17th August 2012
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#1 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter |  AwTAC Awesome Channel Amplifier 500 module
The Awesome Transistor Amplifier Company is very proud to release our first module and heart of a mixing desk system for 500 format, the Awesome Channel Amplifier. 
The Awesome Channel Amplifier is a double wide module designed by two guys more than marginally obsessed with early 1970's transistor console design. Much more than simply a mic pre and an EQ in a box, or a "recording channel", the Awesome Channel Amplifier is a fully featured input channel to build a recording console around and includes a passive mix buss. Modules can be linked together via a standard XLR cable making mixing a reality for anyone with a standard 500 rack. Key Features: - Mic Pre
- Line Amplifier
- Instrument DI Amplifier
- Three Band EQ with 14 total Frequencies
- Passive Mix Buss: channels can be linked for full mixing capability
- 48v Phantom Powering
- Active High Pass Filter
- Phase Reverse
- Transformer Balanced Input and Output featuring custom wound Sowter and Crimson Audio Transformers
- %100 Discrete Transistor Through Hole Topology, no chips (IC), no Surface Mount (SMT)
- High Grade, No Compromise component selection chosen by Audio Designers, not Accountants.
- Designed and Hand Crafted in NYC, USA
Our unit, of course, is in every way usable as a stand alone mic pre, stand alone EQ or stand alone DI, but the Awesome Channel Amplifier allows for a much greater vision.
We are additionally very proud to state that this product is designed, fabricated and assembled by Americans, in the USA.
Oodles of information is available on our website: Awesome Transistor Amplifier Company - AwTAC Introductory Factory Direct Price: $1599 per channel
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17th August 2012
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#2 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Oct 2005 Location: Portland, Ore.  |
Cool idea. Cool feature set. Cool website. Audio examples would be extra cool.
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17th August 2012
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#3 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 2,440
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Ok this is the most bad a$$ looking module ever!
If it sounds like it looks I'm in :D
Anyways, very cool concept
do you guys ship outside US?
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18th August 2012
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#4 | | Lives for gear
Joined: May 2009
Posts: 517
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GAS
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18th August 2012
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#5 | | Gear interested
Joined: Aug 2012 Location: Sydney
Posts: 9
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Wow, these certainly look the business. Good work! I'm going to keep my eye on this.
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18th August 2012
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#6 | | Gear addict
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 359
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never seen website better made than yours!!! Great stuff!
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18th August 2012
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#7 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 2,440
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I read all the info on the site and damn,
the features on this one are crazy! I need a pair of these
so, bump for my initial question: do you ship to Europe?
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18th August 2012
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#8 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by lobsterinn  Cool idea. Cool feature set. Cool website. Audio examples would be extra cool. | Put up some clips of some stuff in production, some mastered material and a quick overview of some mics that were laying around the studio. Media: Audio Samples from AwTAC
All these clips feature just the Awesome Channel Amplifiers with no additional signal processing. Quote: |
never seen website better made than yours!!! Great stuff!
| Thanks! We are a very design orientated bunch of peeps over here. Quote:
I read all the info on the site and damn,
the features on this one are crazy! I need a pair of these
so, bump for my initial question: do you ship to Europe?
| We are currently building our European dealer network but are happy to ship to you in Europe. Please contact us directly for options.
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20th August 2012
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#9 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Nov 2004 Location: Charlotte, NC
Posts: 930
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As someone who has had early production models of these units for months, I have to say that there is NOTHING like these out there. I've known about their development for some time and have been curious since day one. Putting these things to use, they do not disappoint in the least. Everything about them is designed to sound big and the feature set is absolutely ridiculous. The amount of care put into getting these things right is impressive beyond anything else I've ever seen.
Pretty much all you need to know about them in on the extremely well-done website, but I'm happy to answer any questions I can about them, from a practical use standpoint.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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20th August 2012
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#10 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Sep 2007 Location: A big island - i am an Island
Posts: 778
| Wow
That is seriously beautiful - how would one be used for mixing in a to elux 4 rack?
__________________
Your entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts - Wise Man MJ.
