Hand crafted labs products

[HandCrafted Lab]

Well, on many requests we broadcast again a reportage from an assembling process.
We make a next summing mixer (passive input network+powerfull all balanced amplifier) which was ordered by an our old french customer, Hi Julien thumbsup-

[karlstudio]

Hello everyone! I´ve been following this forum for along time and this thread, I´m buyer of 2 Velvet´s and Leveller S2, so, when arrived I promise you up some samples...

Hi Albert , I´m Carlos. I´m impatient to test your gear... up some pictures when It had installed in the studio. Greetings.
P.D. I also have a broken English. Sorry...

[Marogru]

I have my S2 form some time.
The first day it arrived, I burned all that days session on it
But I noticed it the day after Although it burns, cooks, grills, the sound, it still stays natural.
Next thing I noticed is that its great for monitoring, so my favorite chain now is>> splitted mic signal to 2 pres> 1 pre goes straight to a/d and the second goes to s2, then form s2>1 of the channels goes to a/d and the second for monitoring, that way I have a direct monitor channel and a paralel comp at once and paralel with slammed soft knee, calss a, burned to 3 o' is amazing

Grilled Drums also are fine but I find it sometimes a bit too dark.

soft 2buss is a must with this thing, I dont remember where I've put my 4000...hmmm.

But enuf of the plesant trip, now lets go to the other side of the moon...
As it gets warmer during the session, it starts to loose its stereo balance, so from time to time I have to calibrate it with some mono signal.
The pots are not precise either, my left pot has to be always about 3-4 bars higher then the right to get equal amp.
My reduction knob is always all the way to the max, otherwise I'd get no compression...and the signal I have for it are dense and hot.
I noticed also the gain is fequency dependand so when i sweep through freq in link mode double mono i see the metters dance with eachother, its posible that makes that extra space also. Tubes nature.
After 3-4 hours of work my wundersolution starts to buzz very loudly and I have to cool it off.

But still I love it and soon I think I'll grab a next1 to my rack. Couse this is a tube unit ffs, wanna have something stable? Get married!

All good Albert!!!

[fez]

Hey,

Albert, an 48 channel tube summingmixer! It will certainly provide all the inputs I want for now and the coming years, for sure.

I've send you a mail regarding the 48 or maybe 32 channel summingmixer. Next month I have enough money to buy something great. Just thinking to have a summingmixer or just a mixer to buy. But my idea and if the price is right I can have both! Just curious about the prices and the options this unit has. Surely more people want to know it aswell on this public forum.

Greetings from Holland,
Dennis

[HandCrafted Lab]

Originally Posted by karlstudio

....... I´m buyer of 2 Velvet´s and Leveller S2, so, when arrived I promise you up some samples... Hi Albert , I´m Carlos. I´m impatient to test your gear... up some pictures when It had installed in the studio. Greetings.

Well, it will be soon, Velvets has 90% readiness. And of course, send us audio & pics (btw all our earlier customers also, we miss your music

P.D. I also have a broken English. Sorry...

He-he, I have a fears if my an english becomes perfect I have a chance becomes a harmful journalist / reviewer instead of devices making. So... it would be better for industry if my english not would be perfect

Originally Posted by Marogru

I have my S2 form some time.
The first day it arrived, I burned all that days session on it
But I noticed it the day after Although it burns, cooks, grills, the sound, it still stays natural.
Next thing I noticed is that its great for monitoring, so my favorite chain now is>> splitted mic signal to 2 pres> 1 pre goes straight to a/d and the second goes to s2, then form s2>1 of the channels goes to a/d and the second for monitoring, that way I have a direct monitor channel and a paralel comp at once and paralel with slammed soft knee, calss a, burned to 3 o' is amazing

Well, good plugging

Grilled Drums also are fine but I find it sometimes a bit too dark.

Pump a device for more bright picture

..... But still I love it and soon I think I'll grab a next1 to my rack. Couse this is a tube unit ffs, wanna have something stable? Get married!

All good Albert!!!

Nice to hear it. Btw, we wait your samples & pics

Originally Posted by fez

Hey,

Albert, an 48 channel tube summingmixer! It will certainly provide all the inputs I want for now and the coming years, for sure.

Dennis, I should to note - summing mixer where passive input network and powerful all balanced amplifier with high headroom, wide dynamical range.
It`s a endless argue & discussion, what is better - a passive input network (no colored sound), active buffered solid state inputs (not expensive, but senseless after buffering stages of DAW again), active tube inputs (very expensive and senseless without transformers on each input /much more expensive due to it/ - and senseless due to both these factors)....... Heh
So... we develop base platform in such view. Achieving of 32-48 ch is not simple task yet, but we investigate it however.

