I thought I would do a short review on my quad eight MM61 pre/eq modules. Mine are mixed with am-3 and am-4 opamps so techincally they are like MM71s (am-4) and MM61s (am-3) had a baby! They came from the Wally Heider board in San Francisco.
Eq points (2 bands) with +12/-12 of gain:
high 1.5, 3, 5 and 10
low 40, 100
About 71db of gain in the pre
Gliss faders with cherry red knobs. Strips are chocolate brown.
Interestingly enough one of them has all am-3s and the other is mixed. BEFORE I opened them up to see which was which and what was inside, I decided I liked the channel 2, turned out with the AM-3s, better. They were both fully serviced so aging parts play less of a role.
The channel with am-3s has a grittier tone than the other, which I really like. Its subtle but there for sure. Again it could be something other than the opamps but thats the only specific difference between the two channels. And if the EQ is not inline, I still hear it so its not the eqs. Using them as a stereo pair is no problem- they sound great even with a minor difference.
The preamps are thick and round on the bottom ( not as tight as 1073s ) and smooth and slightly dark on top. The EQ is where the overall preamp sound really jumps for me. Push them and push them hard. They bring out the mid and top with a sweetness and natural tone. I really came to the conclusion of "natural" after tracking and reamping enough drum overheads to just fall in love. I like the low eq for 2 db of reduction but push the highs 4db at 5k standard- and I never push 4dbs during tracking... I do now. Sometimes they are a little wide in the Q and a second refining eq is needed.
I have never heard a hihat close with a more beautifull "natural" tone. Takes the edge off but retains a thick tonality. They are undoubtedly the goto for OH mics! Ive also really liked them on vox, acoustic (especially) and electric guitar, and occasionally bass. I haven't had the chance to use them on anything orchestral but bet they would shine on brass and woodwinds!
I did have the outputs balanced with Jensen transformers so Im adding to the mojo but they just kill me time and time again. The other thing I use them for is mastering. They are awesome color pres though I chase them with the GML 8200 to open up the top again. I also boost that magic 5k freq in masters as well. The mm61s to the bus comp to the GML seems to work very well to "undigitize" itb recordings. I even used them to repair a bad master on some old tapes from the 80s where the ME ruined the mixes by over scooping and killing the bottom end. Out of Capitol records surprisingly enough!
Let me say though, I do not call myself a mastering engineer but clients often insist on it since I can get pretty nice results and I get more work than I ever expected mastering tracks. The MM61 being a part of this for sure.
I'd love to hear from other Quad Eight folks! Especially with some of the other models- plus sphere and e-dyne too!
Im probably a little quad eight crazy right now waiting for my 712 master bus eq to get here! And be sure Ill have to write a review of that as well once I get a chance to run it through the paces!