Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 5, 2005 Members Share Posted October 5, 2005 Stumbled across this because I was curious about the Portico and found this shootout. I don't have time to listen to it anytime soon, but at some point I will! Neve Portico 5012 in three different settingsAPI 3124 with stock 2520 opamp (1999)Great River MP-2Sebatron vmp-2000e Sources: acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and drum overheads http://www.thelisteningsessions.com/session10.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Matt Hepworth Posted October 5, 2005 Members Share Posted October 5, 2005 I checked 'em out earlier today - the Sebatron on the acoustic track is nothing but NOISE. Holy engineer screwed something up somewhere, Batman. Made me want my API even more, though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kiwiburger Posted October 5, 2005 Members Share Posted October 5, 2005 Not wanting to upset anyone, but I personally find many shootouts like this to be utterly worthless. Why? Have you ever recorded multiple takes of the same thing - using exactly the same guitar and mic and preamp. Have you ever noticed that each take is different, and that you strongly prefer one over another? I mean - come on! That's studio life as we all know it. Therefore - with shoot outs like this, you have absolutely NO IDEA whether you are just hearing a better take that you like, and comparing it against a crap take. In between takes - what else changed? Did the temperature drop? Did somebody crack a joke and suddenly the guitar player warmed up? Did he have an emotional reason to prefer a particular preamp (maybe the color or the shape of the knobs) and therefore played better? Did he just move an inch away from the mic? Also - web hosting cost money. There is no free lunch. Maybe - just maybe - somebody has a financial interest in the outcome of these "independant shoot outs"?? I'm not wanting to upset anyone, but it's a big bad commercial world out there. VOCAL SHOOTOUTS ARE INFINATELY WORSE! A singer has about three good takes, and then the voice deteriorates. There is no way that a singer can sing the same thing perfectly the same through several different preamps. Preamps are important, but compared to source and mics, they make the least difference. How can you know that the difference you hear have ANYTHING to do with those preamps? The other thing that really makes me mad is where you follow the forums for these shootouts. You hear really stupid stuff like (and here i'm wildly paraphrasing, but you know what I mean): "Take 3 seemed to have a little more spaciousness than Take 1" "Oh yes - I accidentally had a stereo chorus over the master buss on that Take. Sorry!" I find these to be fairly laughable, i'm sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 5, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 5, 2005 No need to apologize. What you are saying has a great deal of merit. And along with what you say, there's the whole other setting of various parameters that we don't know about (gain staging, the kind of room it's in, the kind of player, the kind of guitar, test conditions, and a whole bunch of other details. I still haven't listened to this yet. Maybe I will later. But I thought it would be interesting to others largely because of the Portico. That's certainly why it's interesting to me. I think that sometimes you can get a sense of what the mic preamp brings to the table, but not in so much of a "Battle Of The Preamps Contest" sort of nonsense. More in sort of a "Hey, this mic preamp seems to hold its own compared to these other nice mic preamps, and it seems to sound really great. And wow, they have a 7-day trial period. I think I may check that out in my studio." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kendrix Posted October 5, 2005 Members Share Posted October 5, 2005 To support these comments heres one for ya. I own a GR1NV. Im really happy with it.Ive read many formal and informal reviews incuding some from notoriously picky pros that praise this pre. On Lynn Fustons mic shoot out site it sound like S&^T - absolutely the worst of several pres auditioned.It sounds much too dark - in a way that would likely accent all the worst characteristics of my vox.If I had heard these files before purchasing I probbably never would have gone with this unit. Yet, it seems really clear that Lynn is very careful about what he does. He just posted the files without comment. Im sure he had no axe to grind I never could understand this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 6, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 6, 2005 The GR sounding dark seems really strange to me. That's supposed to be a really clear, open preamp, right? You just never know... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted October 6, 2005 Author Members Share Posted October 6, 2005 ...but to make a decision based solely on a mic preamp shootout is sheer lunacy as well. At best, it's just one source of many to pique one's interest. And at worst...well, we have a couple of examples of this already!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kendrix Posted October 6, 2005 Members Share Posted October 6, 2005 Originally posted by UstadKhanAli The GR sounding dark seems really strange to me. That's supposed to be a really clear, open preamp, right? You just never know... Actually thre NV series is colored - Neve-esque.There is another line of GR pres that are the clean ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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