I've send you a mail regarding the 48 or maybe 32 channel summingmixer.....

Ok, I will reply, a mixer specifiaction is not simple and short :-)

[mrbasslo]

Hi Everyone

I bought a Velvet channel and Faust microphone for recording Portugese Band Madredeus - here is my report on both please post any questions and I will do my best to reply.
best

Jonathan


Report Velvet

Pros

Rapid build and delivery
This is a very serious audio device , offering an extended noise free - high frequency for a valve mic amp with the benefit of an efficient and musical compressor it is the holy grail of audio for me which is an everyday device that can handle a multitude of audio recording but with anything but an everyday sound and build quality .

Tested with

Acoustic Gtr – voices various from opera to folk to Pop – the compressor handled all areas with ease and musicality .- mic amp had plenty of gain without noise .

Cons

should counter sink the calibration for the Vu

Suggestions

Greater gain and cut on the eq with a broader bell – for example the Manley Passive eq is very effective even on small increments – we did not feel this with the velvet EQ the two mid freq slightly better of course as based on 6 db

Also the vu calibration should be better counter sunk as once set should not need any interference .


Faust

Open detailed top end and quite performance – are the things I noticed about this mic – it handled the various and many singers we put in front of it with no problems and noticeably as they where singing in Portuguese the Faust handled the very difficult consonants and tendency of at least one singer towards sibilance – which is part of the languages vices in a studio .

The mic looked very well built and was quite in operation and also featured very well on acoustic instruments .

The other mic pre amps I was using on these sessions would normally put anything else to shame being re furbished Cadac modules – ex Lansdowne studios1988 - with an updated power supply and tube tech mic pres.

I can say as a Cadac /Neve fan that the guys at HCL are very cool – Albert etc and the gear is without reservation recommended – Please check out Madrdeus [ the artist in question and you will see how demanding the music can be for any gear – got any questions ask them and they will get answered .

[HandCrafted Lab]

Jonathan thumbsup thanx for unbiased opinion, we glad that devices has impressed you and your team
OK we are waiting some audiofiles & pics from working place. To be honestly, I was surprized for portugal language in sense of complexity for capturing of some consonants, hmm

Meanwhile, we continue a broadcast of next stage of assembling summing mixer, Hi Julian

[HandCrafted Lab]

Well Julian Your summing mixer is ready

We put pics of device/device interior - amp, trafos, buss, steppeed switches, dual PSU (outboard also)
and simplest sound checks - ITB and OTB variant of mixing.
4 instruments - (i.e 4 stereocouples) Nuendo 3.2, 24/44 AD/DA, output files 44/16 WAVs, 00.24, ~4,14mB each

XXL pic 1 XXL pic 2 XXL pic 3 XXL pic 4 XXL pic 5

[HandCrafted Lab]

A Sample ITB A Sample OTB B Sample ITB B sample OTB

[fez]

Hey,

Great, man! Looks very impressive building the Summingmixer.

Any news about that "Harmbox" yet?

[HandCrafted Lab]

thumbsup thanx Dennis, We tried

Indoor construction single channel version of distortion box is ready, but has not a machined front panel still, we had/have big holidays in Ukraine now, slavic Easter week, 1 May and 9 may Victory day , plants which machine a panels are out of work till end of holidays.

[HandCrafted Lab]

We could not be indifferent at listening these files from our french clients and are excited yet -

Jean-Yves Terras

Affinity preamp

“Voisin” 192kbit/s, 5,58mB/4.08

http://papa-movie.com/voisin.mp3


“Faire des dtours” 192kbit/s, 6.03mB/4.23

http://papa-movie.com/faire_des_dtours.mp3


Herve Bessenay

light Velvet channel strip

Solution s2 leveler

“Lonely Wolf” 160kbit/s, 3,16mB/2.45

http://papa-movie.com/Lonely_Wolf__master_.mp3


"Don`t let my dream Fade Away” 192kbit/s, 2.04mB/1.47

http://papa-movie.com/Don_t_Let_My_Dream_Fade_Away.mp3

[magibatalla]

I received my Faust tube microphone last week. Yesterday I was tracking some demo songs with an artist I produce and we took the time to do some mic comparisons between the Faust, my former vocal mic (an AKG C414 B-XLII) and my also recently purchased Shure SM7b.

The guy sung to the 3 mics in front of him at the same time, so the take is the same for every clip. I didn't use the HP filters on the AKG or the SM7. The preamps were those on the Prism Sound Orpheus, which run the conversion too. I set the preamps for each mic to hit -10dB on Cubase input meters. Faust has a really hot output, even more than the AKG without any of its onboard attenuators on. As expected, the SM7 has the weakest output.