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20th August 2012
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#11 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Nov 2004 Location: Charlotte, NC
Posts: 930
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What, specifically, do you want to do with it? Those modules should work fine in the Tonelux racks. Personally, I was able to compare the units in a Purple Sweet Ten and another manufacturer's rack and the difference was certainly noticeable. Enough to convince me to buy a Purple Sweet Ten. And AwTac has a pretty great incentive program for buying the Purple racks. Check out the link on their site.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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20th August 2012
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#12 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter |
thanks for the kind words peeps. Quote:
Originally Posted by dogma That is seriously beautiful - how would one be used for mixing in a to elux 4 rack? | Dogma, two Awesome Channel Amps will fit in a tonelux V4. Connect an XLR from the buss output of the first module to the buss through (input) of the second module. Then patch the buss breakout cable into the second module and the output of that cable goes into whatever mic pre to make up the gain on the summing buss. You can chain several units together like this.
If you check out some of the tracks on our media page Media: Audio Samples from AwTAC
you can see that several of the guitar tracks and all of the kick drum tracks were recorded exactly as I have described above. The two mics on the guitar cab were patched to an Awesome Channel Amplifier, those two were bussed together and then patched to a third Channel for mono summing. Same with the kick drum tracks, two mics on the outside of the kick, both patched to an Awesome Channel Amp and bussed to a third unit for mono summing.
Worth noting is that while you have the units bussed like that, you still have the main outs available on each channel and both the buss and main output are post output transformer.
When I was doing lots of recording, I always liked the options of having little sidecar mixers around for submixes, so thats where the impetus for the idea came from. You can use these to build a small side car, use them for passive summing your stems (or tracks) out of a DAW or build a primary mixer out of them. We should have a panner module available first quarter next year.
I should really post a video of how to patch it, it's really quite simple. Picture speaks a thousand words.
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21st August 2012
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#13 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Feb 2006 Location: Los Angeles/Detroit
Posts: 691
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How long is the intro pricing in effect?
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21st August 2012
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#14 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by Schmacko How long is the intro pricing in effect? | through the end of the year for certain.
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22nd August 2012
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#15 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter |
Would like to let everyone know that I will be in Los Angeles 5-14 September doing demos, if anyone would like to put their hands and ears on a pair, please drop me a line to set up an appointment.
Happy to demo for bedroom recordists and commercial studios alike, dont hesitate to ask.
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23rd August 2012
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#16 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Sep 2004 Location: Washington, DC
Posts: 8,115
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Originally Posted by AwTAC Happy to demo for bedroom recordists and commercial studios alike, dont hesitate to ask. | I LOVE the non-condescending attitude! You will go far with that. Not kidding.
I'm not currently in a procurement mode, but next time I am, I have your site bookmarked.
I wish you well with your business and am excited to try this stuff. It's clear you have an aesthetic.
cheers,
c
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www.twitter.com/beautypill | |
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23rd August 2012
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#17 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Nov 2004 Location: Charlotte, NC
Posts: 930
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Originally Posted by Silver Sonya I'm not currently in a procurement mode, but next time I am, I have your site bookmarked. | Hey Chad,
Next time I'm in DC, I'll bring mine up and you can check them out.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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24th August 2012
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#18 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by Silver Sonya I LOVE the non-condescending attitude! You will go far with that. Not kidding. | We are low production manufacturers and as such, are able to put a lot of care into building each one of these, when time allows it seems sensible to put that same effort into meeting the people who will be using these things in the field and getting some perspective on the environments they'll be used in to see how they are realistically being put to use.
It is of equal value to see these things in a rack in a big studio and a rack in a bedroom studio.
It's just nice to meet people and put a human face on the product, setting some time aside in LA to do just that, looking forward to showing this off to some of you guys.
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25th August 2012
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#19 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Mar 2003 Location: philadelphia
Posts: 1,019
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Oh man that looks and reads sweet! Please oh please make a rack version  | |
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25th August 2012
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#20 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 4,043
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Originally Posted by mattsplace never seen website better made than yours!!! Great stuff! |  | |
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25th August 2012
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#21 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by KBOY Oh man that looks and reads sweet! Please oh please make a rack version | thanks!
we are committed to bringing a full mixing console to 500 and have our design work cut out for us for the immediate future. As such, there are no plans for 19" on the drafting table right now, but who knows where the future will take us.
