Recorded on September 9, 2005

Produced by Dan Richards
Engineered by Brian McKenzie, Dan Richards

Recorded at The Lazy I Studios
Edited at TLS HQ

Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums played by Dan Richards

Special thanks to:
Rupert Neve - Rupert Neve Designs
Josh Thomas - Rupert Neve Designs


Session Notes: We wrangled a new Neve Portico 5012 Duo Mic Pre from Rupert Neve for upcoming review at Studio Reviews. We knew a lot of people were wanting to get a change to hear some sound files using the Portico 5012 — so we put it, not "against" but rather, along side some complementay preamps — to give an idea of where the Portico 5012 sits in relation to other preamps.

We give three sources here: acoustic guitar, electric guitar running through a Marshall amp with a lot of effects, and a drum kit. We chose an AKG C414 TLII as the mic to use on the acoustic guitar and drum OH's — as we've found the 414 to not only be a great workhorse mic, but also because of it's reasonably flat and neutral response — which allows for concentrating on the characteristics of the preamps without being overpowered by the characteristics of the mic. The acoustic has the 414 positioned approx 9" out from the neck aimed at an area between the 12th fret and where the neck meets the body. For drum OH's, we used a single 414 poisitoned out in front of the kit approx 5' high and 6' out from the kit. The kit is miked simply in a room with minimal acoustic treatment — we were going for a "raw" drum sound to allow for the listener to better detect the slew rate [ speed ] of the various preamps. i.e. Notice on the different preamps how much of the room sound you can and/or can not hear. On the Marshall amp we used the venerable Shure SM57 positioned about 6" out from the top left speaker cone.

The purpose of this session is to listen to the different relative qualities of various mic preamps. The signal path is minimal and there was no dynamic processing — no EQ, compression or limiting — used on these tracks, with the exception of gain adjustment on a few tracks [ mostly the 5012 +48dB tracks ] for closer overall levels.

The sound files in this Session 10 are 16-bit WAV files.

Please stop by the topic for the Neve Portico 5012 at Studio Forums.





The signal chain for these recordings:

Acoustic Guitar -- AKG C414 TLII -- Mic Pre -- Tango 2 AD -- SAW Studio --- edited with BIAS Peak 4
Electric Guitar -- Marshall amp (mega efx) -- Mic Pre -- Tango 2 AD -- SAW Studio --- edited with BIAS Peak 4
Drum Kit -- AKG C414 TLII -- Mic Pre -- Tango 2 AD -- SAW Studio --- edited with BIAS Peak 4

If table contents do not line up, widen your browser window.
Click here for printer-friendly track sheet
    

Track 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Mic Preamp Neve Portico 5012 +36dB Gain, Trim @ 12 o'clock Neve Portico 5012 +48dB Gain, Trim @ 0 Neve Portico 5012 Silk +36dB Gain, Trim @ 12 o'clock API 3124 with stock 2520 opamp (1999) Great River MP-2 Sebatron vmp-2000e Neve Portico 5012 +36dB Gain, Trim @ 12 o'clock Neve Portico 5012 +48dB Gain, Trim @ 0 Neve Portico 5012 Silk +36dB Gain, Trim @ 12 o'clock API 3124 with stock 2520 opamp (1999) Great River MP-2 Sebatron vmp-2000e Neve Portico 5012 +36dB Gain, Trim @ 12 o'clock Neve Portico 5012 +48dB Gain, Trim @ 0 Neve Portico 5012 Silk +36dB Gain, Trim @ 12 o'clock API 3124 with stock 2520 opamp (1999) Great River MP-2 Sebatron vmp-2000e

Source Acoustic Guitar Acoustic Guitar Acoustic Guitar Acoustic Guitar Acoustic Guitar Acoustic Guitar Electric Guitar Electric Guitar Electric Guitar Electric Guitar Electric Guitar Electric Guitar Drum OH Drum OH Drum OH Drum OH Drum OH Drum OH

WAV Files Track 1 Track 2 Track 3 Track 4 Track 5 Track 6 Track 7 Track 8 Track 9 Track 10 Track 11 Track 12 Track 13 Track 14 Track 15 Track 16 Track 17 Track 18

       

The Listening Sessions uses and endorses

---

All rights reserved © 2002-2006 The Listening Sessions