I tracked the guitar with various mics too: Faust, Neumann KM184 and Royer R-121. I kept the Faust version for these clips, as I liked it the most. The Neumann sounded a little too bright in this situation and the Royer sounded a little dull (I probably should have positioned it further from the source instead of aligned with the other two, and maybe using its back side).

The clips are mono exports of guitar and voice channels, both channel faders at 0dB. Gain diferences between the three vocal tracks were pretty unnoticeable. I put waves L2 to maximize the volume of the clips, maximum attenuation occurred being -1dB. No other processing took place.

The three contenders are not the same kind of mic at all so the test wasn't aimed to decide which one's the best of its kind. I'm really glad to have enlarged my mic palette with both the Faust and the SM7.

I was surprised by how good the SM7 sounded to my ears, considering its price point in comparison to the other mics. I wouldn't be ashamed of using it as main vocal mic if I didn't have an alternative.
My older AKG sounded kinda hyped/artificial to me compared to the other two.
I liked Faust's top end and was the overall preferred in this shootout. There was something around 1KHz I found annoying. I could improve it with a narrow cut of about 6dB. The clip doesn't feature this cut.

Well, here's my contribution

[Audio Hombre]

414's never seem to get much lub around here but to my ears in this test above, the 414 absolutely smoked the faust, follwed by the 7b, if not a toss up between the 414 and 7b. if i was auditioning mics,the faust wouldn't even end up in play after this audition.in fact, i'd wonder if something was wrong with it? it has absolutely no vibe happening in the top end in this clip.maybe it's more to do with the shootout configuration than the mic itself, so i'll give hcl the benefit of the doubt here but man oh man oh man

[frans]

A bit off topic but I just wanted to voice my praise for the affinity2a preamp: It does all the things a pre should and then.... every time I need a distorted vocal, I just run up the gain and there's nothing I need to do to the signal, because it sounds just fine, no need for a hi-cut, no eq, not harsh... close to hearing a mic in front of a good amp. No other pre I have does it that good. Not even the Manley. (Sorry, EveAnna...)
I mostly do rock and raw stuff and sometimes I let the peaks hit clip because it sounds so fine in context! Less compression needed = less work for me. To get it straight, it's not a "dark" pre, it sounds like there is a midget in it who rides the gain a little and mults/processed the signal just like I need it. Maybe that's what the ventilation openings are for, so that this dwarf gets some air?
Thank you Albert, good job! Should I pour a little vodka into the pre to keep the dwarf happy?

[HandCrafted Lab]

Originally Posted by Audio Hombre

414's never seem to get much lub around here but to my ears in this test above, the 414 absolutely smoked the faust...... so i'll give hcl the benefit of the doubt here but man oh man oh man

We position Faust as "mic with presence and which has not necessity in de-essor". Other side - good sitting and recognition in the mix. Many good mics has nice sounding... itself ... till attempts to embed voice(different types of voices - male/female) into mix, and mics sounding continue to be good. But inaudible.... through mix
I do not think that is something wrong with comparison, just it`s another mic type. Alike Stratocaster, Telecaster with glass sounding which is brand, ad Gibson, for instance, with opposite type sounding. But try say to Telecaster owners that his guitar has a wrong sounding..... because his Tele has another sound type and was smoked by Gibson....

414 seems with some porridge in top, ach-ach.... SM7b is good with count of price, alike my home AKG C3000 which has surprisingly good sounding in some cases, I had a plans to update 3000 by tube, but has changed my mind, because 3000 has own sounding, and good, what for?

In turn, when we mount Faust and M149 near each other, it seems that M149 is broken, though 149 is very nice mic, of course.

To extend viewing and comparison it has a sense for listening another mics shooting where Faust, U47, Elam 251, Sony g800 are compared -

Hand Crafted Labs_ Faust Mic_ Shootout

Originally Posted by frans

.. (Sorry, EveAnna...)..... I mostly do rock and raw stuff and sometimes I let the peaks hit clip because it sounds so fine in context! Less compression needed = less work for me. To get it straight, it's not a "dark" pre, it sounds like there is a midget in it who rides the gain a little and mults/processed the signal just like I need it. Maybe that's what the ventilation openings are for, so that this dwarf gets some air?
Thank you Albert, good job! Should I pour a little vodka into the pre to keep the dwarf happy?

Frans! , ha-ha.... yes, how you know we grow and put special gremlins inside each our device, with incantations, I can remind how it occur, the singing dwarfs downloadable into device -

http://papa-movie.com/HCL_download_gremlins.wmv

So... be careful with dwarfs and vodka, they can become alcoholics if you will accustom to drinking them. A little of drink.


