Avalon VT-737sp Mic Preamp

In this Vine video of Skrillex's studio, towards the end of the clip when his studio desk is shown, the Avalon VT-737sp Mic Preamp can be seen in a rack on the right side, below the Barefoot monitor and the [Antelope Audio Orion 32](https://equipboard.com/items/antelope-audio-orion-32-multi-channel-ad-da-converter). The video is a bit blurry, but the layout of the knobs and lights matches the Avalon VT-737sp exactly.

"For vocal recordings i use the Avalon VT-737sp. It's a great-sounding compressor and a really warm pre amp."

Matt Bellamy's rig for the Black Holes and Revelations tour includes the Avalon VT-737sp Mic Preamp.

Chris Marsh, Sheeran's FOH, uses the Avalon 737 for guitar and vocal reverbs

In this inteview, Steve Aoki gives us a look to the main gear he use to produce records in both of his studios : The ''Neon Future Cave'' in Las Vegas, NV and the ''Dim Mak Studio'' in Los Angeles, CA. > As far as preamps and compressors go, I’ve got an Avalon VT-737SP in my Dim Mak studio. The Avalon gives me a warmer tone. In my home studio here [in Las Vegas] I have a different set up. I have a Universal Audio UA 6176, which is a combo of the classic 610 preamp and the 1176 compressor/limiter.

A VT-737sp preamp is shown in his rack in these interviews.

"We run the vocals through an Avalon VT preamp most of the time."

Below an Avalon VT-747SP, the VT-737sp Mic Preamp can be seen in Showtek's studio.

Bassnectar shows off a cabinet stacked with four Avalon VT-737sp Preamps.

Dirty South describes where the Avalon VT-737sp fits in his signal chain: "For recording vocals, I use a Neumann U87 microphone going into the Avalon 737 and then into a LA-2A compressor." In another interview he says "In the studio, recording vocals and guitars, I would run them through something like this Avalon mic pre and get a really nice, clean sound with something like a Neumann U87 or even running a guitar signal through it."

In an interview with XLR8R, Simon Green is asked how he records, and if he goes through a pre-amp into his computer. He responds, "I've been using an Avalon [VT-737SP] as a front end. It's a mono vacuum-tube compressor and EQ, and it's really nice... I use it for everything. Then the whole thing goes into [Apple] Logic. With the exception of a few reverbs and some other outboard stuff, I'm doing everything with Logic and [Native Instruments] Kontakt."

"The streamlined approach to vocals helps; Coleman will tell you that a good large-diaphragm condenser microphone like the C12 through the Avalon 737 is a pleasantly neutral signal path." - via [Sound On Sound interview](http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul05/articles/andrewcoleman.htm) with Pharrell's engineer Andrew Coleman

You can see the VT-737sp in Metro Boomin's studio at 2:10 in the video.

Used for Blake's vocals on Beyoncé's "Forward", as stated by producer Stuart White in this this September 24, 2016 *AudioTechnology* interview. > In the case of James Blake, White recorded him at Conway Studios. White: “He came in, heard the track (*Forward*), walked up to Bey’s Elam 251 with the same vocal chain (Avalon 737 into Tube Tech CL1B) and sang his vocal pretty much right off the bat. Then he tried some chords on the piano and I recorded him soon after using two older Schoeps W-221 small diaphragm microphones going into Neve 1073 mic pres."

The Avalon VT-737SP can be seen at 0:04

An Avalon VT-737sp is seen in Morgan Page's LA Studio at the top of his analog outboard gear rack.

On the website article, 11th paragraph states that Em used a Avalon VT-737sp pre-amp on studio.

Part of his studio setup as well.

A FOH stage hand sent out a couple pictures of Chris Stapleton's live rig on May 27, 2016 in Simpsonville, SC at the Charter Spectrum Amphitheatre. The stage setup clearly matches the setup seen in various videos around the web from early-2016 shows. Two of the Avalon VT-737sp Mic Preamps can be seen in Chris' rack setup.

Trace Elliot bass head ran through the VT-737sp preamp

There is also 'modern' audio gear in the racks: two Avalon VT737 input channels, two Chandler Germanium compressors, a Demeter Stereo Tube Direct and two Urei 1176 compressors, along with some vintage Ibanez (AD230), Ensoniq (DP4), Korg (SDD2000) and Roland (SBF325) effects — an essential ingredient of the AIR sound from the beginning. In the studio itself, there's a Yamaha grand piano, a drum kit, a vibraphone, some kalimbas, a Neumann U47 microphone and Godin's collection of guitar and bass amps.

You can see his rack mounted Avalon VT-737sp preamp's in his snapchat story.

At 2:50 in this video, we can see all the items Wiz Khalifa use in his home studio

Her vocals on the Ellipse album were recorded through the Avalon preamp.

