Toft Audio Designs AFC-2 First Impressions

[MrJoshua]

My shiny new AFC-2 two-channel preamp and EQ showed up yesterday (http://www.toftaudiodesigns.com/afc2.html) so I thought I'd let everyone know about my first impressions. First, a bit of background for anyone I haven't spoken to in the past. I'm purely a hobbyist when it comes to studio work. I don't do this for a living, and in fact I make basically zero money at it. So when I buy a piece of gear, I'm looking for something that scores high in the "value" category - not so much that it's cheap, but that it has a lot of bang for the buck.

 

The other preamps in my collection are two FMR RNPs, a Focusrite ISA-428, a Groove Tubes "The Brick" and a Grace Designs Model 101. Before the Toft arrived I had no outboard EQs - all EQ and other signal processing was done "in the box" with ProTools LE 7.3.1. Monitoring is a pair of ADAM A7s driven by the converters in my Apogee Rosetta 200 through a Mackie Big Knob in a room with decent acoustic treatment but a need for more bass traps. Other converters are the Digidesign 002Rack and the optional converter card in the Focusrite ISA-428.

 

I mainly record rock music of one variety or another. Lately it's mostly had a pop-rock flavor.

 

And now you should know enough about the test environment. Let's get started.

 

To begin, I wired up the Toft into my gear rack and thought I'd try the EQ on some guitar parts I'd been tracking before using the preamps for anything. So I fired up a ProTools session and routed a guitar track out of the Digi, through the line input on the Toft and back through the Rosetta. And I was very happy with the results. The four bands of sweepable EQ on the Toft are very musical, and it was quick and easy to dial in a sound I liked for the guitar (which in this case was a bright and crunchy Strat through an Epiphone Galaxie 10 combo for a pop-rock tune). I found the EQ controls very easy to work with.

 

Fair enough. For the next test I hooked up a Shinybox 46MX ribbon mic to the Toft pre and tracked a rough vocal part for the same tune. I thought the result was a touch dull, but that's most likely due to the Shinybox which is not a very bright mic. Then I routed the vocal track back through the Toft EQ and started playing around.

 

I found it just as impressive with vocals, but not quite as easy to dial in. It's worth noting, though, that I have sort of an odd baritone voice and was trying to lay down a guide track for a voice in the tenor range, so it was going to sound kind of funny regardless. Still, I was much happier with the track after EQ than I was before it.

 

I haven't had the time to do much else with the AFC-2 yet, so I'll be adding to this review over the next few days as I use it more, but my first impressions are very favorable. The EQ alone is worth the price I paid ($589), and the preamps are very usable. I'll get a better feel for the preamps as I use them on more sources with different mics. It takes me a little time to learn new gear.

 

So far, though, I'm very happy with the purchase. If anything this makes me wish I wasn't limited to 18 channels of I/O, as this really makes me remember how nice it was to mix on a console with a good EQ on every channel as opposed to using plugins in the box. If I'm ever lured away from ProTools LE, you can bet the allure of mixing on a console was the reason. I certainly don't need the extra I/O for tracking.

 

Updates to follow in a few days!

[witesol]

I like mine a lot. And I'd like another!

only thing I don't care for is the teeny tiny type on it..but that has a bit to do with my age. A meter would be cool..

thanks for the impressions, and congrats.