Tom Volhein

Last week UPS brought some new gear for the studio – packages containing two Grace m101 mic preamps, an ART Pro VLA II tube compressor and a Shure SM7 (to match the SM7 already in the studio).  Over the weekend and on Monday, I installed and tested the gear on my own.  Then yesterday, a friend came into the studio and laid down some guitar and vocal tracks.

I am mostly interested in the results for vocal:
SM7 > Grace preamp > ART compressor > FireFace 800 > computer

The primary reason I am focusing on the SM7, is because of its tight, super-cardioid pattern.  The pattern works well with the live set up that I use for singer/songwriters and folk artists who don’t track.  The SM7 allows for better isolation of the vocal.

The thing that surprises me most is the amount of gain that the SM7 requires.   I knew this, but was still surprised at having to crank the Grace gain to full-on (65dB) and trim another 3dB to 8dB to the signal.  The Grace still didn’t peak.  The test genre is folk, so the vocalist is not a screamer.  But there was plenty of dynamic range for a good test.

The Grace worked well.  I will need to test it more without compression, so that I get a good sense of its qualities.  The only thing that I don’t like about it is how stiffly the gain knob goes from position to position.  I like the graduated stops, but the knob takes a lot of cranking to move from one to the next.

The ART is a modest piece of gear, but I have heard good things about it.  After some knob turning I got what I consider to be a good male vocal sound.  It is rich and present.  Much fuller and pleasing than the plugin that I had been using.

I set the threshold on the ART at -6.0dB, ratio at 2:1, attack at about 3ms, and release at .5 seconds.  The make up gain hovered around 0.0dB, depending on the song.

In the coming months, I plan to make some modest modifications to the ART, first some new tubes.

All in all, I am liking what I am hearing.  I have a session tonight with a male singer/songwriter and will start with the set above for his vocal.  I have some existing tracks for his project, and will be able to A/B the new set up to the old.

So far, so good.  I think that the new gear is a significant addition to the capabilities of the studio.  Now it is time for me to gain more experience with analog gear, and to continue to put in the hours that it will take to get better and better sounding music reproduction for me and my friends.

peace,

t

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