Dangerous D-box review

After comparing a ITB mix to a mix I did on a SSL duality I knew the analog console sound is what I wanted for my mixes. Since I won’t be spending $300,00 for an SSL Duality console or $23,000 for the SSL Matrix, I knew an analog summing box was what I needed. I was very close to purchasing the SSL 8 channel summing mixer and mynx, but learning it needed special cables was a turn off. Plus the vertical case design of the Mynx would make for an awkward set up in my studio. When I told my Sweetwater rep I was looking for an analog summing box he pointed me to the Dangerous D-box. After researching it and seeing its features compared to its price I went ahead and purchased. The D-box is really bang for your buck gear. You get 8 channels of analog summing, 2 headphones jacks, an extra analog input, talk back, outputs for 2 pair of monitors, a mono switch, and my favorite feature, 2 digital inputs for Dangerous d/a conversion. All this for $1,399. Combined with the Dangerous 2bus-lt and you have 24 tracks of summing plus the d-box features for less than $3,000. Since I mentioned the d/a conversion was my favorite feature lets look at that first. The d/a conversion on the D-box sounds so good I would pay the price of the D-box just for it. Seriously. Its not transparent like my Lynx Aurora, but compared to it the D-box has a more “hi-fi” sound to me. Switching between the two the D-box has a slight lift you can feel. With Focal CMS65 monitors and the D-box d/a conversion all my mixes have translated very nicely. There is also a second digital input you can use labeled CD. So that gorgeous “hi-fi” sounding d/a conversion can be used for whatever else you like. Think of it like dating two beautiful twins that you can switch between. The monitor selector is one switch that toggles two pair of monitors. Cool thing about the switch is that it has momentary toggle. This means when you hold the switch it will switch monitors, and when you let go it will revert back to the monitors you were originally listening to. It also has a mono switch which I love. I always check my mix in mono to make sure I can still hear everything clearly. Also when I have background or lead vocals that I spread out a little, I can quickly get it back in the middle by soloing the track and pressing mono. Now I have it in the middle of the mix and I’m able to add processing without losing my panning I have set. Incredibly useful. The talkback also has momentary toggle. Press to talk, release and the talkback mic is off. Now for the main reason I purchased this, the analog summing. I find the analog summing from the D-box to be on the clean side, but definitely a winner for removing digital harshness. The D-box added punch, and widened the stereo image of my mixes just like the SSL board. I feel the SSL had more separation but that could also be due to the SSL Alphalink converters the console is connected to. The d-sub connections on the back make for easy connection as well. So what don’t I like about the D-box? Not much, my few gripes are in no way deal breakers. One, I wish it had a dim switch, and two, I wish I could run both pair of my monitors to my sub and into the D-box. Spoke with Dangerous and found out the dim switch would make the price go up a lot. I’m still hoping for a sub control if Dangerous decides to do a mkII. Even if they don’t the D-box is the heart of my studio and It will continue to be for many years. I plan to purchase the 2bus-lt in the future for 24x2 analog summing, making my setup extremely, dare I say, DANGEROUS!

