It doesn’t matter what you’re recording, it can at all times sound higher with the mic linked to an awesome sounding preamp. It could possibly sound even higher with slightly compression and EQ, and when all these items are put into the identical field now we have the trendy channel strip. Drawmer has been making rack mounted channel strips for fairly some time now, however its new 1977 appear to have nearly each characteristic that an engineer might need included, as you’ll quickly see.
The 1977 channel strip consists of mic amp, equalizer, compressor and output sections, which isn’t that totally different from others out there. Nevertheless, every part has some tweaks that really feel that they’re imitating what you may see on a channel strip plugin, and that’s a very good factor.
The Preamp
The preamp, for example, has 66dB of acquire, with section reversal change, a variable excessive move filter that goes from 10Hz to 130Hz, and an instrument enter on the entrance panel. The additional tweak is that there’s additionally an instrument Through jack for connecting to different gear, and selectable impedance on the mic enter that permits you to choose both 200, 500 and a pair of.4k ohms.
The EQ
Subsequent comes the three band EQ with the Excessive and Low sections variable and the mid band parametric. The low frequency part, which works from 40 to 725Hz, additionally has a slope management that selects between 6, 9 or 12dB per octave or a slim band peak. The excessive frequency part, which works from 530Hz to 20kHz, additionally has a slope management that may be set at 6 or 12dB per octave.
The Compressor
The Compressor part has the standard Threshold, Assault, Launch, Ratio and Make-Up acquire controls (going from 1:1 to 10:1), but in addition features a Program change that causes the discharge occasions to differ routinely with the dynamics of the incoming sign.
Then there’s the Large and Air switches. Large reduces the side-chain’s sensitivity to low frequencies in order that much less acquire discount is utilized at these frequencies. This creates the impact that the bass is louder or larger sounding. Air is used to re-introduce excessive frequencies, which might generally be misplaced after heavy compression. You too can change the order of the sections with a change that selects the EQ into the Compressor or the Compressor into the EQ.
The Saturate management units the quantity of saturation utilized to the sign, from very delicate by way of to heat and to overdriven. There are additionally two filter switches – one which rolls off the highs and the opposite rolls off the lows. When each are bypassed saturation is utilized to the total frequency band.
The Output Part
The output part consists of an actual VU meter displaying the output degree. It additionally has a +10dB pad change to accommodate for these conditions if you’re working with scorching ranges. A Combine management adjusts how a lot EQ and compression is utilized to the sign, and an Fade management adjusts the output degree.
Lastly, a Preamp/Direct change permits you to bypass the EQ and compression sections fully if desired.
The Drawmer 1977 channel strip prices $1,749 and is accessible at an audio retailer close to you. You may go right here to seek out out extra particulars.