Hey folks-
I made some recordings with the PM-1000 modules I was working on and here are my findings:
- Everything works but there is some electrical gremlin in my 2-bus mod that causes the pans to not pan properly. There's no power supply noise that can be heard. The channels will produce enough clean output to harshly overdrive the +4dB inputs on my Delta 1010.
- The overall sound from everything I recorded can best be described as "open", "airy", "smooth" and "extended". However, this is not really a clean-sounding set of pres. They are not "warm" or "round" at all. The tracks I recorded have this kind of quality where they seem to have "space" around them in the mix, kind of reminds me of the sound of U2 Joshua Tree record.
- There is a tremendous amount of low end extension. Shocking really. Top end is also very extended. Sounds very flat & neutral to me.
- The pres really showcase the different qualities of different mics. With my old console (cheap junk), everything kind of sounded the same (strident, harsh, brittle...). With this one, I can tell remarkable differences instantly even with different samples of the same kind of mic.
- I was able to get borderline great to great tone without futzing with mic placement or selection on drums, acoustic guitar (fingerstyle & flatpicked), electric guitar (whoah momma... this thing rocks for electric guitar) and male vocal with LDC mics. I was doing "quick and dirty" demo recordings (scratch stuff) and just without any effort got great sounds.
- The open, airy top end really works for acoustic guitar and drum kit, and captures the "shimmer" in overdrive electric guitar that's almost always missing (throw out your SM57s and use a condenser on the guitar cab & snare drum... get the air back in it). I'm going to have to re-set my expectations on kick drum tone because of this extra bottom octave that I'd never really heard before from my kit.
Well that's it for now. I still have to finish mods/repairs to 8 more channels before I have the whole thing up and running, but I'm recording with it every day now. We have some new artists that we are about ready to start recording "real" projects for so I should have some more critical and conclusive results (like that which I can post) in the next month or so.
FWIW I saw a PM1000-16 go on ebay for $251 the other day. I almost bought it myself, but couldn't imagine where I'd put it.
