ART PRO channel tube strip

[keving]

has anyone here used this?

i was looking for a preamp to **** up the vocals a little bit, but also a compressor to use on my drum tracks and this seems to cover both (e.q. included)

i just run a firepod straight into my computer and record with cubase. plug ins are fun and all, but i wanted to try some rackmount stuff.

might give it a go as a D.I. for bass also


Kevin

[.tom]

the joe meeks 3q is a good channel strip. the focusrite VMP is better and if you load it with the a/d converter it's about as sweet as it gets for any model less than $2k...

[Charlie_M]

I have 2 art pro channels and I'm very happy with them. A lot of ART gear gets shot down in forums because their lower end stuff uses a starved plate design that apparently doesn't sound that great. The pro-channel is not a starved plate design.

I don't want to sound like a marketing guy for ART. Truth is I haven't A/B's it against other gear like it in that price range. But when I decided I wanted a second channel strip , based on what I had heard from using my pro-channel for a while it was pretty easy for me to make up my mind to just get another one.

Preamp: definitely a notch up from the pres in my 02. That may not be a high goal to aim for but I don't have others to compare it to. WIDE range of sounds available depending on how you set the gains.

Comp: I spent a lot of time playing around with the compressor. There are two types built into the unit (optical and tube) and you select which one you want with a button on the front panel. They are pretty different... not that they add SO much color or anything but the tube is much faster and just a little fatter to my ears, while the opto seems unable to respond fast enough to capture a transient, and to my ear has an overall brighter sound. Just my subjective impression.

EQ: I've used the eq only for modest adjustments so far. Seems to be fine. I don't think I'm asking for much out of the eq so I'm not really the guy to rate that part of it.

ONLY thing I'm less than happy about is that it would have made a lot of sense to put an instrument input on the front panel. On ART's newer designs they're doing that. But that's only a minor thing, I just brought it to the front with a patch bay. It is intelligent enough that I can leave the 1/4" input connected to the patch bay and it's out of the circuit as long as the XLR is connected to a mic, so the patchbay solution worked out, and enables me to plug a bass guitar in via the patchbay and record that direct using the pro-channel.

As I'm writing this I'm realizing that everything I do now goes through one of these units (acoustic gtr, electric gtr, vox, bass). My drums just come from samples so....

Charlie

[keving]

when you say you run your acoustic through this, are you talking direct or mic'ing the acoustic using this preamp? how well would you say it handles bass as a D.I.? this seems like a pretty smart buy i'd rather not spend too much on my pre, as long as the compressor is very solid it should handle everything I need

[.tom]

hey guys, the art stuff is fine gear. i have used it with satisfaction. budget is always a concern and just wanted to let you know the 3q is also a fine kit for $230 here's a link:

SameDayMusic.com: Joe Meek ThreeQ Preamp

[Charlie_M]

.tom: hear you on that. I heard the joemeek is a good unit too. I'd like to try one of those. My response wasn't intended to discourage the joemeek but more just to pass along my experience with the art unit.

kevin: for acoustic I use both units at the same time. I use one for a (low cost) small diaphragm condenser (at3031) and the other for a large diaphragm condenser (also low cost - at3035 ) then I play with positioning on those mics until it sounds like I'm basically capturing things and then I play with the other settings on the unit. Again I don't do much with the eq on acoustic except for low cut, which I prefer. On bass I'm going direct. The thing is I'm not a bass player - I just manage to fake it so I can get my ideas down onto the hard drive. So I'm not looking for a particular kind of bass sound. I'm happy with what I'm getting but in truth as far as bass is concerned I was pretty happy with what I was getting direct through my 002. I prefer to use the art on bass because the sound is fuller that way but the main advantage I get on bass is that the comp smooths out some of my rather rough bass playing.


In this link here:

Racing Hearts

at the very bottom of the last page is where I'm at with my most recent song. If you play it through a good set of speakers you should get a good picture of what I'm getting for bass. The bass guitar itself is a frankenstien I bought off craigslist for $100. SX body, some other off-brand neck, but good strings and a pretty decent set of fender jazz pickups. It's got cracks and stuff in it in various places.. kind of a pos but I'm happy enough with the bass sound I'm getting. The acoustic intro was recorded with the arrangement described above. The electric guitar also went through the art (mic'd in isolation cab) but in that instrument I doubt that you'd hear any preamp characteristics because there are a number of layers in the gtr track (ended up with 4 I think) and that seemed to me to be the biggest factor in the sound.


Charlie

PS: one more thing I should mention... the compression that you can actually HEAR on that track's vocal is not the ART unit - that's a plug in. I do use the ART's comp on the way in but so very lightly that you would never hear it. I only do that because I don't have the experience with singing to be able to police my own levels and I also don't have a partner to ride the volume knob for me....-CM

[.tom]

no worries charlie dude

[brandondrury]

i was looking for a preamp to w a r m up the vocals a little bit,

Could you explain to me what exactly this means? Darker? Brighter? More distorted? It seems that every person has their own definition for "w a r m". That's why I consider it a curse word.

Brandon

[keving]

i guess i was going along the lines of more distorted. when you crank the gain on a tube pre it gets the tube running hotter and thus you have a tiny bit of natural saturation. The compressor however is the main focus I have for my strip.

[brandondrury]

i guess i was going along the lines of more distorted.

Good! You made the right choice. At least that's how I also see this "w a r m" concept. I've never used a tube preamp, but my tube mics certainly add a certain amount of "harmonic content".

Brandon