![]() ![]() The transport can be used as a 4 track or a 2 track because it has switchable guide posts. So far I've got a line on a 351 transport with ag440 electronics which I'll probably use in the meantime until piece together the 351 electronics. I've been sourcing out components to put together an Ampex 351 recorder. I've been lurking on here for years and soaking up a ton of great info, so a big thanks to all the contributors! Now to my question. The techie in me ‘gets’ what they should be doing in theory, but they don’t always behave in a prescribed manner, and sometimes I simply just like one better than the other.Hi, this is my first post. On the subject of unpredictability, it’s not that the P331 will or won’t work on a mix, it’s that some of its processes and settings may do different things and be more or less useful than others when moving from mix to mix and genre to genre.įor instance, I still can’t tell you concretely what Clean or Bloom actually sounds like or what they do to the signal, and it’s almost the same with the two XFormer settings and the Pre and Post auto-pad settings. Tube-subtle is good on the 2-bus because it can do its duty as an anti-sterility machine, but still keep your mix sounding like your mix, with no gimmicky, heavy-handed artifacts that only get in the way of the mastering engineer’s process. As Justin said, it’s more akin to running your mix back through the tube input section of an old tape machine, or a tube compressor with the controls set flat. ![]() This is not a buzzy, fuzzy tube saturator. For those reasons alone it makes a great choice on the master bus, especially if you work primarily in the box. The two words Justin used above, ‘subtle’ and ‘unpredictable’, are totally appropriate. Not a deal-breaker, but I did make note of it.Īs mentioned, in use the P331 is very subtle in nature and I would suggest giving the unit pride of place in the center of your desk, where you can focus in accurately and hear all the subtleties in your ideal listening position.Īfter Justin put the P331 through its paces in mastering for a few weeks, I was eager to get the unit into my own studio for some mixing duties. I found myself wanting to toggle between pre and post, but the open position falls between them, so the level changes dramatically for split second as open mode is engaged. One other nitpick I had is the functionality of the clever but tricky momentary contact switch that changes the auto-padding between pre, open, and post. That said, I concede that since this unit is also designed for tracking, I can understand the dual mono configuration having its uses in that scenario. I’m a mastering engineer, so I would have preferred to have ganged L/R controls on the P331. I connected the unit to an insert point on my mastering console, which has a wet/dry blend control, and it proved really useful at times as such, I think a built-in wet/dry mix control would be a great feature on the P331. If you have a tube EQ or compressor that you think sounds good set flat, and you don’t actually use any of its controls, then the P331 might be perfect for you. The P331 is great at adding the things I generally love about tube equipment, but without the typical negative characteristics such as killing drum transients and being too slow-sounding. ![]() Using the P331, I was able to dial in just the right amount of character to make the song sound more appropriate for the genre, and the band approved it on the first pass. Again, it sounded totally fine, but had no edge or character to it-it was just a little too clean and clinical. However, I knew that the band had recorded it themselves in their project studio, and that the mix engineer was fairly robotic in his work and leaned heavily on drum samples and amp simulators. I also mastered a modern rock Foo Fighters-esque single that had no technical problems and sounded totally acceptable. However, after correcting the mix with EQ before hitting the P331, the unit worked wonderfully to help prevent things from getting too sterile. Something that worked really well on one track might actually make another track sound worse, or too different.įor example, I had a mix that came in really warm and overly thick-it didn’t strike me as a good candidate for this unit. You really have to experiment and see what settings are going to work on any given song. One thing I learned is that nearly every P331 control offers a certain element of unpredictability. ![]()
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