Hiya Folks,

I've posted this in a few forums on the net and wanted to include it here.

So,

I just picked up a cheap LA-610 and began tracking through it the other night. I was concerned how tracks would stack with each other.

I've read some dislikes to the pre and could return it if I didn't like it, so I decided to write a song featuring the LA-610 as the sole preamp. Mixing and production followed as creatively as possible to put the preamp into a diverse work scenario with ITB processing and mixing following. La-610 settings were all over the board to get many different sounds to mix together.

All said and done, I spent about 4 hours on the song writing, tracking, mixing and production.

My girlfriend called, lost in her car, while I was recording and that inspired the song lyrics & title:

"Lost Trying to get Home"©2007 Thomas Zartler
http://woodcreststudio.com/temp/losttryingtogethome.mp3

Would love to hear comments on the "sound"heh


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The chains:

---Seagull acoustic->LR Baggs Dual Source (mic inside the guitar)->LA-610 (various settings pushing it really hard on some tracks)->Lynx Aurora 16's-> Cubase SX3

---All acoustic guitars tracked with the LR Baggs, the voice was sung into the guitar soundhole. heh

---Slide guitar courtesy of an Energizer AA

--- Bass guitar: P/J style pickups -> LA-610 smidge of it's eq and comp -> vertors...

--- Percussion (Spoons and Djembe) -> AT4033se -> LA-610 flat eq, very mild compression used on the djembe to sustain the low bass -> convertors .........

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I like the acoustics...and maybe the fx on the voice...but the percussion is a chaos...the bass I can´t hear it well maybe cuz of the compression used on the djembe...

I know it´s an experiment but I think it´s not about the LA-610 but the way of using it...in this particular song....I´d look for more clarity...Just my 2 cent

No fx is on the voice except a little verb at points. Remember the voice was sung into the sound hole of the acoustic guitar. That gives it the honky mid rangy tone. There was very little comp on the djembe too.

What are you listening on? Bass stands out on my system (has a sub)

1st, I am a 610 fan, I have 2 Solo 610's and an LA 610, as well as Pacifica, Great River, and Chandler. Now, your test, although interesting (I think), is not a good example of the LA610. Why don't you take a more simple approach? Drums, Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, and Vox. That would be a little more realistic. As much as I like the 610, I would not track everything through it, unless, I was doing mainly acoustic. Acoustic guitar and Bass DI are awesome through it. Vox can be good, but maybe a little too dark, depends on the vocalist.

Cheers Barryjohns,

The point of the test for me was the stacking of multi tracks with the LA-610 in a production environment to hear if the preamp's character would cloud/smear up the composition. I've read some folks say it's a bit too thick to stack many tracks with it.

So I was throwing the preamp into the fire to see if it could stand solely on it's own. I figure any preamp will lend its sound to the producer. At that point it's up to the producer to sculpt what is present into something that fits together with the counterparts of a piece of music.

I do realise since the sounds have been sculpted using the preamp and ITB by my discretion, this changes some of the tonal qualities, but it's character is still very present. I thought it was cool that it took very well to the production and I didn't go overboard. A bit of shelves, pass, and wide bell eq's mostly to sit things side by side and some compressors used to stand things in the distance with a reverb send to create a stage for the sound since everything was close microphoned.

For me, I can hear the LA-610's character in the song's entirety. The question is: does it work? Does it's character lend itself to complimet itself? Is it too "silky, warm, flat, dark, transient eating..etc"

The only issues I had was with the voice being sung into the guitar's sound hole, and some of the guitar's resonances. The response of the internal mic was tough to work with.

I have a 610 and love it. However I agree I wouldn't use it on every track. Male vox is pretty good depending on the voice, dirty guitars are great thru it, bass di is equally impressive. I however do not like it on snare or any percussion I've used it on.

I´m beggining to be a fun of this unit...this month I´m planning to buy it for personal use. I like it on vocals (specially male voice) and bass. I tracked voices trough an M-610 using different mics (M149, Geffle Umt 92.1, AKG414B-ULS, and many others) and stands good.

But i wouldn´t pick it up as an all purpose pre-amp. For stocking up tracks I would pick a non coloured type of pre, maybe something like the Amek 9098, Grace Design, GML.....a clean solid state preamp....than I´d use the LA-610 where I need more character like vocals.

Hi folks,
I did this sort of test on my LA-610 a little while back on various synths and vox. IMHO, you could probably do a whole record with its clean tone if it's your only box, but without a doubt, when you crank the input for some fuzz you'll stamp every sound with that coloration. I put various unrelated mono sounds through it with cranked input -- a Korg MS2000, a Roland JV1080, "re-preamped" some virtual synths and samples, and my voice, and not so surprisingly, everything had a similar sound.
Again, I think you can accomplish a lot with it so long as you keep things clean. I use my LA-610 on almost every project, and it suits my little studio well.

jim

as a test and for someone interested in buying the preamp, i think that's a good sample, thanks!


i bought one and love it though i've only done electric guitar DI and just ordered the TLM49 which i think will track amazingly with this preamp since it's has a ramp down in freq response from 2k to 50hz(2 or 3dB)

What just happened?

Interesting little song ya got there... LOL



I would say that this is not a test I would have picked. The "singing into the sound hole of the guitar" is not really something that you hear done all that often and it kind of distracts from the song as a "test."

It's a cool thing and honestly if this were a "song" not a "test" I would say that was a really cool production idea but as a "test" it does not tell us (or me anyway) how the vocals fit into the mix.

The music sounds great, very well recorded, but the whole vibe of the test is lost because I don't really know how the vocals sit in the mix. Are they sitting (or not sitting) because they are all honky sounding or are they sitting (or not sitting) in the mix because of the preamp?

It reminds me of "Miracle Mirror" era Golden Earring.

Really I don't know, It just came out of no where!

Yea, I was a bit in the moment and didn't want to pause to set up a microphone for the vox. I really didn't even plan on taking it as far as I did, but the song just roped me in and I wanted to see how far I could push it. I tell you though even though the vox through the guitar were a pain to work with. I'm amazed by the richness of the mid range that was captured that I was able to work with.


Thanks for the mix compliments .

It's definitely the resonance of the acoustic that imprinted it's sound onto the vox. If I had a normal microphone on voice the preamp's signature would be easily heard.

One thing I found very amazing was all the acoustic guitar tracks were the same instrument, mic, preamp chain, however, the settings of the preamp were different for the accompanying tracks which shows me there is some real diversity to the preamp and compressor's sound.





Cheers! and thank you all so much for your input