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Affordable Audio Gear with Sam Pura

I'm here to talk about audio recording, and really, there's four specific tools that are really important. You start with Mike phone, then you have a pre empt. You have a compressor and maybe in a queue. So I'll talk about three of those things. I happen to really like audio gear. I buy a lot of it, and I really like cheap body of year. So if cheap audio gear happens to perform extremely well, I could buy lots of it, so that makes me happy. So I want to start off talking about a couple of my favorite Mike's as a recently, um, First of all, this is an S E 2200 A says, basically a workhorse condenser microphone. So all microphones have multiple patterns, Most common, one is a cardboard platter, and this guy is really beautiful, Mike. It's got this cool rubber paint on it, so it actually minimizes all reflections on the body. But yeah, it's ah, it's a great condenser. It's extremely well made, it feels, really have it, and it retails for only $250. So that's amazing. My other new favorite...

Mark phone is this Mike here this is called X one are This microphone is really cool because you have a feud of intact microphones. You got your large captain answers or small captain answers your dynamics and then ribbon microphones. So ribbons technically sound a little bit dolar and have a lot of body. So this guy right here is a written mike phone. Its shares the same body as another microphone in the S. A line called the X one, I believe, is just a condenser. But this microphone sounds great. I have a few ribbon like phones and I don't have a matched figure. Eight pairs. This is taking up both sides here, but most figure eight mikes that are written my costs around $570. This guy's $200 $200. Fantastic. Mike sounds amazing. I use it on drum rooms using guitar, sometimes great microphone. So, uh, so are these copies of of other Mike models are these? They were all completely original designs. It's I mean, it's no clones of anything that's been basically a very nice large captain answer in a very nice ribbon. Microphones at extremely affordable budget prices. No, I'm not used to seeing ribbons around? Absolutely not. If if if I was holding this microphone and had no idea what the price was, and I had to guess, I would honestly say probably about 506 $100. And the fact that it's $200 is unbelievable. It's It's a really awesome back front. So I highly recommend that, um, most important thing for a microphone is ah, preempt need to plug in that microphone into a pre empt right? So I brought one of my favorite bring up here. This is Ah, Lola. This is from one of my favorite companies called Hairball Audio. Actually a company out of Seattle. Very cool. So this bring it right here, it's Ah, it's an original design. However, it uses to transformers that are exact replicas of a 10 73 brand, which is the need 10 73 cramps. So when we talk about preempts, there's some very popular names. Need a P I those type of things. So these are the same transformers out of leave 10. 73 designed to be the same, and these are two ah, pants that air be a 5 12 The really cool looking actually and these are also clones of some Neave style op amps. So anyways, this prenup original design it's has a lot of low noise, extremely extremely clear. Preempt. It's extremely affordable. You can. You could buy this in two ways. One. You could buy it with just all the components, and you could put that together yourself, and that's a very cheap four will wet or you could buy assembled. So there's two options so that you can save some price. And also learn some things if you want to build some gear, which is what I like. So this prenup is one of my favorite cramps. I highly recommend this for any starting point because it's so well priced. Yeah, they actually have a brand new cramp that I'm happy to be the dude that announces today because this is my favorite hair ball print. This is a straight up leave 10 73 sounding preempt. It's got the same transformers as this lower here. It's the same in putting out the transformers. Same op AMP. Except has this topology and circuit is a little bit cleaner, a little bit different. This guy is super colored, so it's not really here ball. Also, this is a hair ball for what's the model in that there s So this is a part of a four preempt Siri's. It's called elements Siri's. So, as you can see, this is the copper is the need sounding one. There's 43 other friends, and there there's one that has a Jensen transformer. There's another that is modeled after an l. A. 3 April. And then there's another one that has multiple options that you could swap in so you could essentially design your own preempt with their own type of specifications. So this program is awesome. If you're looking for a naive sounding preempt, this is a guy, and it's extremely affordable. I happen to have four of these. I use him on vocals, kick snare guitars, absolutely anything that I want to have a little bit of color and Teoh be a little aggressive. So this is a very cool product. I'm really happy to talk about that next time you talk about compressors. So one of the most popular compressors us about one of your wide out shut on this. But this is an 11 76 compressor here. If you've ever seen any