerless, four channels of 1073, four channels of 312 and four channels of tube is going to wait for a year or so.
I did, however, want a stereo pair of “money” channels with a bypassable hardware compressor inline being fed by a preamp with input and output transformers with independent input and output gain controls for getting that sweet saturation on the way in. I did some shootouts over the last couple months to see where I was going to spend my money. I did this silently so as not to be influenced by folks on the internet.
Despite going up against some much higher priced competition I ended up with the very reasonably priced ART TransX. Jensen transformers and stepped pots are nice touches, but what did it was how similar this thing sounded to API 312c style preamps. A little darker than a true 312 but much tighter than something like a 1073, which is great for the right application, but the TransX feels voiced as a “do a lot of thing a great” type of transformer-equipped preamp. I should note that the real winner was the Daking preamp which was stunningly great sounding, but quite a bit more than I wanted to spend at this point. If I had to choose one type of preamp for all of my inputs, and money was not a consideration, what would be the one hands down.
On multiple input type sources, most notably drums or when recording more than one performer at a time, the plan is to use the TransX for the two most critical pieces, my Line Audio 8MP for the bulk of the session, and then any additional channel needs to can be handled by my older Mackie Blackbird which has eight channels of quite nice and very linear Onyx preamps connected to my 16A via ADAT. I’ve never needed 18 channels at once, so I should be covered for all situations at this point.
For the compressor I considered the matching TransY, but given that it’s closer to a FET-driven compressor like an 1176 I opted not to go that route. The compressor will be used in the signal path almost exclusively for vocals, and for my taste on that task I’m much more into the LA2A thing than the 1176 thing. Without hearing it in person, mostly due to a shortage of compressor I could easily rent, I went with the ART VLA Pro II. Many reviews describe it as being able to cop a pseudo-LA2A vibe with specific attack and release settings, even though the LA2A’s attack and release are program dependent. Some reviews complained that the factory tubes were mismatched and one reported a microphonic tube right out of the box. To that end I grabbed a balanced and matched pair of JJ ECC81s from Eurotubes. I’m going to put those in tomorrow.
Pictures and test impressions to come tomorrow. I’d do it tonight but it’s raining so hard here in West Seattle that I don’t want to walk the 15’ from my back door to my studio
I did, however, want a stereo pair of “money” channels with a bypassable hardware compressor inline being fed by a preamp with input and output transformers with independent input and output gain controls for getting that sweet saturation on the way in. I did some shootouts over the last couple months to see where I was going to spend my money. I did this silently so as not to be influenced by folks on the internet.
Despite going up against some much higher priced competition I ended up with the very reasonably priced ART TransX. Jensen transformers and stepped pots are nice touches, but what did it was how similar this thing sounded to API 312c style preamps. A little darker than a true 312 but much tighter than something like a 1073, which is great for the right application, but the TransX feels voiced as a “do a lot of thing a great” type of transformer-equipped preamp. I should note that the real winner was the Daking preamp which was stunningly great sounding, but quite a bit more than I wanted to spend at this point. If I had to choose one type of preamp for all of my inputs, and money was not a consideration, what would be the one hands down.
On multiple input type sources, most notably drums or when recording more than one performer at a time, the plan is to use the TransX for the two most critical pieces, my Line Audio 8MP for the bulk of the session, and then any additional channel needs to can be handled by my older Mackie Blackbird which has eight channels of quite nice and very linear Onyx preamps connected to my 16A via ADAT. I’ve never needed 18 channels at once, so I should be covered for all situations at this point.
For the compressor I considered the matching TransY, but given that it’s closer to a FET-driven compressor like an 1176 I opted not to go that route. The compressor will be used in the signal path almost exclusively for vocals, and for my taste on that task I’m much more into the LA2A thing than the 1176 thing. Without hearing it in person, mostly due to a shortage of compressor I could easily rent, I went with the ART VLA Pro II. Many reviews describe it as being able to cop a pseudo-LA2A vibe with specific attack and release settings, even though the LA2A’s attack and release are program dependent. Some reviews complained that the factory tubes were mismatched and one reported a microphonic tube right out of the box. To that end I grabbed a balanced and matched pair of JJ ECC81s from Eurotubes. I’m going to put those in tomorrow.
Pictures and test impressions to come tomorrow. I’d do it tonight but it’s raining so hard here in West Seattle that I don’t want to walk the 15’ from my back door to my studio
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The Art stuff always seems to offer pretty good bang for the buck. We picked up a Warm WA2A awhile back at an insane discount and it’s been a great piece of gear.
