skylissz's Reviews

Best Option at Their Price Point

For monitoring these are great absolute. They a loud and clear with the right headphone amp or interface with a powerful amp. The only dislike is they use the peeling cuff. Go on amazon amd order lambskin leather replacement pads they will also cancel out noise even better than the factory standard. I say that if you are recording with them.

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Clear, Round, Deep Lows.

I must have got a brandnew tested model because it's getting clear, round, deep lows. Mixing was eas with them its the DAW settings you have to account for rather its setting your DAW levels below, sample rate when bouncing or a great limiter to push up your mix.

Great For Small or Medium Workspaces.

I got these because my larger Alesis MK2's went out on me. I am happy that these have outlasted my others being that I work long hours on music. They are clear, true and loud. I suggest getting the sub along with them. They arent over priced and makie has some excellent monitors.

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It is How You Use It.

Honestly, I made a career off of it back when we got it. You had 16 tracks to compose, lots of sounds and efx. It was beating the computer composers in area because of the warm sound and could get the levels and mixing so good that competitor studios would intentionally feed it into their DAW and raise the volume up to distort the stereo tracks to make their product sound better. How shameful right? Lol. I grew so fast at editing with it, where I made songs in 5-10 min, sequenced and edited, cooking up about a 1000-2000 beats a year. Thats my first time being open about that part because I remained humble all these years, lover of music, only compete with myself.

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Base Model Does Its Job

It handled its job fairly well for the workload I have a 2014 model. But, I would suggest for music and if you have multiple tasks going on the go with 27in, 8 i9 core, 32GB, and 1-2TB of SSD for down the road. You can also expand memory. I got it more to work with school and garageband. If you upgrade to Logic Pro or ProTools then dont get a base model even if you dont use tons of tracks you may go plugin crazy that will pull it down. Lucky the newer models are stronger and faster.

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The Bonus Software Pays For It.

I had all the inputs and outputs I needed. The ProMax Pres are transparent and no latency issues like with others. Here's what really made the purchase beyond a bargain you get tons of software with it that probaly coats more than what you will pay for it. Their customer service team and forum was easy to work with.

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Clear Vocals & The Polar Patterns are Adlibs Bestfriend

This mic drew out my creativity because of the standard and extra polar patterns. I used stamdard Cardoid and Super-Cardoid for leads and they give you all these inbetween polar patterns that you can use to space your dynamics a bit with. I literally spent a few hours just having fun with those before working on an actual song. Why didnt I give it a 5 star? Well it's not their SubZero, 840 or 940 number one and secondly you'd need good acoustic treatment in your room to really reap the benifit of this great mic. (Clear and Airy Style).

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Project Studio Ready

It is a cardoid heart shaped pattern mic that is great when you want warm clean vocals to work with. If you have an untreated room it has a hi and low cut off switch and the proximity blocks out lots of noise to begin with. The only set back is finding a good shock mount. I ordered 2 before getting it right. Get a Rycote USM and don't try to cut corners and order any other type even if the seller or vendor says their bargain shockmount is compatible. I had to rig felt taps to keep it from sliding lol. But, the Rycote USM was the soulmate to the Aston Spirit even though the two compaines had a partnership divorce. :)

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Its gorgeous and it brings life to the mic character amd your voice.

I was like most new engineers / songwriters who only used the preamps in their interface. I dodn't mind the clear pres until I listened to recorded vocals and just monitoring while tracking that I wasnt getting the full character out of the mics. I reserached different mic pres as I do a multi source check: peer reference, expert reference, forums, videos, sales engineers, and blogs. I narrow my pre down to avalon as my pro upgrade starter.

Enough of the backstory! I use it for vocals with the (Boost) going 30-60 deepending on what mic and how much character I want to be manipulated by the (Tone). I will audition every tone during warmups so its flexible. Note you will keep the (power) at +48v with the mic on Lo-Z for a condencer mic. But, what I am getting at is you can use different amounts of Boost and Tone for lead, haromonys, stabs, and adlibs and create some hot layers. If you dont have a multi-pattern mic this will keep your creativity going. Most important your vocals will be present in the mix, hold their pocket and when you mix down you dont have to worry about your vocals falling short in the mix unless of course you forgot you mutted something or turned the volume down on them too much. All-and-all I recommend this for clear vocals with a lil bit of flavor. If you do want a different character and distortion add a Neve, Manley Tube, SilverBullet, Tegler, SonicFarm Cremer or BlackBox.

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