Preamp distortion has pushed us at building new distortion device with triode/pentode or both type distortion as mentioned on earlier page, so... device will be presented soon, single channel strip and dual also(without preamp).

[HandCrafted Lab]

Well

we can demonstrate first laboratory shoots of an our distortion box. Device has preamp and leveler (same as Affinity and Solution), and the distortion stage which has triode/pentode modes, with possibility of bias or unbiased distortion tube mode as well as with possibility of mixing distorted and undistorted signal.
Side chain of the leveler can be controlled by leveler input or distortion stage. Output stage has A class and Cascode driver well known from our Solution leveler, also Brilliance knob which affect feedback between output and distortion stage input actually.
Device has point-to-point internal design, without PCB in signal path, all components are installed inside of the metal chassis ( you should know why )

Here is some first audio shoots, do not laughing for funny playing, and distortion grunting, we just wished try device in quickest way, it has many diverse variants of leveler/distortion combinations, and dependence from each other.

Speech & bass file were tracked in 24 bit AD/DA without any additional processing and normalizing, output files are mono WAV 16/44, 4-5mB. Bass, drums files has clean part on start and further distorted by different combinations of the Drive and Bias knobs, as well as syths files were distorted during playing by different combinations Drive&Bias, speech file is commented.
Some volume & noise increasing during playing is result of increasing gain(or ultragain) of the distortion stage.

[HandCrafted Lab]

XXL pic 1 XXL pic 2 XXL pic 3 XXL pic 4 XXL pic 5

[xmenrock]

Waooooow !!! this Distortion Box seems to be upsetting.
I'll be really curious to hear a voice in this box .
It will be cool too to find stereo input / output to use this incredible box on a final mix thumbsup.

I like to tell you that I use Hand Crafted Labs devices since one year and I'm completely satisfied (thanks Albert ).

I've got a light Velvet channel strip:
I use it for voices with a tube microphone (and sometimes on acoustic guitar with a AKG C12). The sound is really clear with a very good and accurate sound.
It will be good to have a EQ section more effective to carve the sound but... I like it all the same .

Solution s2 leveler:
This tube compressor is wonderfull !!! I use it with each mix I really could not do without it.
The compressor have no pump effect and it give a magique brightness to the sound .
Great job .

[fez]

Yo,

Great! A new product by HCL.

I've heard the samples and they sound good. It certainly has his usage. But what I personally miss are the more extreme settings. Like having an overdrive switch or having that extreme overdrive. I use plugins for distortion and it can be very violent. Don't know the unit but it probably can do a lot of damage to the audio looking at the tweak possibilities.

I've read more about the possible release of a stereo version? That would be nice! Maybe you can add some overdrive switch or some kind?

Good Luck!

[HandCrafted Lab]

Originally Posted by xmenrock

Waooooow !!! this Distortion Box seems to be upsetting.
I'll be really curious to hear a voice in this box .
It will be cool too to find stereo input / output to use this incredible box on a final mix

Yes, it will other device - without preamp, but dual, with line level inputs (transformer balanced how all devices which we produce)

I like to tell you that I use Hand Crafted Labs devices since one year and I'm completely satisfied (thanks Albert ).

I've got a light Velvet channel strip:
I use it for voices with a tube microphone (and sometimes on acoustic guitar with a AKG C12). The sound is really clear with a very good and accurate sound.
It will be good to have a EQ section more effective to carve the sound but... I like it all the same .

Solution s2 leveler:
This tube compressor is wonderfull !!! I use it with each mix I really could not do without it.
The compressor have no pump effect and it give a magique brightness to the sound .
Great job .

Nice to hear it. As well as a listening of your music(which is represented above), we glad that our devices make own job in good manner

Originally Posted by fez

Yo,

Great! A new product by HCL.

I've heard the samples and they sound good. It certainly has his usage. But what I personally miss are the more extreme settings. Like having an overdrive switch or having that extreme overdrive. I use plugins for distortion and it can be very violent. Don't know the unit but it probably can do a lot of damage to the audio looking at the tweak possibilities.

Dennis, yes. We has tweaked device a lot for own understanding of damage level. Leveler+Distortion is funny combination enough, they are linked between each other, in sense of distortion level and compression produced by leveler (you know), i.e the leveler able to control distortion level in different ways

I've read more about the possible release of a stereo version? That would be nice! Maybe you can add some overdrive switch or some kind?

