Radial's Workhorse Cube: Both Workhorse-like and Cube-shaped.

Over the weekend, I took home a Radial Workhorse Cube to get familiar with three of their new 500-series modules: the Powerpre, the Q3 Induction Coil EQ, and the Komit compressor. The Radial products I'm most familiar with are transparent tools like DI boxes and Reampers, which they do a great job at, but I was curious what they would bring to a channel-strip-style setup like this.

I had a session over the weekend with a female singer songwriter, and had opportunities to try the Workhorse on a few things. Before you even plug it in, Radial's excellent build quality shows with their solid steel construction and baked enamel finishes, and every knob and switch feels substantial, which makes the units fun to work with. Of course, I eventually calmed down and plugged the thing in. Even this was easy thanks to the Powerpre's front XLR input, and a 'feed' switch between each channel, which sends a unit's output into the next unit, eliminating the need for patch cables. Other fun on the Workhorse's rear includes a Link switch for stereo linkage, and an Omniport input, a 1/4" jack for each unit that provides extra functionality.

My first test was kick drum. The Powerpre is wonderfully quiet for the +55dB of gain it boasts, but on kick the Q3 was what really stood out. A few mild adjustments on the 12-position Grayhill switches brought out what I was looking for on both lows and highs, while the Mid Cut knob took away some of the pesky "basketball-sounding" frequencies. The Q3's Omniport is assigned as an effects loop. My only gripe about the Q3 is a minor one, and that is that the Shift switch for each band is hard to get at, but that's a "set-and-forget" type thing anyway, so maybe I'll just stop complaining already.

Next up, I wanted to see how my guest channel strip would squash a room mic for me, so I put a Peluso 2247LE (psst, also available at Rock N Roll Rentals!) through the Workhorse. The Peluso is a great mic all by itself, and didn't need the Q3 to help it out, but the Komit squeezed my room mic nicely, gluing disparate sounds like bells and accordion together without sucking the life out of them. As with the other two modules, there are fewer than five controls (including the "On" feature), so the Komit works a lot of magic on it's own, thanks in part to it's full-size discrete electronics and Hammond broadcast transformers. With the Komit, the Omniport is a key input for side-chaining or de-essing.

Radial Engineering's Workhorse Cube and 500-series modules offered me a lot of great sounds, thanks to great craftsmanship and well-thought-out features, and it's portable enough to take anywhere. I highly recommend taking one home for yourself, especially at Rock N Roll Rentals' awesome Reservation Rate of $47 for Tues/Wed/Thurs- Monday or only $108 for a month!


Also available pre-filled! That is to say, filled with preamps. 

reviewed by:
-John Pearson

Compress your Preamp or Pretend you're on 'Mash'...

One of the perks of working for Rock N Roll Rentals besides 'Pizza-Saturdayzz' is that we get to test all sorts of musical and recording equipment most of us otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to experiment with...  This luxury comes especially handy when you're a poor musician and can't afford to record in a studio.  So here I am needing to track drums for my band The Sour Notes in my guitar-player's East-side warehouse apartment... Two of the pieces of gear I chose among others was the JDK R20 Dual Channel Mic Preamp and R22 Dual Channel Compressor.

Upon first look at the gear... the rugged, militaristic design and simplistic control panel immediately attracted me to the R20 & R22.  I'm a big fan of machines that don't have too-many buttons to fiddle with and when it comes to audio processing, I'd like to think things tend to sound a bit more 'natural' the less you do to it.  With the R22, you'll notice, unlike most Compressors, that it doesn't feature 'attack' or 'release' functions, but fear not... You can achieve very controlled compression on whatever you run through it, just with a few less knobs to turn.  I've used many similar types of 'rack-compressors' when recording and one thing I appreciated most about the R22 was it's ability to retain most of the original sound's dynamics even when 'hard' compressing.  I ended up running a 'top-snare' mic and kick drum through it and found that with a few flicks of a switch and minor dial adjustments, my kick drum tones varied from big ballon-type roundness to quick, punchy-pops all while retaining alot of what I started with coming out of the preamp.... Which brings me to the JDK R20 Dual Channel Preamp.  It's pretty basic!  1 gain knob really... What I'm gathering is that JDK products are really into processing your sound 'subtly'.  Simple and smooth-sounding... Less is sometimes more!

by Jared Paul Boulanger

Portico II vs. The Other Guy

I knew going into it, that having the opportunity to try out the Portico II for my home recording project would leave me regretful I could only use it for a few days, on a few instruments...

I own a far less-expensive Mic Pre at home that I decided to compare the Portico II against while recording bass guitar with similar knob settings on each unit to get an idea of what the difference  in quality would be.  First of all, if you're recording bass guitar, you might find the Portico II to be the ideal choice, because of it's additional EQ and Compressor Settings, which in my opinion sounded amazing direct input or from the mic'd bass amp.  Compared to my own Mic Pre Amp, which did not have these additional features, the initial sounds I got from the Portico II were simply wider and more well-rounded before I even hit the 'Silk' Button, which added a little extra uniqueness to it.  All in all, the Portico II is a great '3-in-1' component that would most like satisfy any home or studio recording set-up on a variety of instruments.  If you can afford to spend the extra money to rent one of these, it'd definitely kick your recording up a few notches.

-Reviewed by Jared Paul Boulanger

Universal Audio 1176LN Leveling Amplifier

In a recent mixing session I had a vocal track recorded through a Shure green bullet mic live. Inherently, the mic had a great over-driven sound but also picked up a lot of ambient drums and guitar. I used UA's 1176LN to compress the track. I used a 12:1 ratio and right away could hear the vocals more in the foreground of the track and substantially decreased the ambient noise. Just what I wanted. The compression was very smooth and didn't really suck the tone out. I highly recommend this unit for bringing up weak or over-driven signals to tape or in the mix.

reviewed by Matt Puryear.

Unit available for Rent or Sale at Rock n Roll Rentals

Api 500 series

I brought one of these home a few weeks back. Hearing for years about how great the eq and pre's were, I was exited to hear what everyone was talking about. Part of me wanted to think it was over priced hype. Within minutes, I was trying to imagine how I could buy one. You know, like what could I sell and do I really need a car or a kidney..etc.
Even at full gain the mic pre's were super quiet and sounded great. I'm kind of a compression junkie and I got a great fix. Its the most transparent sounding compressor I've heard. Not at all "effecty" - even at full squish.
Api eq is legendary. Its easy to see why. I found myself reamping older tracks like kick drums and vocals just to get some of that sugar. Really amazing stuff, so musical.
In the end, its so inexpensive to rent that its really ideal for any recording project. Its so portable too. I'm sold. Anybody need a third kidney?
Gary

available for rental @ Rock n Roll Rentals (only in Austin, TX!)

Summit DCL-200. Reviewed by Ali Ramzanali

Summit Audio, a company that stands by its name by being the 'peak' in its class. I had a chance use the DCL-200 while mastering Ethan Kennedy's upcoming album "Raucous." The DCL-200 is a refined piece of gear, and it shows; every knob is calibrated to a near-perfect linearity, the build is rugged, the VU's are highly sensitive, and even the switches reflect the integrity of this compressor. After about 15 minutes, the 12AX7A tubes warm up to a blissful level of amplification- I would suggest running any clean signal through this machine with the compressor bypassed. The 'slope' represents the ratio of the compression - ranging from 1:1 (0) to 7:1 (10). Side chain capabilities make it easy to hook up to an EQ to de-ess vocals - if that's what you need. The DCL-200 is a must-have in any studio. Rent it today and hear for yourself. $75 a week, $150 a month, or sale price $3339.99.