Guitar Gear Forum

Been researching and kicking around the idea of a decent budget friendly channel strip for the better part of two years now. I finally found one that seems to be fairly respected in the price range I could afford and decided to go for it. So, soon I'll have an ART Pro Channel II to roll my mics through at recording time.

I also ordered replacement tubes for it, as the consensus seems to be while stock it's alright, certain tubes net you really huge improvements, especially in the preamp stage.

So, all-in-one box, tube mic pre with variable impedance, optical compressor, semi parametric EQ with routing on the back where you can add effects at any stage between the three separate parts of the box. Some of the discussion I saw about that feature makes it seem a bit confusing, but I'm sure it's just a matter of thinking a bit about it. There's two "loops" on the rear of the unit, one post pre-amp, pre compressor, one post compressor, pre eq. Lots of experimenting to do there.

I've heard people say this does a great job at warming up direct bass tones, so that'll be fun to play with too.

Sort of excited to see how this can warm up my recordings. Should give me several nights of head-scratching when I first get it at the very least. New toys of this nature always confuse me at first. I'm just excited to be able to have some processing done before tracks hit the DAW.

Anybody used one and have any recommendations of things to try with it right off?

Haven't used one but I'm considering it. Let me know what you think...the one I was looking at was like $300 and I'm not wanting to be into it for that much...

Yeah man, I'll let you know. I've heard good things even about the lower level ART tube pres so long as you aren't afraid of some tube swapping. For the price there really isn't much out there that gets much in the way of praise.

I'll probably do my usual routine when it comes in and record some normal tracks and then the same thing through the new setup just to see what it does for me. Maybe even with the stock tubes and then with the upgrade tubes. Should be a fun experiment.

Of course I haven't used it or anything. Just posted to say addaboy!

I'm sure it will work great however you do it, and I'd like to hear the rundown also! I know I'm seeing more and more of the cheaper Art Studio V3 Mic Preamp and Limiter as part of the recording chain on YouTube videos and such. *I don't think this cheaper one is meant to be a stand alone pre-amp, although it might be able to do that. Where I think yours IS a stand alone, but I'm not sure because I've never checked out the nicer ones like you have.*


...and you got the super-duper version of this. Good onya man!


Edit: (*)

Yeah, I've heard good things about those V3s for at least adding a little flavor to a signal on its way to the DAW.

I actually nabbed the middle-of-the-road channel strip by ART standards. They have another that's about another $150 that's got a bit more spit-polish on the signal chain and adds a solid de-esser and a few more settings for the microphone pre. Couldn't justify the extra price for those features at the moment though. I've always been more of a middle-of-the-road type when it comes to gear.

In a completely unexpected and nearly unprecedented move, my tubes arrived yesterday and my channel strip arrived today before lunch. Both were a day earlier than tracking suggested it should be.

Ran to the music store to grab a TRS patch cable and they were completely sold out of every length. The older gentleman that's involved in management for the place told me to hang out for a few minutes while he went and checked something. He came back from his van about ten minutes later with a patch cable in hand, leftover from an install he had done last week. Those guys are rad.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to try it out tonight or tomorrow. I've been working on drum tracks for tunes I wrote around 1993-1995, so you're gonna get to hear some vintage riffs when I get around to pushing the record button.