. Basically I'm in the planning stage of building a new console and rack furniture for my (soon-to-be) new home's studio. I've drawn up the sketches for the console and a couple of racks via Google sketchup (if you haven't used sketchup it's free and awesome). These "sketches" best describe my studio furniture visions and can be found here: http://gwhrecording.com/gsforum/yabb/At ... _Racks.jpg . Please keep in mind that the console is roughly to scale, but by no means exact.The console will house one Mackie Control Surface w/ two extensions, a Presonus Central Station remote and mouse (placed in indent to right of mixer recess), (2) MOTU HD192 converters, Furman power conditioning for the whole mess, and 24 channels worth of preamps. I know it may sound like a lot to cram in, but the three tilted rack bays above the mixer are 6RU high each so it all works out nicely.
The rack with the glass door on it is for the Mac and other loud equipment/stuff that I won't be tweaking often. I'm planning on locating this rack somewhere near an air conditioning vent so I can run a "cooling line" to it.
The other rack is for compressors, various outboard preamps, 'verbs, patchbay, etc. and will probably be located alongside a wall to the left of the console or somewhere in between.
I plan on floating the floors in both the control room and live room with Auralex U-boats and multi-layering the walls with Auralex sheetblock, industrial sheetrock, and some industrial-grade noise reduction insulation I can get cheap from a friend. Of course the construction list goes on and on (separate power and ground from house, etc, etc...) but my real question today is:
What preamps should I arm my "console" with? To me, the most attractive choice is three Universal Audio 8110's. The thing I like most about these is that each pre can act differently depending on what you need it for. The three tone settings seem very intuitive to me ("off" for crystal clean, "vintage" for mild transformer loading, and "saturate" for transformer loading w/ light limiting). I also like the unit's ability for input impedance switching. I generally record everything, but the mainstays are blues, all varieties of rock, and metal, so the versatility of this unit would be a fantastic convenience. I could have the drum mic pre's in saturate mode for limiting and dial in some gain-induced crunchiness, the guitars in vintage with light gain, and vox in vintage with moderate gain. Of course I will have a couple of rogue pre's in my side rack for extra coloration or pristene preamplification, but I need several preamps in a "small" package for everyday moderate to high track count recordings.
Has anybody here used these units or their little brothers, the 4110 and Solo/110? If so, what were your impressions of these preamps and would you recommend them? Also, if anybody has any other recommendations for 8 channel pre's I'd love to hear them. Please keep in mind I'm not looking for completely pristene preamps (like the Grace 801, or True Precision 8 ), I'd rather have the ability to give the sound some character if I want it and not always be tied to the crisp sound (allthough I do want that option too
). Brad L., what are your opinions? (Also, do you know why the 8110 doesn't show up on Sweetwater's multichannel preamp category? I've got to search by manufacturer to find the piece. Kind of makes me think I'm missing out on some other good multi pre's.
)Thanks in advance to all who read this and contribute their knowledge!
