Phil O'Keefe Posted July 26, 2005 Share Posted July 26, 2005 As some of you may have heard by now, FMR Audio, makers of the highly regarded (and very budget friendly) RNC (Really Nice Compressor) and RNP (Really Nice Pre) has announced a new product: The Really Nice Leveling Amp - RNLA I've known about this for a few months now, but have been sworn to secrecy. And if there's one thing I'm good at, it's keeping secrets and keeping to my word when I am told something off the record and asked to keep it to myself... but when FMR releases something new, the temptation to spill the beans is pretty high. Fortunately, I am free to discuss this new product now. And as the thread title said, I just got a call from Mark... he had told me a while back that he was going to send me one to get my thoughts and impressions about it. And yesterday I saw a post on one of the other HC forums where someone had mentioned the RNLA, so I was planning on calling Mark anyway today to see if it had been "officially" announced... but Mark called me before could call him, and he told me the package should be here TODAY. And while talking to him, I happened to glance out the window, and lo and behold, the Big Brown Truck had already come and gone, and there was a nice package sitting on my doorstep with an RNP, RNC AND a new RNLA sitting inside of it. So I've got one of the first RNLA units sitting here, and you'd better believe I'm going to immediately start putting it through its paces and see what's up. Stay tuned for more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Johnny Storm Posted July 26, 2005 Members Share Posted July 26, 2005 Looking forward to the review, Phil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jwag Posted July 26, 2005 Members Share Posted July 26, 2005 A poor man's distressor??? Sweet. -Jake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fantasticsound Posted July 26, 2005 Members Share Posted July 26, 2005 I feel like Charlie Brown in "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!" (Phil O'Keefe:.) I got a package from FMR Audio with an RNC, an RNP and a hasn't quite hit the market RNLA! (Me:.) I got a rock. Have fun running it through its' paces, Phil! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Harvey Gerst Posted July 26, 2005 Members Share Posted July 26, 2005 Phil,I have one of the early protypes, and you're gonna love it. The manual and specs are here: http://www.ITRstudio.com/RNLA-manual.pdf Bottom line: Everybody needs a few of these; to make individual tracks bigger, and to strap across the 2 buss mix. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Gotta run... I'm in mid session, using the RNLA on guitar O-dubs... you're right Harvey - so far, I AM diggin' it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 Finally a worthy replacement for my Dual Levelar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members offramp Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 Replace my 1178's? HAR! NEVER!!! (cough) HAR! (wheeze) umm...how much is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members where02190 Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 Again with the unbalanced connections. I love their stuff, but for God sake make them balanced I/O!!!!!!!! It's not that expensive!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Originally posted by offramp Replace my 1178's? HAR! NEVER!!! (cough) HAR! (wheeze) umm...how much is it? IIRC, $250 MSRP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Originally posted by where02190 Again with the unbalanced connections. I love their stuff, but for God sake make them balanced I/O!!!!!!!! It's not that expensive!!! It has unbalanced inputs and balanced, non-differential outputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rog951 Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 Originally posted by Phil O'Keefe It has unbalanced inputs and balanced, non-differential outputs. I don't really understand how noise is diminished significantly without driving the other side. I always thought having the inverted signal present on the other leg is what cancelled the noise. So, the term "balanced" doesn't come from the use of differential signals? It comes from having the impedence matched on both legs? Dang, you learn something new every day... Either way, it's a minor PIA from a cabling standpoint but as long as the cable runs are kept short, we'll be fine. Never had a noise problem with the RNC. Still, I'd pay the extra for true balanced, ahem, I mean DIFFERENTIAL I/O, just so I could keep my cabling more uniform... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members badmuddy Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 WOW!!! kool! hey phil, whatever happened to the rnc-mkII (balanced)? ml Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Originally posted by badmuddy WOW!!! kool! hey phil, whatever happened to the rnc-mkII (balanced)? ml I hadn't heard that such a beast was in the works... but the next time I talk to Mark, I'll ask him about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members where02190 Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 They can do the outs but not the ins, what's with that? How difficult and costly could it possibly be to make both the in and out balanced. Ys in the short run is't not an issue, but there is the level difference, and not everyone would be using them strictly in the studio, or be able to keep the run short. IMHO they are limiting their market by not making them balanced. I know it keeps me from buying them. I'd gladly put a couple of these or RNC's in my combo studio/live rack if they were balanced. I believe that the major reason they do this is to make interfacing with the RNC easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 You mean the RNP? I dunno Where... it seems that the RNC was released way before the RNP was ever even planned. I think the reverse is probably closer to the truth: Mark designed the RNP's features to work well with the (already existing) RNC, giving each the benefits of being able to work well with the other. As far as "why the RNC is unbalanced", I think we can get some clues as to the reason why directly from Mark: Why is the RNC unbalanced instead of balanced? You'd think the answer to this one would be a simple "to keep costs down". Although that's one of the reasons, there's another reason that's less obvious and the primary one: we designed the RNC to be used in home studios (like ours) made up primarily of unbalanced pieces. So, we designed it to easily interface to equipment usually found in the intended environment. For example, many home studios use mixing boards that have single Tip-Ring-Sleeve insert points on their input channels. We thought that it'd be neat, convenient and show unambiguous support for this studio type by allowing the RNC to be hooked directly to these