For
the gear-heads out there we would like to offer an update on new
aquisitions and real-world uses of our current collection. One of
our most recent purchases was a pair of sequentially-numbered vintage
Neumann KM85 small diaphragm condenser mics. Highly versatile mics
either individually or as a stereo pair, the KM85s add just one
more color to our palette of vintage and modern microphones. Another
recently aquired piece of gear was a Dytronics CS-5 Tri Stereo Chorus,
which has been called by some one of the greatest rackmount chorus
units ever made. Already the few who have tried it out here on the
farm are quite taken with it, and the rest of our crew is each itching
for his own opportunity to try it on something.
In other gear-related news, we've been using our Lavry Blue A/D,
D/A, and mic pre units for a number of months now and feel we can
now comment fully on our success with these tools. One of the most
important things we discovered very early on was that just using
the word clock output from the Lavry to clock our Pro Tools gear
via an Apogee Big Ben improved the sound of all of our A/D and D/A,
even over using the Apogee's low-jitter clock! Currently we use
a Lavry for this purpose in both Studio's A and B. We have also
been making regular use of the Lavry A/D converters, of which we
currently have a total of six channels. We tend to use these converters
either on critical overdubs, or for bringing our stereo mixdown
back into Pro Tools in Studio A, in which case we often choose to
use the Lavry's "soft-limit" analog saturation feature.
We also use these converters when bringing 1/2" analog masters
into the digital realm so we can be as true as possible to the audio
captured on that tape. As for the mic pre's, we've found them comparable
to similar designs by Millenia or Grace in terms of clarity and
clean sound, a nice alternative to our Neve modules for instruments
like piano, acoustic guitar, and vocals when that type of purity
is desired. Mooka found them quite useful on a particular acoustic
guitar overdub: a Taylor 12-string, miced with a Korby Convertible
with a 67 capsule and an AKG 451, into the Lavry pre's, into a Manley
stereo Variable-MU compressor, into the Lavry A/D. In short, with
the Lavry we feel digital audio is finally realizing some of its
full potential.
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