also, by the time you put together all the Portico's needed you might as well buy a Portico II Channel.
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Neve Portico II - Warning: Fanboy Content!
- Thread starter RTL
- Start date
also, by the time you put together all the Portico's needed you might as well buy a Portico II Channel.
OK. But how about a more general answer to the question. Where's the magic?
I'm hoping the answer isn't some nebulous "it's the synergy of everything working together". EQ is valuable on a channel strip insofar as it allows you a fine-grained spectral control over your signal. Sure, boosting and cutting can have felicitous saturation and distortion effects, but, if the EQ isn't engaged, you get none of that. So, presumably, if the Portico II is great, it's still great without the tone-shaping options.
Which leads me to think it's the preamp and compressor combination. But enlighten me!
I'm hoping the answer isn't some nebulous "it's the synergy of everything working together". EQ is valuable on a channel strip insofar as it allows you a fine-grained spectral control over your signal. Sure, boosting and cutting can have felicitous saturation and distortion effects, but, if the EQ isn't engaged, you get none of that. So, presumably, if the Portico II is great, it's still great without the tone-shaping options.
Which leads me to think it's the preamp and compressor combination. But enlighten me!
I'm not really sure how to answer your question.
The Portico range is IC Op Amp based.
The Portico II Channel has Discrete Class A Op Amps at high voltage rails.
I can't say that there are no IC's op amps in the Portico II, but they are in feedback loops and not "directly" in the signal path.
The EQ in the Portico II is a completely different topology.
There is a new transformer that was designed for the Portico II series (yes, there is more coming). I guess this is where a lot of the magic comes from. There was a lot of development in the Silk settings to get that vintage Neve flavor.
Hope this answer isn't too nebulous. Seriously though, I wouldn't say that "it's the synergy of everything working together", but I would say that it is the sum of the parts that results in the overall sound or tone of the box.
Thanks.
Let me put the question another way. How would a bass sound in one of the half-rack less-expensive Portico strips? What would a bassist be missing?
All I meant about the 'felicitous saturation' point was the truism that we generally find pleasant character in driving the gain stages of high-quality consoles, preamps, EQs and compressors. That shouldn't be too controversial.
Let me put the question another way. How would a bass sound in one of the half-rack less-expensive Portico strips? What would a bassist be missing?
All I meant about the 'felicitous saturation' point was the truism that we generally find pleasant character in driving the gain stages of high-quality consoles, preamps, EQs and compressors. That shouldn't be too controversial.
as far as i'm concerned, rupert is dead-on correct....
you do not have to worry about clipping the input stage. you would have to throw some serious signal levels into this thing before it clips.
(...Rupert thinks pads are cheating, but don't tell anyone...
You would need at least 3 Portico Modules to get the main features of the Portico II Channel.
Sure, one Portico Module is considerably less expensive than the Portico II Channel, but if you want a Hi-Z input, 5-band EQ, Compressor - that's 3 Portico modules.
I have never tried it but I bet a complete channel strip comprised of Porticos would sound fantastic!
Damn.
However, I could've sworn that Rupert said it was single-ended.. Something about how there's no push-pull going on, so there's no possibility of crossover distortion.. But it could also be that I have no idea what I'm talking about. Hahaha.
ran across this thread again while cleaning out my subscribed threads folder.
wanted to correct myself here - it is single-ended. straight class-a output stages on each of our discrete op-amps running on +/-36V rails and operation is single-ended.
lucas
Wow. Zombie thread + weird stalker action!
Anyway... Yeah, I did figure out pretty quickly that the Portico II isn’t the most practical thing to use live. It also doesn’t like questionable power sources, which you tend to find at a lot of clubs/bars/whatever. It sounded absolutely wonderful, but it just wasn’t a great idea to schlep it around in a bass rig. I retired it from the road and used it for home tracking for a while. Ended up selling it to a friend who got way more use out of it than I did. I picked up a B|Amp and more Berg cabinets not long after, and I’m totally thrilled with them.
Anyway... Yeah, I did figure out pretty quickly that the Portico II isn’t the most practical thing to use live. It also doesn’t like questionable power sources, which you tend to find at a lot of clubs/bars/whatever. It sounded absolutely wonderful, but it just wasn’t a great idea to schlep it around in a bass rig. I retired it from the road and used it for home tracking for a while. Ended up selling it to a friend who got way more use out of it than I did. I picked up a B|Amp and more Berg cabinets not long after, and I’m totally thrilled with them.