This article states that Mark Ronson uses Avalon Vt-737sp preamp.

confirmation at 0:29 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdOybV7PJB4

On the right side of Matisse and Sadko's Instagram photo, the Avalon VT-737sp is giving off a green light from the center of the console.

Used on *EVERYTHING IS LOVE*, as stated by producer Stuart White in this September 2018 *Sound on Sound* interview. > He recorded both Beyoncé and Jay-Z with his “Telefunken mic, Avalon mic pre, and Tube Tech compressor. That was the chain for the entire album on both of them. I use just the one chain, because they jump back and forth on the mic all day long, and they both sound really good on that mic, so I kept it simple.” White had previously specified this Tube Tech to be a CL 1B in [this September 24, 2016 *AudioTechnology* interview with producer Stuart White](https://www.audiotechnology.com/mix-masters-making-lemonade-with-beyonces-right-hand-man-stuart-white/) about the production of *Lemonade*. > “We started in August 2014 at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. We were there for a month and had booked every single room; producers were everywhere writing songs. After that we took a break, then went to Paris for 45 days, where we lived in a hotel and set up two studios in two different hotel rooms. The identical setups consisted of ProAc Studio 100 monitors, an Avid Omni converter, Telefunken Elam 251 mic, an Avalon 737 mic pre, Tube Tech CL1B compressor, a Shure SM58 which she likes to use occasionally, and matching Pro Tools sessions."

The item can be seen at 2:11

At 6:48 into their SB-TV interview, Chase & Status showcase their Avalon VT-737.

The Avalon VT-747sp Mic Preamp can be seen in the back of the composer's desk.

With regard to recording Jay?Z at Roc The Mic, Young Guru relates, "My signal chain is normally a Neumann 87 or 67 going into an Avalon 737" This shows that Jay-Z uses an Avalon 737 in his studio

"We just matched that sound – you could not tell the difference. All I had to do was run it through an Avalon 737 mic pre, and just tweak the EQ on the front end a tiny bit. The guy who was co-producing with me couldn’t believe it. It nailed that sound."

Can be seen at the location specified in their studio.

"I've got an Avalon preamp, which I do the vocals through, an Avalon Vacuum Tube 737—you probably know Avalons, you must. I do all my vocals through that."

He states that he just purchased this at the beginning of the video.

Seen throughout the video but clearly at 11:20. He has two units, one with a silver faceplate and one with a black faceplate.

In this video at the 3:22 mark you can see an Avalon preamp in the background.

Avalon VT-737sp Mic Preamp

"Lohner's home studio is centered around a Pro Tools Mix system running on a Mac G4/400MHz. Some of his outboard selections include an Avalon Vt-737sp preamp, an Avalon U5 preamp, a Tech 21 SansAmp, a Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo and a Clavia Nord Lead synth."

Used on vocals for Outkast's *Speakerboxx/The Love Below*.

The preamps at Trevor Horn's Sarm West Coast LA studio include: "SSL AWS 924 (24 Channel) Console, Avalon 737sp, Focusrite Red (4 Channel)"

Avalon 737 channel strip in studio

Can be seen at 1:12

The preamp that Dntel uses for his mic is an AvalonVT-737sp.

The Channel Strip can be seen behind Hopsin at the top of the screen through the whole video starting at 0:53

An Avalon VT-737 sp can be seen at the middle/right of the photo below the monitor at Grabbitz Facebook page.

At 4:25, Kay shows her Avalon 737sp and her Presonus BlueTube.

In this Sound On Sound article there is a photo of Visconti's gear, which includes an Avalon VT737SP.

During an interview/studio tour with Spitfire audio we see a vast array of Johns outboard gear.

Britney used the Avalon 737 on two tracks on Circus, according to Andy Page, the co-producer: > "I recorded/engineered/programmed/mixed 2 songs from "Circus", "Out from Under" and "My Baby", both produced by Guy Sigsworth. The vocal chain was a C800G going in to an Avalon 737, then straight into ProTools via a 192."

“I just took my G5 out of my programming room, stuck it underneath a cheap office table in a corner of my bedroom overlooking the garden, took a Neumann [U87] from the studio, and stuck it through an Avalon [VT-737SP channel strip], then wondered why I had never done this before.”

Used on vocals for Outkast's *Speakerboxx/The Love Below*.