Our next module is a panner for the mix buss followed by some other goodies to round out a mixing desk.
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27th August 2012
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#22 | | Gear interested
Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 17
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The website is as great as the ACA seems to be.
I like the philosopy "longer audio path is a way to make a population of electron experiences a lot of different things in their audio life".
The idea to add a fader with Opt in, is really great as well.
I do have a little concern about panning. I know it is intended to be a stem summing system, but it would have been interesting to have a real pan pot for mono sources.
I do find it is a bit of a waste to use two units of the ACA to make soft pan on a mono source, so I wonder if it is possible (in a later revision) to use the other Opt connector to have a remote pan as it is for the fader. I assume it is not, but I'd like to be wrong.
Your Fuchtone guitar amplifier seems to sound really great too.
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27th August 2012
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#23 | | Gear addict
Joined: Jul 2006 Location: Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.
Posts: 321
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Dave is away this week, so please allow me. I work for AwTAC in the engineering department. Quote:
Originally Posted by mim I do have a little concern about panning. I know it is intended to be a stem summing system, but it would have been interesting to have a real pan pot for mono sources. | The next module will be a single-slot pan and mute: one Awesome Panner per one Awesome Channel Amplifier, for panning (and muting) of mono sources. This is backwards compatible with the L/C/R assign system, so you can use as few or as many panners as you'd like. Quote:
Originally Posted by mim I do find it is a bit of a waste to use two units of the ACA to make soft pan on a mono source | I agree, this would be wasteful, which is why we're making a panner module... Although, for whatever it's worth, you could get some sick tones this way: twice as much Awesome for your source, with different EQ and drive settings per side... a tone pan, if you will. Quote:
Originally Posted by mim so I wonder if it is possible (in a later revision) to use the other Opt connector to have a remote pan as it is for the fader. I assume it is not, but I'd like to be wrong. | No revisions necessary. Awesome Panner will have jumper settings for selectable I/O usage in different racks. The default configuration simply inserts a panner in series with the mix buss feed of an Awesome Channel Amp, using the EQ slot connectors: mix out ---> pan in, pan out ---> mix in. This will work in any rack (read: does not require OPT connectors). The panner's option jacks will allow for extra features, to be determined.
Stay tuned, and thank you for helping us think through these permutations!
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30th August 2012
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#24 | | Lives for gear
Joined: Nov 2004 Location: Charlotte, NC
Posts: 930
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You guys rule.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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5th September 2012
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#25 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by mim I do have a little concern about panning. I know it is intended to be a stem summing system, but it would have been interesting to have a real pan pot for mono sources. | Jens covered the bases but just wanted to mention that while it is perfectly suited in every way for stem summing, our real goal is to provide a fully functional mixer for 500, the new panner module will be the next step in that direction.
Im in LA this week and next with plenty of free time to demo, if anyone in southern california wants to check a pair of channel amps out, definitely get in touch!
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5th September 2012
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#26 | | Lives for gear
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 728
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All of this is nuts, but i LOVE it!!!
The passion, the detail, the design..
Awesome!
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9th September 2012
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#27 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter | Quote:
Originally Posted by elmolemon All of this is nuts, but i LOVE it!!!
The passion, the detail, the design..
Awesome! |  , thanks man, appreciate the kind words!
Still have a little time next week to schedule some demos if any in LA is interested in hearing a unit.
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24th September 2012
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#28 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Oct 2011 Location: NYC
Posts: 247
Thread Starter |
Hey Kids, doing demo's in the NYC tri state area for the next month or so, if you'd like to hear one in person, get in touch!
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25th September 2012
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#29 | | Gear maniac
Joined: Jun 2007 Location: MA |
You planted a seed in my head when you commented on my instagram photo. Now i REALLY wanna check these out. Will you be in the boston or providence area anytime soon?
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25th September 2012
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#30 | | Geariophile
Joined: Oct 2006 Location: london
Posts: 9,955
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Fekkin hell chaps! I normally can't stand the word for its total overuse, but it seems this here thing in growing truly is awesome........
I am not really in buying mode either, but am sure tempted to get a pair to awesomise on inserts over my console.......good luck with the noble and awesome cause! 
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