What I Did On My Holidays…

Posted by on Oct 17, 2013 in Gear, News

I took some ‘time off’ over the summer to do some upgrades and much-needed maintenance to my studio kit, fix a big bag of broken cables and gawp at my screen for hours doing backups and software updates.

Gear-wise, I added a Metric Halo ULN-8 to my ULN-2 and 2882 interfaces (so now I only need a LIO-8 for the full set, right?). I love the sound, flexibility and reliability of MH boxes and the ULN-8 now forms the hub of my studio, giving me 18 top quality inputs for tracking, a great monitor controller and, with the 2882+DSP, double plug-in power for mixing.

ULN8 front 2

I also got local electronics-ninja Mike Baker to build me an AML EZ1073 preamp / eq. It’s a bang-on copy of the Neve 1073 channel-strip from their ‘legendary’ early-1970s 80 series recording console which is revered by audio buffs for, amongst other things, the subtle but pleasing colouration it imparts to the sound – due in part to the whopping Carnhill transformers on both inputs and output, which you can see in the pic below. The internet is full of people going on about its ‘sonic girth’, ‘heft’, ‘weight’ and ‘punch’, but for once they’re right – everything you put through it does sound amazing, and as if that’s not enough it’s also made right here in Manchester…

EZ1073