Empirical Labs Mike-e Review

So I’ve had my Mike-e for about 5 months now and I’m ready to write a review. To start, when the mike-e says its a mic pre amp with new tricks, its not lying. This has been my go to pre since first using it, defeating my previous favorite pre, the Avalon 737. First off, when I got my mike-e hooked up for the first time I could not get the phantom power to work. After extensive troubleshooting I contacted Empirical Labs. Dave Derr quickly responded and sent me a new mike-e. When I got the new mike-e, I couldn’t get phantom power to work either. WTF! Took to it to another studio and phantom power worked fine. At this point I’m going crazy trying to figure out why I can't get phantom to work. Well Dave ends up sending me an email telling me to make sure I don’t have the mic and line input connected at the same time. Well sure enough I did. So basically if you have a mic and line input connected at the same time it will cancel out the phantom power. This is no problem for me because I just mix in my studio, I don’t record, so I leave the line input connected. For a recording studio this could be tricky since both can’t be connected at the same time. The mike-e to me is parts of all empirical labs products rolled into one, excluding the lil freQ. You get a very clean mic pre with saturation borrowed from the fatso, and a compressor borrowed from the famous distressor. In tracking hip-hop vocals I found the mike-e to sound bigger than the Avalon 737, way bigger than my Joemeek TwinQ, and a tad bigger then Great River 500 series pre. It makes vocals sound huge with the comp/sat section. Between hitting the mic pre hard and really driving the saturation circuit, you can get a lot of different tones from this channel strip. I’ve been running lead vocals for almost every mix I do through it with great results. It really brings the vocal forward and in your face in a mix. I also tracked bass with it through the DI adding a little saturation and compression. The bass player was very pleased with the sound. One of my favorite features about the mike-e is that when you power it off it saves your setting. So lets say you or your assistant forgot to fill out the recall sheet for the session, or you want to run the signal through the same setting you recorded it with when its time to mix. Well when you power it back it on all your setting that are digital like attack, release, etc, will be maintained. Pretty cool! Since I thought I had a bad unit and ELI sent me another, for a few weeks I had 2 mike-e in my possession. What to do with two mike-e’s? Put them on mix buss of course! I normally use a chameleon labs 7720 on mix buss. I used the mike-e’s with its slowest attack and fastest release will driving the saturation hitting the toasty light on the peaks with no more than 3db gain reduction. I don’t know how much was the mike-e and how much was my mixing skills but having it on mix buss gave me what I think is one of my top 3 mixes ever. I love the distressor on drum buss so its not surprising that two mike-e’s on drum buss worked very well. The mike-e has a wet/dry knob for parallel compression on the unit. No need to blend in your parallel compression with your DAW fader. As I said before, this is now my go to pre for tracking vocals. Empirical Labs customer support was great. I hated to send back the second unit but I didn’t have an extra $1600 laying around in my account. But after a few more purchases I will definitely be picking up a second mike-e. There is a insert mod available and a transformer output mod will be available soon. Not crazy about the insert mod but the transformer mod will be mandatory for me once it becomes available.

Sweetwater Gearfest 2011

First of all, let me say I love Ft Wayne Indiana. Nice people, good food, and seems to be a quiet city. Our second day there we ate breakfast at Cosmo’s. We got a huge omelet and two pancakes for $6.29! The food was amazing, which reminds me I need to leave them a good review on Google.
Gearfest 2011 for me was better than last year. I think the seminars was better last year but the experience was better this year. I went with my good friend and fellow engineer/producer/mixer Darius Lyles. Darius is a great at what he does, anyone in the Memphis area should definitely hit him up (dlyles_3@yahoo.com) if you need any recording, production, etc. All of the same vendors was there, plus and minus a few from last year. I spent the most time at the JDK audio booth contemplating purchasing a R24. Best seminar we attended was Fab Dupont showing off how he mixes and masters. If your not familiar with Fab then look him up. He was at Gearfest last year and gave a great seminar on analog summing. Other audio industry stars who attended included Alan Parsons, BT, and Dave Issac. The highlight of the event was when me and Darius were eating lunch at up to our table comes Gil Griffith, Chandler Limited, Eveanna Manley, and Fab Dupont. After hanging with them for a 15-20 mins I paid for a picked up my JDK R24, yes I went ahead and got it, along with the Sound Toys native bundle. And of course I will be doing a review on both.
If your into audio, and I know you are since your reading this, you should definitely check out Sweetwater’s Gearfest next year. The Event is free, the deals are unbelievable, and the experience is worth the trip.

M-audio CX5 approved by my ears!

So one of my M-audio BX5a's started crackling. Since they were only $300 for the pair I started looking for a replacement. My mind was on Yamaha but when I spoke to my Sweetwater rep he pointed to the M-audio CX5's which were being discontinued and were on clearance for the same price I paid for the BX5a's. I didn't want to go back with M-audio because I didn't have the BX5a's long before they started acting up. I'm a sucker for a deal so I went ahead and picked up the CX5's.

First thing I noticed when I set up the new monitors were that they were noticeably larger than the BX5a's, and sexier. The rear volume has a nice center detent for easy level matching. Eq setting on the back allow you to adjust low, mid, and high frequencies. When I first powered them on the first thing I noticed was that the phantom center was right in my face. Even though the monitors are sitting on my desk I can hear the stereo image much better than the BX5a's. For $149 each these monitors were a steal and I love them!

Turns out my BX5a had blown a capacitor and was easily repaired with new caps and a little solder. Haven't decided what to do with my now extra pair of monitors, but they aren't going back on my desk as my B monitors as long as I have the CX5's.

Compressor mp3 conversion.....WOW!

