vox wrote on Tue, 18 May 2004 01:38 |
A-Designs makes a product called an Atty, from what I understand it's basically a passive attenuator for line level signals.
...I saw somewhere that someone suggested that it could also be used as a pad for hot mics, I was just wondering what your take on this was, is putting what I can only guess is a volume pot between a mic and a mic pre going to have an adverse affect sonically? Will it have any affect sonically (aside from padding)? What about adverse affects to phantom power or the gear supplying it ?
Thanks!
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I'm looking over an A Designs MP2r right now. A few weeks ago I visited Tom Sailor, where I saw his MP2r with a custom modification allowing the user to overdrive the mic pre yet turn down the output levels so that the unit will not overload following gear.
I asked Pete Montessi about this modification,
since it basically changed the MP2r from a clean tube mic pre into some other thing entirely. His reply was that the design concept behind the MP2r was to be clean. He understands that others might want some other options. Rather than modify his design, he created the ATTY as an outboard box, which can accomplish the same thing and generally be a useful 'in between' box in a number of situations.
I have also heard of the ATTY being used between the mic and the pre, but it seems to me that it would be most useful as a controller behind an over-driven mic pre or other front end. This avoids the other questions that you asked, except for the one about sonics, and though I have not tried the ATTY, I can't see how you can stuff electronics in a signal path and not expect a sonic change.
Just my opinion...
Bill