Shadow Hills Mono Gama Mic Pre Comparison

[SnareBuzz]

Dear GearSlut colleagues,

I've been recording for years and I recently (within the last few months) discovered Shadow Hills Industries & their wonderful Mono Gama preamps (500 series). I've gotten to know mine really well over the past bit and hosted a colleague this week who came over and did a bit of vocal & guitar work to test out the various modes of the preamp (Nickel, Steel, Discrete) to see how these behaved on his sources. We found the comparison of files to be very insightful. I'd be happy to share/post mp3's of some of those comparisons here if there is interest in such a comparison.

Here's the details of what we did:

Acoustic Guitar:
Neuman KM184 directly into Mono Gama Preamp. Output into Apogee Ensemble & recorded at 24bit, 44.1
Taylor Guitar

Vocals:
Neumann TLM103 condensor (vocalist choice) into Mono Gama Preamp. Output into Apogee Ensemble & recorded @ 24bit 44.1

For each of the above, we tracked at comparable levels through all 3 transformer settings on the mono Gamma preamp. Also recorded using the Apogee Ensemble preamps for comparison & a Vintech X73i setup at high input/low output gain (ie, clean) & also at high input, low output gain (ie, driven).

If there is suitable interest here, I'll be happy to upload the tracks & post here.

[GoldMember]

Originally Posted by SnareBuzz

We found the comparison of files to be very insightful. I'd be happy to share/post mp3's of some of those comparisons here if there is interest in such a comparison.

can you record the guitar also with the tlm103 ?

[JTanner]

Post them, im interested in the Gama. Thanks!

[Beatwulf]

I love my mono gama, I use the steel setting on most guitar amps and nickel for bass, mega!

[s.d.finley]

I love the Gama!!

[SnareBuzz]

Originally Posted by GoldMember

can you record the guitar also with the tlm103 ?

The comparisons I have are already done and the TLM103 wasn't used on guitar there, but I routinely use this mic on acoustic, so perhaps we'll do another one in the near future with that mic...good suggestion.


Seems to be enough interest here to warrant the posts...I'll do my best to get them up online tonight.

[SnareBuzz]

Dear GearSlutz,

I've been reading the forum here for quite a while and learning from the vast wealth of information that is available here. This place is truly a gift and I wanted to start making some contributions here.

As my initial post here states, I've recently been doing some work to get to know the Shadow Hills Mono Gama preamps and I really love their versatile sound. The 3 transformers offer very different sounds which I hope will be evident in the samples below. The samples were all recorded using Neumann KLM184 off the 12th fret, about 2 feet away from a Taylor acoustic. I did my very best to match levels going into the Apogee converters.

I haven't added any EQ, compression, or any plugin at all..these are purely raw recordings that were done to evaluate the different modes of the SH preamps and to compare this preamp to two others that my colleague owned (Apogee Ensemble's internal preamps & Vintech's X73i). I suspect these are pieces of gear owned by many here and it's nice to be able to hear comparisons. I think they all offer a different tone & depending on source, and effect, they all have their place & uses, so I don't use words like better/etc....perhaps preference is a better choice.

I've been blown away by the quality of sound & versatility of the Shadow Hills Mono Gamas and this test simply further validates that to me.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on these, but here's my impressions in comparing things:
The Shadow Hills Preamps are very detailed & provide plenty of gain. The Discrete section seems to my ears to have the least amount of low end punch and the most top end, while the Steel is on the opposite end with a lot of bottom end and a top end that seems almost compressed (in a good way). The Nickel seems boosted a bit in the bottom and also has nice lift in the top....All 3 would be useful. I was suprised at how much less "hard" the SH gear sounded when compared to the Vintech....I prefer this sound for most everything, but if there was a need to have a very highly articulate preamp, I think the Vintech X73i would be a very good choice. I wouldn't use the Ensemble on acoustic...it's just simply not flattering, but if you needed an uncolored sound, I think this is where it excels.

I'll post up the vocal tracks next, but I hope this is helpful, particularly for folks considering the Shadow Hills Mono Gama preamp. They are wonderful sounding preamps which are highly versatile in tone and the customer service is 2nd to none in my opinion....kudos! I want to thank my colleague (Mike Vaughn) for playing the acoustic and giving me permission to post these examples...we found them very useful (Mike just became a member of the Shadow Hills family based on these results) & we hope you'll find them useful too!

Enjoy the tracks...happy to answer questions.

[SnareBuzz]

Here's the followup test with the Shadow Hills Mono Gama preamps that we did last night and I thought I'd share. This time, the focus is on the vocals. The vocals were recorded using Neuman TLM103 directly into the Shadow Hills Mono Gama and I did my best to match consistent levels during tracking. For flavor differences, we also tracked through a Vintech X73i, one of the preamps that my colleague uses so that he & I could hear the differences and make some decisions for future recording sessions.

All of the vocal tracks are tracked without compression except for those marked w/ compression. For the tracks marked with compression, the Shadow Hills Mono Gamas were connected to Shadow Hills Mono Optograph and setup to deliver 1-2dB reduction during the soft parts and no more than about 5-7 dB reduction during the big stuff. Difficult to control, because when the vocalist here (Mike) really got into it, he'd sometimes hit 10dB reduction on the compressor...which never crapped out and really sounds quite musical.

I'm a huge fan of the Shadow Hills gear and I hope this collection of files is helpful for others considering purchase of Peter Reardon's gear....I love the sound. For me, these are remarkably versatile and a terrific offering for my clients.

Thanks to Mike Vaughn for helping me with this comparison, and for his willingness to share these files within this community. I've learned so much from the contributions of so many here & I hope this small contribution is at least helpful to some of you.

Best regards & keep on recordin'
Ron Brashear

[SnareBuzz]

Would love your feedback on these...plenty of views, but haven't heard a peep. Is this useful to some of you? Anything we could do on this end to make future posts any more useful?

ROn

[nikss5000]

Originally Posted by SnareBuzz

Would love your feedback on these...plenty of views, but haven't heard a peep. Is this useful to some of you? Anything we could do on this end to make future posts any more useful?

ROn

Hey Ron!! Well done bro! It really helped me in a way of choosing a right preamp as far as the sound/tone is concerned, I was actually looking for something like "Vintech x73i , or Neve 1073LB 500 Series"And thats the sound i was looking for ... :-) Can you please confirm the Vintech's Model ? Is it "x73i" OR "273" ?

And yes its very Usefull .. !! :D
Thanks again for your effort!!

[SnareBuzz]

Originally Posted by nikss5000

Hey Ron!! Well done bro! It really helped me in a way of choosing a right preamp as far as the sound/tone is concerned, I was actually looking for something like "Vintech x73i , or Neve 1073LB 500 Series"And thats the sound i was looking for ... :-) Can you please confirm the Vintech's Model ? Is it "x73i" OR "273" ?

And yes its very Usefull .. !! :D
Thanks again for your effort!!

Thanks very much for your comments. The Vintech model in the comparison above is indeed the x73i. Nice sounding preamp in it's own right for sure. Glad this could be of help to you!

[Jonas M.]

Hi Ron,

I think the overall differences in the Shadow Hills files subtle but audible. What I like most about your shootout is the song ;-) great performance. And if the song is great, the production has to be just good enough, to not hinder the performance. And in fact, that's the case! The last files you posted, with a little compression are really beautiful. Just one question, what preamp setting was used on the acoustic guitar for the different vocal files.

Thanks and keep up the good work!

[Simma Lugnt]

Thanks for the samples