recording studio or photos of recording studio? They always have one of these in the rack there. So on this is in London 36. It's a clone of the original 76 is, there's a few different models of that. There's a revision A, which is the first type of revision of 11 76 which is what this is. It's very glossy. It's very big sounding. If you put this on a vocal or on a bass or a guitar, things going to sound a lot bigger and a lot more full of life. So this compressor rocks. This is the rev it, and then also, we, uh, have to other models of this compressor. This one is a red de, so they will have a little bit of different circuits going on. But this is, if you were to go by this in a store, this would be over $2000. But if you buy us through terrible yuk unbind kit and making yourself and it's under $700 to make, so it's by far the most affordable compressor that you could purchase, and it's absolutely my favorite professor. So what's really cool is that a lot of these people are using what we call 500 serious care now, which is what these to preempt. That I just demonstrated are fire under serious gear is really unique because you can fit a lot of it into Iraq, and it's powered by the rack. But the problem with that is that it runs at 16 volts, as opposed to a normal 32 bolts that are 30 volts that most rockier operates at. So if we wanted to take this compressor that I just showed and clone that and make that a 500 series here, it won't sound identical. But terrible just did that. So it's really cool. This is literally the exact same compressor. It's a 500 serious form, and they did something that no company has done, which I think is amazing. They utilize the negative rail so that they could instead jump 32 volts of this get 30 volts instead of 16 volts, so this is identical to the inch rack version. Absolutely no difference. The really cool thing about this is that it has a link switch on the front so you can plug him through an eighth inch into the other pre amp and have linked compression. So the other really cool thing about this is that it's got a ratio now and on 11 76 there's essentially five ratios you have here for 218 to 1 12 1 21 Or you could get crazy and you can do this weird model a slam always let inside, so that makes it sound really cool. They also put that in the 500 Syria's version, and they also put a 2 to 1. So I personally like to record kick drum snare drums with a little bit of compression. Not too much. So, ah to one ratios, something I would rather use a 4 to 11 of tracking so amazing pizza gear highly recommended. What's the cost of that last year? Ball one. So this is actually gonna come out and about a month, so I don't think there is a retail cost on this yet, but I would assume that it's gonna be somewhere within the same price range as the rack versions. Probably around $500. Okay, I'm gonna sit. It's amazing. Any questions? So the older hair bowl, 10 73 on the little one, and then and then the newer copper one. Scotland is both 10 73 sounding. Yeah, but you're giving me the impression that the newer copper one is more of a straight up close. Exactly, because while they do share the same transformers, they are completely different circuits. Inside, a pre up is very basic thing to build. You have an input transformer and op and output transform. Really nothing else I could go on inside of there. However, Lola takes advantage of that and adds, Basically, if you really want to get nerdy into it, they kind of take a part of signal and they just run it to ground instead. That's how preempt works. But they instead take the signal in Lola and they run it back in and they have it going through a second. Ah, pep. So you have a cleaner, more true signal, so it's not as colored. It's more clear, very big, full of life. Where is this guy? A lot more of the classic colored sound. So this is kind of a take on cleaning up the 10 73 by using some of the best parts of it. So what situations do recommend one over the other? Like it seems to me for me, I use, like, overheads of room likes, and I want them to be extremely clear. I want them to capture all the transit response. I'm not really looking for much color looking toe. Capture it with the highest fidelity. So a little is really good at that because it's super clean. And it also gives everything just a little bit more life, whereas maybe like a kick drum snare drum, a guitar and the bass. And I'm trying to mangle that and add some more color into that. And this guy helps me do that. Little Mauritz saturates really well, you can drive the preempt the really cool thing about both these premises that they have an output knob. So our attenuate er is to be exact so that you can crank this pre happened start attenuating the output and drive to get more saturation. So I buy when they think they don't have meters on them. Right? So are you just listening as you're adjusting? Well, the bullet does have a meter. Okay? This guy does not have a lead meter and the reason being that most of the original like need staff, those type of things didn't have meters. So more so using yours too saturated as best as possible and treated like wow, awesome. I feel like I just took a sip from a fire hose. Totally insane, but this is a lot more affordable. I've been shopping for preempts recently to and to go out and just by the knee of stuff. 