In The Studio

Another day of live tracking at Gold Coast Recorders.  Vocal chain working great:  Neumann U47 fet into Neve console pre into (gentle) distessor; vocalist needs to be pretty tight on the mic due to the drums, Hammond, and Super Reverb live in the room with her.  Behind the U47 is a Turner U99 dynamic amplified by one of my Altec 1566 -based mic preamps.  The perfect pairing of hi-fi & pristine / dirty and lowdown.  If you have ever thought about building your own vacuum-tube mic preamp, the Altec 1566 is a great place to start.  Here’s where I first learned about them. The 1566 is not a very clean preamp, but wow they sound great for drum fronts, toughening up acoustic gtr, etc.  We have 3 of them at GCR and they get a lot of use.  I recommend Edcor transformers for the output and power; Jensen 115 for input.