Yes, like I said earlier it will another device the dual version, also it will have many knobs which should be fitted onto 3U panel yet. About overdirve - the Drive knob make high distortion, with pentode/triode modes the distortion level in sounding is not lacking, I hope yet.
I think, we shall able for dual version in autumn 08, it`s complex device yet.

[Roman Polonsky]

Hi, Gena! I don't need any stereo distortion box!
I just need two mono distortion boxes! Because I just love it since I have it and use it with pleasure!
Now, that I've used it with so many different kinds of sounds, I can even feel the reason of existing of TRIODE and PENTODE switches! It works really great and modern!!!
It's a pity that it doesn't have a HARD BYPASS mode and in HORIZON position I can hear a real sensitive noise! Any noise gate can solve the problem ofcourse, but I'm sure, you won't make me to buy a noisegate!
Though, maybe it's because of a drive's nature and maybe we shouldn't make some inventions in it! But you got to know it!
I JUST WANT THE NEXT ONE FOR ME PLEASE!!!
When they told me and I heard about different kinds of saturation and distortion tha are being used all through the whole process of sound engineering and mixing, I couldn't realise, what are they talking about! I just thought of guitar distortion effect and could not imagine, how can I use it for any other instrument!!!
NOW I SEE!!! THANKS FOR OPENING MY EYES ON IT, DEAR HCL!!!

[HandCrafted Lab]

Well,

so... folk you can see really good ukranian musician/composer/singer, so... it occur sometimes in third world country yet ( as well as some studio device makers, he-he ). To be honest, Roman became our customer recently, during last months only, after many years of an our activity outside of Ukraine - and due to it actually, though we are living and working near each other many years also, so... it funny thing, though well known to all who make music business... your environment - a parents, friends, colleagues, etc. are the most critical, and you will receive their trust in last turn, after trusting worldwide

So Roman, we glad that device(s) bring enjoying into your studio and push you for cool music. The distortion box is most complex device as well as ways to distort/enrich a sound is more complex task than pretty amplifying or compression, our main device maker GEN was "buried" into device with head and was crying out some dirty words sometimes during developing/assembling (though he continue to cry out these words till now, he-he, the device deep affected him, I can`t to stop him)

To be honest again, it`s quite hard task to pull information/audio/pics from musicians/producers/engineers who really sit in studio and really generate nice music, so... it can explain why many nice playing/singing/mixing/composing guys has small count of posts (or have not even at all), but have perfect music in result however .... and we have many customers without logging on any forums, at same time I should admit those guys make awesome things in their music/studios.

So... such contradiction is some upset us of course, since we generate our ideas due to customers feedbacks and through listening of your audio, so we appreciate highly your audio/pics/opinions which you send here (and/or to us directly)
(Roman, we hope )

[fez]

Hey,

Well I have said that the S2 Leveller sounds better after all this time of use. Tomorrow I will upload recent material with the S2 across the mixbus with more analog devices. These files will be mainly IDM drums.

But you cannot upload files here temporarily. So I will use sendspace.com for now.

Tomorrow then!

[HandCrafted Lab]

Hi Dennis nice to hear it!

Pity, forum malfunction, but let`s hope it will fixed soon, so, we are waiting impatiently for your stuff (as well as stuff from many other HCL users, of course)!

[Tom H]

Does anybody here have experience with that 4-channel DI-box? I'm considering one with Lo Z inputs for recording synths.

Also is there a pricelist available for these products and what are options for demoing?

Cheers,

[fez]

Well. Three drum themes with one mp3 with HCL on and one bypassed. So the S2 Leveller is on the mixbus with mild compression.

Hope you enjoy!

HCL Drums

[Tom H]

I will check these out fez, we do a lot of electronic stuff at our place so this should be interesting.

[Tom H]

Originally Posted by Tommylicious

Does anybody here have experience with that 4-channel DI-box? I'm considering one with Lo Z inputs for recording synths.

Also is there a pricelist available for these products and what are options for demoing?

Anyone?

[azzzy]

Originally Posted by Tommylicious

Anyone?

I haven't tried the DI box but I use the DI on my Affinity pre all the time and it's awesome. I believe the circuits are identical (or at least close). I use mine mainly for bass and it kills everything else I've tried (including the DI in my Manley Mono pre, which is quite nice actually but I prefer the HCL DI). I tried running a piano from my Korg Triton through it once and it was cool (but then I started using sampled pianos and they sounded great on their own). I don't do any electronic stuff and tend to record everything through mics (and for that the Affinity is just killer!). Granted my DI experience is limited but based on the bass I'd say go for it. I don't know how much it costs but considering it's 4 channels and the sound/bulit quality, whatever HCL is asking for it will make it the most cost-effective high-end solution. E-mail Albert, he will tell you all about the options and the prices.