I've been doing mp3 mixes for a client and have been getting little bursts of static or distortion here and there. It would only be in the mp3 version, the wav's would be fine. I tried Pro Tools mp3 converter, Logic, and even Switch for Mac Osx. Still had the same issues. I tried Compressor from Logic Studio for the heck of it and WOW. The mp3 sounded much better, clearer, and no distortion issues. Just sharing my experience here. If you have Compressor give it a try and see if your mp3's don't sound better.

Sonnox Oxford Elite bundle Review

After seeing Fab Dupont demo these plugins on their website I told myself I had to have them. Been using these for 6 months now and must say these are some of the best plugins I now own. I really just wanted the EQ but after seeing all of the plugins demoed I wanted them all. I desperately wanted a new EQ plug in and Limiter. When I added the price up ala carte I decided to look into just getting the whole bundle. I got these from Sweetwater at a student discount price of $630, which is 50% the normal cost.

Pros:
The EQ is extremely smooth, flexible, and will now put my Waves R-EQ's on the bench. The reverb sounds great and having early reflections as a separate engine from the reverb tail as well as EQ makes it only better. The Dynamics section features a gate, expander, compressor, limiter, and analog warmth all in one plugin. The inflator make your track louder without increases the signal level, its truly special. I use it on everything including the whole mix. The transmod lets you control the attack of transients. The Surpresser is a De-esser on steroids. Most featured filled De-esser you will ever use. The limiter can control peaks and is very transparent.

Cons:
No dislikes. It would be cool to add EQ in the dynamics plugin so you truly have everything in one, besides that no complaints at all.

Summary:
This bundle will definitely step up your plugin game. I see myself using at least these plugins on every mix I do for now on. The EQ by far is the best I have now. After using these I truly believe they are some of the best plugins out there. You can find more info at sonnoxplugins.com

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Searching for my Neve 1073 clone

Pretty much every vocal chain I hear these days has a Neve 1073 pre behind the mic. I’ve heard a lot about Neve series and now I’m ready to purchase my Neve clone pre to see what all the hype is about. This choice won’t be easy. My budget will be around $1,500. I really want a channel strip so I can use it for tracking and mixing. Here are the pre’s I’m considering right now. I’ll let y'all know what I decide to purchase and why.....

1. Vintech x73i - The Vintech has been said to be identical in sound to the original 1073. I’ve seen a youtube clip from soundpure.com doing a shootout between the two. If you contact them they say they will send you the original files from the shootout. The x73i right now is my front runner for its price, reputation, and customer support. Dallas from Vintech has been very helpful with any questions I’ve had about the unit. I could not see the EQ frequencies from any pics, even on their site. I emailed Dallas, he replied with his cell number, and I gave him a call to get my eq frequency question answered as well as a few others. Doug at Soundpure had nothing but good things to say about the Vintech as well.
2. Miktek mpa-201 - While not a channel strip the MIktek looks very promising. 2 channels based on the Neve circuit with three impedance settings, a HPF, and a smooth switch for added flexibility. I’m strongly considering this pre because I’ve met the guys at Miktek a few times and believe they really know what they are doing. They got a great rep for their mics and I expect the same from the pre. Mike at Miktek told me they would probably do a channel strip in the future so I kind of want to hold out for that since it will better fit my needs, but jumping on the Miktek bandwagon early would be nice.
3. Slate Pro Audio Fox- Again, not a channel strip, but a very interesting pre I saw come out NAMM. The Fox is a pre that offers four different flavors. One of them being a vintage Neve flavor. I haven’t heard much about this pre since it was announced but I’m still very interested in how different the four flavors on the pre sounds.
4. BAE audio is said to make the closest thing to an original Neve 1073. The only problem is for me to get a BAE audio pre and eq in a channel strip the price would be $3500! For me to get a BAE pre within my budget I’d have to sacrifice the eq and can get even lower by sacrificing the filters. I know someone that has some BAE pre’s and swears Vintech are no competition compared to the BAE’s. So is it worth dropping the EQ to get a BAE pre for $1500? I may have to borrow his and find out.
5. Chameleon Labs 7602mkII w/ zen pro mod - this one is low on my list but I love Chameleon labs and have heard good things about this channel strip. I have a 7720 stereo compressor from them and I absolutely love it. I’ve heard the mod that zenproaudio.com does for them really helps the sound of the sound of pre.