Well, I’ve lived with the Avalon 737 sm for around a week now and thought I’d give you my impressions. Again, I’ve been mostly a performing in front of people for years kinda guy and only done the studio thang at home and in small local places. We had set up a bit of a do it yourself mic pre shoot out recently with some consumer garbage and a friend brought over a few pieces. I was actually surprised at the differences I heard in doing this. My partner (Selena) and I set up the Avalon just using the mic amp and bypassing the rest and at first we were a bit underwhelmed. I mean it sounded good and 'pro' but not a boatload of difference in these soloed bits. Then I explained to her the ‘building up of crud’ factor when using the cheaper pre’s so I had her sing a higher and lower harmony with herself and then switched in an acoustic and bass part I’d tracked earlier on the 737. Vwala, there it was, we both sat bolt upright and said to each other; "That’s why it’s worth nearly two grand!" I mean, every part had it’s own space and position in the mix. Even on our lowly NS-10M Studio’s, the difference was striking. The backup voxes needed just a touch of volume dickering till they all matched perfectly (do you have any idea how many times I’ve mixed single songs trying to get the backups to blend till Selena’s satisfied?) Also, adding a bit of ultra-highs and cutting a bit around 3 or 4K seems to really smooth out! the AKG-414 that Selena likes to sing through. I’ve messed with the sidechain business, but I’m not sure it works for what I intended (taming the piercing bit when she belts) but after rereading the manual I don’t think I was doing it right, -needed to cut some low mids as well as firing up the offending freq. -gonna have to try that one again. I do find the compressor sort of fiddley, but with practice setting, I was getting up to 10 db of gain reduction on my vocal and it was pretty much invisible. It seems a bit of a slow beast, but quite usable, 'specially' vocals and bass. The eq is great! By cutting a tiny bit of lows and low mids and boosting a bit on the higher bands, I can get this great crystalline zinging acoustic guitar tone that works with strumming or this 'boop-a-chink-a' finger picking strum thing I do. It's almost more percussion than guitar and blends perfectly with hi hat. I find that with this tone or with a real piano your mix can’t help but sound hi fi. Haven’t quite figured out my perfect piano wire sounding bass guitar tone but I’m way closer than ever before (really need new strings too). Also need to try out micing my Boog, sax, recorders and mando, but I can already see which direction that’s gonna go. Yeah, it’s so weird cos at first I liked the soloed Mackie VLZ Pro sound on my voice better cos it seemed to bring out a bit more ultra highs. But then I tried it against the Avalon on a chorus to a tune we’ve been working on. What became apparent was on the 737 take, the lyrics were way easier to understand. The 737 take also fit in the music bed better while at the same time was easier to pick out and for some reason, didn’t require nearly as much effects to sound right. On careful listening, the Mackie’s unintelligibility seemed due to, well, it’s almost like different portions of the freq. spectrum were hitting my ear at slightly different times. Is this what they mean by smearing? Christ, I can’t even listen to the ART pre's anymore. Soloed they aren’t too bad on a quick listen and definitely quite different to the Mackie sound, but stack some backup voices together and there’s this harsh crunching to consonants and very unpleasant sibilants that become blatantly apparent. After I got a DAL Card Deluxe, I found it difficult to listen to the old black faced ADAT tracks. The Avalon is way more so on this principal compared to Mackie and other consumer channels. I guess one of the main things I’ve learned is that I just can’t tell enough from soloed bits. Yeah, they have apparent differences or flavors or whatever, but until you get a part into the mix, I can’t tell a thing about how something’s gonna work. No offense to the Boston Pre Party, but I’ve read a few of your tirades way after the fact and me thinks I’m beginning to understand. I mean, when mixing, I hardly ever solo anything unless I suspect something’s wrong (find the weird noise etc..) Also, the 'take' itself is so important. I can see how someone might like a piece better cos the singer felt more motivated at one point or another. So what else can I say? I can’t afford a bunch of good stuff right now, but the 737 seems like it’ll work out perfectly as my gold channel for the time being. I wish I were closer to you guys cos if the DVC had a similar 'quality' sound (basic tone not important, how it sits in the mix is) then I might have been better off going that route for the extra channel. I’d love to compare it’s limiters to the 737 compressor, etc. Just wanted you to know that we think this is a really quality piece and it’s really teaching me how to listen more precisely. The black face is also way more stylish than the silver one in my opinion too. The drag is, every track I’ve replaced sounds so much more intimate and pro quality against the others that I’m now doomed to redo loads of stuff. Oh well... -David |
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