Used for "In da Club", as stated by producer Dr. Dre in this transcribed March 2005 interview. > 50 CENT > > "In Da Club" > > Producer: Dr. Dre > > Engineer: Vito (Mauricio Iragorri) > > "With 50, he's an artist with such an amazing voice," says Vito. "You just put him behind a microphone and it just sounds good! My job is make sure it doesn't distort and it's not overloading. While he's vibing and doing his thing, I'm scrambling to make sure nothing is going wrong with the signal path." > > "Recording vocals with Dre is a meticulous process," Vito reveals. "There are some exceptions, like 50 is an exception. There are some people that just do it, and there's not much punching involved. And there are other people who need a lot of punching, and that means maybe a couple words at a time until all the rhythm and the pockets are correct. Dre has an amazing sense of rhythm. He hears all these crazy rhythms in the vocal and, because he's a rapper as well, he knows how it should be performed. As a producer he's great, but as a rapper he knows what pocket they should be hitting and he can really coach someone well. Working with Dre on vocals is cool because you get to see how he directs someone and they actually sound the best they've ever sounded." > > Signal Path: Tracking > > "I like my vocals to sound 'crystal,'" says Dre. "I use the Sony C800-G for vocals because it has a clean sound and about 85% of the people that get behind it sound great. My main objective is that the vocal sound is present and clean and ultimately does not distort. I get the sound I want out of the EQ on the SSL. We've used it forever and have made many hits on it, including 50's 'In Da Club.'" > > "We come from the Sony C800-G and out of that into the Neve 1073 mic pre," explains Vito. "We don't use the EQ, because most of the time it sounds good flat. If there's a need for it we'll engage it, but for 50 Cent on 'In Da Club' we didn't use any EQ. Then we took it out of the Neve mic pre into the Avalon 737-SP compressor. It's a mic pre with EQ, and it actually has a compressor, but we're not using any of the mic pre on the Avalon - we're just going straight into the line input. From the output of the Neve it goes into the line input of the Avalon, which allows you to use the compressor alone. We set the compression ratio around 7:1 and the threshold usually hovers at around 0. I set it at a medium attack and fast release. I'd say we're using around 3 or 4 dB of compression, sometimes up to 7 dB. On 'In Da Club' it was about 4 or 5. Then it comes back into the SSL 4000 G with E modules (at Encore Studio) and we bring it back on the insert. > > "There's a patch on the patch bay that says 'insert return,'" he continues, "and that's where we bring the vocal back into the insert return, because it's the shortest patch before you actually hear the vocal. It has the least amount of circuitry of anything in the channel, so you're bypassing the EQ, the dynamics. You could use it all, but if you really want the shortest, cleanest signal, that's the way to go. Then we bus it out to Pro Tools HD and we use the small fader to send it to PT. That's about it." > > Discovery > > "The way we came to this chain is - a while ago, when I first started out, I was assisting for Dr. Dre," says Vito. "I noticed how their engineer was doing it and it sounded good. The records sounded amazing, so when Dre hired me to engineer, I told him, 'Ya gotta buy some of these,' and he bought some 1073s. I had heard for a long time that they were really good mic pre's to run vocals through. At Encore, where I was assisting, they had one there, and anytime we were doing a session we would always run vocals through it. So when I saw Dre doing it, it was just cool seeing a rap guy using a 1073! That's how we came up with it. As for the compressor, it's just a good tube-sounding compressor. Sometimes we use the DBX 160 - the original - as an alternate compressor; it sounds good and we've used that on a lot of records." > > Signal Path: Mixdown > > The Yamaha SPX-1000 played a prominent role in mixdown. "We used a REV-5 room setting," says Vito. "There are a couple patches in there that sound really good. They're old reverbs and they're not the best nor most expensive, but they sound good, they're reliable, and that's all that matters! For R&B the Lexicon reverbs sound great. They work good for R&B, but for rap the SPX works good. We've used Lexicon's before too and they work okay. It's depends on the song and the artist and what you're looking for in the song. Like on Eve's stuff we used the SPX-1000, too."

It can be seen on the right side of the photo

"I have a Technics SL1200 turntable and a Rane Mixer that I use for vinyl sampling. Sampling is done with an Ensoniq ASR-10 sampling keyboard, and all the vocals are recorded with a Neumann TL103 running into an Avalon 737SP."

In the studio, Dave runs Pro Tools 10. He uses various mic pre's and DI's, although his usual choice is the Avalon 737 SP. When mic'ing his rig

"Though Pearson uses the XL4 mic pre's for most of the microphones onstage, for Alanis' vocal channel, he uses an Avalon VT737SP tube compressor/mic pre for more accuracy. 'I route that into a BSS DPR-901 II selectable-frequency compressor. Then I have a Klark-Teknik DN410 Parametric EQ that I assign to the vocal group on the Midas, so I can EQ specifically for her voice. Alanis writes all of her lyrics, and I think people come to the show to hear those lyrics, so I try to mix so that [the lyrics] are on top and out front and intelligible. She is a wonderful singer and really carries the show with her voice. However, she doesn't sing very loudly, and because of that, her vocal mic has a lot of gain, and she moves all over the stage, so you pick up stage volume through the vocal mic, which is the biggest challenge in mixing the show.'"

Can be seen at 1:33 in this video. They own 2 of them.

