Got some of "Designed in Murica but built in China" gear today!
Mackie Mix8
ART TPSII:
The Mackie is for me to test dual mic's for making profiles of the Kemper. Drew/FRPC hipped m to this some time ago and I had a small mixer somewhere but now can;t find it. The ART is a tube mic pre. Pretty inexpensive but Loop as well as many others say it performs well above it's price point. Wanted to test the waters on pre's for making my vocals a little richer. It also allows for adjusting mic impedance so that'll be fun to experiment with.
cool stuff! I may get the same board for live jams feeding backing tracks/headphone mixes. I have a few more profiling sessions I need to do still and it would make Kemper multi-mics easier!
Yeah man, I am looking forward to trying this stuff out. I will certainly post some before and afters with the vocals to see how much of a difference there is.
Hadn't personally heard of the TPS II, but my little ART preamp/channel strip made a hell of a difference. ART seems to make some decent gear for cheapo monies.
If the TPS is anything like mine was, you'll wanna grab some better tubes right off. Mine came with some REALLY lame low-gain 12AX7s. You could crank the gain knob and barely hear anything. Swapped tubes and it's warm and sparkly.
nightflameauto wrote:Hadn't personally heard of the TPS II, but my little ART preamp/channel strip made a hell of a difference. ART seems to make some decent gear for cheapo monies.
If the TPS is anything like mine was, you'll wanna grab some better tubes right off. Mine came with some REALLY lame low-gain 12AX7s. You could crank the gain knob and barely hear anything. Swapped tubes and it's warm and sparkly.
Congrats on the toys. Should make for some fun.
Yeah I have read a lot of folks swapped out for a new tube and made a huge difference. Asked Loop about it and he warned me to try it first and that he felt the tube it ships with sounds quite good. I am going to do some recordings of unprocessed vocals with just the pre's on the Saffire and then the TPS. See what that sounds like. I'll then grab another 12ax7 and compare the tubes. It'll be fun.
If I LIKE this guys, I may actually return it for ya 2 channel bigger brother that has built EQ's and compressors for each mic.
I snagged two ART pieces earlier this year, the Pro MPA II mic pre and the Pro VLA II. These really added a cool color to my recordings of guitars. I haven't tried any vocal stuff but I can imagine it would be an improvement. One of the features I love the most the adjustable impedence knob for the mic input, it really works magic! It looks like your mic pre has one too; I would play around with that for sure
Congrats, I think you are going to dig the mic pre!
colejustesen wrote:I snagged two ART pieces earlier this year, the Pro MPA II mic pre and the Pro VLA II. These really added a cool color to my recordings of guitars. I haven't tried any vocal stuff but I can imagine it would be an improvement. One of the features I love the most the adjustable impedence knob for the mic input, it really works magic! It looks like your mic pre has one too; I would play around with that for sure
Congrats, I think you are going to dig the mic pre!
Cole
Kick ass. I am interested in the VLA. Wondering what the Pro MLA offers on top of what I bought? Wonder if it's worth swapping out?
colejustesen wrote:I snagged two ART pieces earlier this year, the Pro MPA II mic pre and the Pro VLA II. These really added a cool color to my recordings of guitars. I haven't tried any vocal stuff but I can imagine it would be an improvement. One of the features I love the most the adjustable impedence knob for the mic input, it really works magic! It looks like your mic pre has one too; I would play around with that for sure
Congrats, I think you are going to dig the mic pre!
Cole
Kick ass. I am interested in the VLA. Wondering what the Pro MLA offers on top of what I bought? Wonder if it's worth swapping out?
From what I understand it uses the tube to the fullest capacity. I can't quite remember the exact terminology. It also can use a higher plate voltage on the tube.
EDIT: The Pro MPA II isn't a starved plate design like the TPS II. This deals with the tube getting proper voltage.