inserts with single TRS cables. If the I/Os were balanced, we wouldn't be able to do that. Source - FAQ section on the FMR website From that, I'd say that cost was indeed part of the reasoning, but IMO, it looks like Mark was trying to "downsize" an earlier compressor he designed, and target it more to home recordists than to pro studios, and wanted to make connection to the typical gear found in those sorts of places as easy as possible... thus the TRS send / return connectors that allow someone to patch an RNC directly into the TRS send / return jacks in many project studio / home studio mixing boards of the day (remember, the RNC was first released back in 1997) without having to resort to Y cables and so forth... all you need is a single 1/4" TRS cable and you're good to go. The fact that the RNC performed so well and sounded so good that it started getting attention and props from pros such as yourself was just a bonus. I don't think it was ever really originally intended for "our" market... but the fact that it does sound good and is so affordable makes for a situation where guys like us want 'em, but have to be willing to deal with a missing feature or two that would be more appropriate for "our" world, but really aren't that common in the "target market's" world. Maybe an RNC MkII (Balanced I/O) is in the works - I don't know. Like I said, I'll ask Mark the next time I talk to him... I think that would be useful for some people. But I honestly wonder how large that market might be compared to the market that is willing to use and enjoy the RNC the way it is now. When you run a small company like Mark has, you have limited resources and abilities, and you have to be concerned about things like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 BTW, I'm glad to see you made it over here Where. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members where02190 Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Thanks Phil. Yes I meant the RNP. Well, I don't go for the we made it to work with the home studio sell. If it's balanced it'll work with anything. Plug a balanced unit in with unbalanced cables, it's unbalanced. Plug an unbalanced unit in with balanced cables, it's still unbalanced, except you floated the neutral if your patching from a balanced unit, and potentially degraded your signal path. It just doesn't make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members scapier Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Cool beans man. I wonder if it will fit my funk logic rack for two rnc's. I have an empty space. Is it more LA2Aish? How would you compare the difference in sound from the rnc and the rnla? Do you know if they plan a rneq in the near future? I'm going to need something soon. Spencer Glad to have come over to the other side! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Harvey Gerst Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Originally posted by rog951 I don't really understand how noise is diminished significantly without driving the other side. I always thought having the inverted signal present on the other leg is what cancelled the noise. So, the term "balanced" doesn't come from the use of differential signals? It comes from having the impedence matched on both legs? Dang, you learn something new every day... Think about it for a minute. When you cancel noise that's been picked up by being induced into both wires of the cable, it's cancelled out when one side is inverted and summed. Now, if that side (that is inverted and summed) is impedance balanced (but not carrying any signal), the noise is still cancelled, BUT you don't get the additional signal increase from combining the two signals - you just get the noise cancellation.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rog951 Posted July 28, 2005 Members Share Posted July 28, 2005 Originally posted by Harvey Gerst Think about it for a minute. When you cancel noise that's been picked up by being induced into both wires of the cable, it's cancelled out when one side is inverted and summed. Now, if that side (that is inverted and summed) is impedance balanced (but not carrying any signal), the noise is still cancelled, BUT you don't get the additional signal increase from combining the two signals - you just get the noise cancellation.. Harvey, thanks for explaining that in a way that makes complete sense! It wasn't quite hitting me that you can connect the output of the FMR device to the input of a balanced device to obtain the cancellation. My feeble brain was just thinking about it as a pure unbalanced connection, like going from the FMR into a line input. In a case like the latter, I guess the "cold" side would just get shorted to ground at the line in jack anyway. May as well use a regular TS cable in lieu of a TRS for that scenario. But, now I can see the benefit when hooking up to a balanced device. Thanks again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 28, 2005 Author Share Posted July 28, 2005 Originally posted by scapier Cool beans man. I wonder if it will fit my funk logic rack for two rnc's. I have an empty space. While I have not done measurements, I THINK it might fit - the physical size of the two units is identical, and the knobs / switches / meter layout appears to be the same. However, the labeling on the attack and release controls is a bit different... I don't know how important that is to you, and some of the Funk Logic labeling is a bit different anyway... so in a nutshell, it SHOULD fit, but I can't guarantee it. And I'm fairly confident that Funk Logic will have some new faceplates available soon anyway. I really like their vertical oak cases for FMR products - You can check them out here. Is it more LA2Aish? How would you compare the difference in sound from the rnc and the rnla? I've only used it on two sessions so far - guitars and BGV's. I'm not ready to make any hard and fast characterizations, and I still need to do the actual side by side comparisons between the RNLA and RNC, but my intiial impression is that while it doesn't sound just like a LA-2A, it has some of that same character to it, sort of like the Summit TLA-100 (which also love), it's got a bit of "attitude" to it. It's "juicy". Do you know if they plan a rneq in the near future? I'm going to need something soon. There was a rumor floating around the Internet forums about that some time back, but I don't know. From my conversations with Mark, I think he likes to focus on a single "new" product at once, and so I'm sure the RNLA has been taking up a lot of his time recently... that doesn't mean he might not consider a RNEQ at some point (and I hope he does!), but you'd really have to discuss that with him. I can't speak for him regarding what his future plans are. Spencer Glad to have come over to the other side! Glad to have you aboard Spencer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.