> It’s like a BCM10, but with the 33–series EQs,” he explains. “The outboard is fairly standard: Urei 1176s, an Avalon 737 pre, a Neve 1084 pre. In my travelling setup I use the Apogee Symphony and the AD16s and DA16s, which I really like. But that’s if I’m going to work at The Record Plant or somewhere.

As seen on instagram.

The best pre-amp at the moment.

Avalon VT-737SP is included in a chart depicting Yasunori's studio (circa 2002).

Used for *Luv Is Rage 2*, as stated by mix engineer Kesha Lee in this December 2017 *Sound on Sound* article. > The standard for Atlanta seems to be to use Yamaha NS10s or Augspurger monitors,” Lee explains, “and the recording signal chain consists of an Avalon VT-737sp mic pre and a Tube-Tech CL 1B compressor. The microphone is normally a Neumann U87 and the headphones are Sennheiser HD280s. We briefly used the U87 when we got back from LA, because that’s what’s in Means Street Studio A, but Uzi likes the Neumann TLM103, which is in Studio B, and which we use most of the time.”

See it at 2:58 of this video, at the centre of the console.

"has them singing by his side in the control room into a Brauner Valvet mic. This passes through either an Avalon VT737 or his Neve Portico preamp into an Apogee Rosetta A?D"

[This article](http://www.sonicscoop.com/2012/02/26/behind-the-release-school-of-seven-bells-recombine-for-ghostory/) notes that during the making of SVIIB's album "Ghostory," "Curtis’ signal path for Deheza was the aforementioned Nuemann U87 running through an Avalon 737 mic pre, then on into a Sparrow two channel interface from Black Lion Audio."

Bass tech Robert “Bucky” Huck says that bassist Jay DeMarcus’ rig comprises an Avalon 737 through a Distressor EL8-X comp and an Ampeg SVT Classic through a Distressor EL8-X comp and a Palmer PDI-03 direct box. “It starts with three Shure UR4D dual wirelesses into an Amp Gizmo custom splitter I had them design with eight ins and four outs,” Huck says. “One out goes to the Ampeg side and one out goes to the Avalon side. I also have a second rig built in the rack for our pedal-steel player, Travis Toy. He plays bass when Jay is on keyboards. His rig is completely separate on the Avalon side, but they both share the Ampeg side with the use of a Tour Supply Amp Selector.”

You can see the Avalon VT-737sp Channel Strip in the rack at the 2:34 minute mark on the attached video tour of his studio.

In this interview, you can see the Avalon Preamp on Bushido's left.

At 5:58 in the video, you can see an Avalon VT-737sp in the rackmount in the background, just behind Chris Elms.

Martin recorded her vocals in a cheap recording studio, as he was typically just using a Shure SM58 mic and an Avalon compressor. “I was embarrassed, feeling it would be impossible to get a good sound for her with what I felt was my lo-fi studio set-up at the time,” he says.

"[FOH and monitor engineer Mark] Maher comments that VerTec has proved a flexible choice in all the different venues, where the system has frequently had to be ground stacked, a situation where the VerTec line array works particularly well. The Digidesign Venue is Maher's console of choice, and one of the reasons he likes it is because of its warm and natural sound. He took advantage of the console's extensive onboard processing, and ran just two additional Avalon VT737 valve compressors on the two guitars."

Aiden Jude keeps the "Avalon VT-737sp Mic Preamp" in his studio

In diesem Video sieht man den Avalon VT-737sp bei 6:03 im Hintergrund in Kollegahs Studio.

photo on Instagram

"[FOH and monitor engineer Mark] Maher comments that VerTec has proved a flexible choice in all the different venues, where the system has frequently had to be ground stacked, a situation where the VerTec line array works particularly well. The Digidesign Venue is Maher's console of choice, and one of the reasons he likes it is because of its warm and natural sound. He took advantage of the console's extensive onboard processing, and ran just two additional Avalon VT737 valve compressors on the two guitars."

According to Babydaddy, the equipment at Discoball Jazzfest consists of a G5 Mac running Logic Pro 7 with assorted plug-ins including the Native Instruments Komplete package, Korg's Legacy Collection, Arturia's CS80V and Gforce's Minimonsta. Hardware includes the Access Virus Indigo and Virus Polar, Roland XV5050, Studiologic SL880 master keyboard, Roland Juno 106 and Novation K-station synths. The band's main microphone is a Neumann M149, which went through the studio's HHB Radius 50, Avalon VT737, or Universal Audio 6176 preamps, and then into their MOTU 828 MkII, with monitoring taken care of by Mackie HR824s.

Spotted in the rackmount unit on the left of this photo in the interview with Scandinavian Traveler: https://scandinaviantraveler.com/sites/default/files/styles/inline_large/public/thomas-gson-keyboard-1140x500.jpg

At 1:50, Steve Monti discusses his Avalon 737.