So, hier ist die review von Nathan Eldred (u.a. produzent von Usher)
I've been sitting here for the last 5 hours testing the Little Summer
with some well recorded tracks of a good friends cover band (that
I had specifically come in last week for this purpose). My tests were
not extremely scientific, but were quite thorough, and this piece
works and delivers as promised. I had 32 tracks stemming into
32 channels of a Little Summer via multichannel DACs clocked to
a Lavry Blue ADC, and was able to compare it to my modified
SoundWorkshop series 30 by having two identical mixes setup
in the [g=17]DAW[/g], one assigned to the D/A's going into
the SoundWorkshop and the other identical mix stemmed to the
Little Summer. The SW has 3 monitor switches, one of which is the
main mix. The Little Summer/preamp outputs were assigned to #2
and volume matched to the main mix.
The Little Summer is extremely, or rather 100%, sensitive to the
preamp used for makeup [g=105]gain[/g], and acts very much like
a sonic chameleon to whatever it is run into, causing mixes to sound
very very different both in general frequency curve and in instrument
[g=184]balance[/g] depending on the characteristic of the preamp.
So far I've used 8 different stereo preamps, including refurbished Neve
and vintage API with 2520's. Some of the preamps caused the Little
Summer to sound less subjectively desireable than my SoundWorkshop,
some preamps pushed it into something quite a bit better (wider, tighter,
even more extenion on the top and bottom frequencies, generally
allowing it to track every little transient better). This is subjective I
suppose, but in general my tastes for things that treat an entire mix
all at once reside in hi-fi but with an 'edge'.
Ironically (and I say ironic because I was really looking forward to having
something like a 'psuedo' API mixing platform), so far the original API's
were the lowest on the totem pole for my tastes, not enough in the
low end, and not enough air, almost like an 'upside down smiley face'.
The Neve sounded bigger and better in both of those respects, but was
still not my favorite mostly because it seemed to pronounce and soften
the mids far too much. To refrain from coming off like a sales weasel, I
won't name my favorites (especially until I've gone through at least 10
or more different types), but so far there were two that were leaps and
bounds over the rest and allowed the tracks to have huge amounts of
depth, width, and space in addition to having a nice clear midrange
without sacrificing lows or highs.
The "vintage" type preamps seem as if they would need a lot more EQ
on individual tracks in general. Where these shine in tracking is their
downfall as a two [g=183]bus[/g] amplifier. Not so with something
more hi-fi (specifically with just a touch of color...too clean however
and it became boring and anemic, at least for rawk). Ive still got a large
handful of different preamps to test, but generally from here its just
plain subjective. The unit is dead quiet, seems to handle lots of hot
signal, does not lose detail with many layered tracks (Ill most likely be
using two linked together in the future), and does not require very
much make up [g=105]gain[/g] at all (around 35db as advertised).
II. Seperate stems to multiple seperate channels on the Little Summer
VS everything stemmed down to two tracks: (I even avoided the
"two [g=183]bus[/g]" in Samplitude and assigned the individual
tracks directly to the stereo D/A, I'm making an educated guess that
there is less math involved by doing this, giving the 'stemmed to two
channels' as much of an advantage as possible).
When everything was stemmed across 32 channels the mix had more
depth and a lot more seperation. When everything was put to two
channels, it didn't suck horribly, but it became somewhat of a sonic
mess. The tracks came more to the front of the speakers, instead of
having the feeling of being able to 'reach into' the mix. The seperate
sounds became less distinct in a not so good way, and they lost much
of their sweetness and air, as if they were being choked. I tried playing
around with it for 30 minutes and still couldn't get it to the level of
quality it was at just by simply switching it back to seperate stems.
The differences were not even subjective. With those results, I wouldn't
mix like that if someone was paying me to engineer and placing my name
on the CD (unless of course laziness and convenience is more of an
important factor than taking a bit more effort to achieve quality)....
definitely 32 seperate channels (or more) for me. Conclusion, you will
get greater benefit from using the Little Summer with seperate stems or
multiple seperate channels.
Many of you may already know I own two recording studios. Essentially
one is my A room (Mastering, Mixing, Commercial Work, Tracking), which
I've been doing for over a decade. I recently opened another location, and
the other studio is essentially my B room (Tracking, Mixing (Surround),
Mastering). I have the bulk of best gear in A, as well as the better console
of the 3 I own. The dilemma is that I can't tote around my modded
Soundworkshop Series 30, which I am really happy with and would like
to use at both studios of course, but can't. With the Little Summer, I plan
on being able have better mixes at the B room, because we will not have to
rely on B's console for summing. I'm adding 1 Little Summer to my B room
and now only have to bring my favorite 2 Channels of mic preamp for the
makeup [g=105]gain[/g] on the Little Summer, a lot lighter than a console.
I can say I am one happy camper.
Ich finde diese Review sagt schon ne menge aus, MUSS HAABEN
