[u b k]

i was recently asked to run the new converters from burl audio thru their paces and give some feedback to the designer before he ramped up production. it seemed like a simple task, and i was looking forward to hearing what the designer of the 2192 would come up with when freed from the constraints of the more formal business atmosphere at universal audio. i'd heard the burl prototypes at a hush-hush session many months ago in watersound studio, and what i heard definitely got my attention in a big way. they were deep and clear, very punchy, very analog.

but somewhere along the development trail the designer, rich williams, completely scrapped the prototype's circuit in favor of a new one he concocted that involved custom-wound transformers he spent months developing. so i didn't know what to expect when the pre-pro unit was handed to me, if anything i was a bit disappointed that the original had been changed at all, the proto wanted for nothing to my ears.

with all this in mind, last week i went into musegarden recording, the lovechild of a great friend and fellow slut 'beats workin', aka david lawrence, and we wrote and recorded a song from the ground up in one evening, recording every track thru the burls (we had 4 channels). david's collection of vintage gear and mics is stunning, and his engineering chops are as good as it gets, and i have deep respect for any engineer that lets me remove the second heads from the drums and tape a wallet to the snare. as for the song, i played drums and synth and sang lead vox, david played acoustic and electric and bass guitars, rhodes, and sang backups. what rich (at burl) and gil (at wave distro) had in mind was for me to run the new converters thru the wringer and look for weaknesses or flaws in the sound or function. what *i* had in mind was to see if these things had the magic that i remembered from the session with the prototypes, because if the new design came up short i wouldn't hesitate to say so, to rich and to gil and to everyone here.

this is how it played out: the burl, with the new circuit and new transformers, sounded so much richer, deeper, smoother, and more analog than the apogees we were using for comparison (edit: the rosetta 800's, clocked with the burl) that all david and i could do was smile and shake our heads at the difference coming back off the console. it was the first time ever for me that i was in a straight-to-digital recording session and didn't miss the euphonic coloration of tape; that's no small thing, anyone who reads my rants knows i'm an unabashed fan of tape. and to be clear, i have no interest in sparking an argument over whether converters should be transparent or not. everyone has their own path to follow, i respect them all, and this is what is true for me: if a piece of hardware imparts a color on the signal that i find desirable, i don't care what the function of that box is... desirable is by definition desirable. some boxes have an almost magical ability to take anything you give them and spit it out the backside sounding better, sweeter. i consider the burl to be that kind of box.

if you want stark, neutral, transparent, or what-you-give-is-exactly-what-you-get conversion, you may want to look elsewhere, prisms or myteks or whatnot. but if you want conversion that sounds rich, incredibly detailed, round, musical, and --- dare i say --- warm, then i don't know of any box on the market that delivers as powerfully as the burls. up until now the 2192 was my favorite converter, but in a side-by-side comparison in another sweet room in manhattan, the 2192's sounded quite a bit less dimensional and more closed off in comparison. the burls are not dark, they're not woolly, they're just warm in a very old-school, soul satisfying way. and for anyone who thinks the differences in converters is subtle, or that conversion is a distant third in importance behind mic and pre, i stand firm in my belief that this is not the case.

so in my next post i'm going to share with you my observations, what i learned and experienced with the burl, but i'm also going to give you every track from this session so you can mix them in your room and see if what i'm saying resonates with you, if you hear the things i hear. because it's one thing for me to use all the right buzzwords and convey my excitement with florid prose, it's quite another to deliver the goods to back it up. and i say in all honesty, with confidence but not arrogance, that i think i've got the goods here, these converters sound amazing and the tracks live up to the hype.

my next post will also have the burl's specs, as well as detailed session notes about what the recording chains were for the various instruments. in almost all cases, they were mic->pre->converter, as simple as it gets.

enjoy.


gregoire
del
ubk
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