Chameleon Labs 7602

[emdub123]

Had mine for over a year now. My other pres are the EMU 1616m pres and an old behringer mixer. I have zero experience with API or Great River pres.

Here's what I can tell you. If you record just about anything with the behringer pres and the chameleon, you can hear a difference right off the bat. The chameleon has a lot more details. The behringer is a snapshot, the chameleon is a nice SLR. Both capture the moment, but a nice camera makes an obvious difference. Same comparison with these two.

However, when you compare the emu pres to the chameleon, there's not as much difference with just one track. I have recorded multiple tracks with both and the subtle differences really do accumulate once the song is completed. Everyone says this, but here's what it means for me. Basically, the "ends" of the emu tracks are maybe a little fuzzy and the tracks kind of all stick together pretty easily in that it doesn't matter much where you put them in the Left to right stereo mix and it doesn't matter that much whether you have the reverb at 25% mix vs. 35% mix. EQ, yeah whatever, it sounds how it sounds.

With the chameleon, it makes a big difference to your mix where you put the tracks in the Left to right mix. You also have a lot more detail in how the effects sound and how the EQ sounds. If something's not right, you might not know what it is, but it's audible. You can hear these things pretty clearly. If the picture is slightly out of focus with a cheap camera, it's not going to ruin the picture, but if it's out of focus with a nice SLR everyone's going to say "hey, this picture's out of focus". Same idea.

Having said that, my finished songs from when I was just using the emu don't sound THAT much worse than the songs from after I got the chameleon. Put it another way, the Chameleon in and of itself didn't turn my recordings into grammy winning major label release quality sound. Better yes, but did my wife notice a difference and say "wow, honey, your recordings sound WAY better", no she did not.

I've thought about getting a bunch of high-end pres, but I would imagine that it's diminishing returns after a certain point. The chameleon was $650 and when you look at it, a lot of the big name multi channel pres are about that price on a per channel basis. So, it seems that yes, there's a quality jump between a $100 per channel pre and a $500+ per channel pre. In the future, I'll probably buy an API 3124 or something similar, but I am really thinking twice about products like the UA LA 610. How big of a difference am I really going to get when I make the jump from $600 per channel to $1500 per channel? From a budgeting perspective, it doesn't make sense for someone who charges $25/hr.

Anyway, I can totally recommend the Chameleon Labs 7602 over the stock pres in my interface.

[brandondrury]

Thanks a ton for the real world review. As a person who owns a Vintech 1272 and a Trident S20 it always bothers me when people go off the deep end about something their wife (OR THE BAND THEY RECORD) won't notice.

I see quite a few sensationalist reviews of pres and I like the way you worded this one. It's definitely better, but not screamingly better. I can handle that.

I'm also glad you mentioned the stacking element. This topic of how a preamp stacks has always interested me. As a guy who was tricked into thinking I REQUIRED Neve preamps from the gitgo I've never mixed a tune that was tracked entirely with cheap preamps.

Great job! Thanks!

Brandon Drury

[emdub123]

Anyone who wants to hear this preamp can hear it in action over in the Bash this Song thread.

[brandondrury]

Which thread? Can you post a link?

Brandon

[emdub123]

Yeah, sorry. It's here:

Michael Weston - Long way from Home

[defcm17]

If you're trying to look into API pre's, but you don't want to spend quite with the same amount of cash. I've been using a pair of the A-Designs Blue pre's. I know they're not quite the same deal as the Chameleons, but they are still amazing for the price. Here's a link if you've never seen them before.

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