2000 bucks, absolutely for every channel, basically, that you're getting absolutely be able to get something that has the same guts as the need stuff. Totally. I don't know that said, you know anyone with a 500 Syria's lunch box set up, you do need to plug it into to an interface. You know, a common is like a lunch box, which is, you know, like a mini rack that holds six those and has a power supply. Exactly. You know, there's a few versions of those, but you know, the way we're excited, ultimately just want being cheaper because you're paying for that one housing and power supply unit once, and then you start putting those those in and especially gonna be buying four of those than you know you. You start to really see the savings on their overall. Yeah, the other, like the beauty about just 500 series. Gearing in general is the fact that you could just drop these models and swap them. So I have to. Studios and my assistant will constantly come in and just swap some of my gear, and we'll use a bunch of the same preempt all time. So it's really handy for that reason you don't have to have a full power supply to power up again. These this needs about to be available in about two months. This little tramp is currently available. I think it markets assembled for around. I think it's 7.5 for a completed model, and you could purchase the kid. I think it's around 3 50 or maybe $400 for the kit Again, both these pre answer my favorite pants. I've only need a P I everything, and these are my most these pants does. Does hairball make the room lunchbox or anything? I will not make their own lunch, but you want to look into something like purple audios rack or the A P I lunchbox or What's your favorite one? That I really liked purple personally. Also, because I read like Purple Purple's great. I really like that That company they started off as a D I y company. Who, you know, just all these people just really care about the tone, and they wanna have the best quality and best components in there. And purple is another one. Those companies who started that way and they continue to operate that way. So I highly respect people who don't cut any corners and manufacturing the products so that they sound amazing. So what? What kind of skills are necessary beyond just like basic Saudi? And I'm guessing to assemble it so that you can build your own. What does that look like? Sauntering is the most basic skill. The most basic skilled people really need is patience and the ability to read a manual. Because a lot of people who try to build these things that actually don't read any of the information, That's but it's really not that hard. It's really not that complicated and won. The coolest things is that hair ball audio, their owner, Mike who's from Seattle Sale native. He's one of the nicest dudes. He's a great friend. And any time do you have any trouble shooting issues, you can contact him and he will help you. So if you're getting a kit and assembling it yourself, how many pieces are we talking about here is every single one of those components Absolutely every single one of the components. Okay, so I mean, the first time I built a Lola, maybe it took me talking about two days, maybe like 10 hours total. And now we can get it down to about 56 hours, and we could build maybe four out of time. So I I own eight Lola's and for these names here, and we built a maul you and our compressors to your own six compressors, all six professors as well to hair balls. It's a lot of fun. If you're getting into audio and you care about town, then you should really care about what's going on inside of this product. And if you really start doing your researching Parenteau products that are twice as expensive, they don't even have nearly as many of components at this quality. So What you're really paying for is the quality of components and not the manufacturing cost. And real quick, could you just touch on, you know, like what the what? The sound of a 10 73 is like an a P I pre Empress's a cleaner like SSL kind of sound like What do you usually aim like 10 73 is my deal preempt for X for sure? Well, a 10 73 pre up has a very cool break up. So therefore, when you kind of driving in tow, what is theoretically distortion and actually happens to sound really pleasing and doesn't sound distorted like a guitar AMP or something like that, where as a p I it's really clean. It's extremely clear, and it doesn't really saturate too well, but if it does it, it gets kind of gushy. So all these things have these different aspects, So typically, I like to go for a need for anything that I want to saturate and want to hit hard. If I want to kick drum to be big, I'm gonna hit that through a need. If I want a guitar to be big and kind of like round and distorted. I'm gonna hit those hard with the new needs are pretty much my favorite. Perhaps need styled, perhaps I should say, but I also really like a P eyes on things like vocals or anything that you want to be maybe a little bit more normal and clear with, like, not trying to add some distortion vocals trying to capture it. So that's something where I would maybe use the low for something else less. If I'm working with screamer. Maybe I found through the need because I wanted to start a little bit more.