Groove tubes THE BRICK ????

[Poni]

has anyone here have any experience with the GT BRICK I'm fishing around for some obseravations on this unit because I'm seriously thinking of grabbing one up.

Thanks in advance !

 

[chessrock]

No direct experience, but I've heard only positive comments about it.

 

[Mr. Moon]

has anyone here have any experience with the GT BRICK I'm fishing around for some obseravations on this unit because I'm seriously thinking of grabbing one up.

Thanks in advance !

I have a "Brick" which I used to mic guitar cabs and as a bass DI. I have not tried it on vocals yet, as most of the tunes I have been working on lately with my band have had the vox recorded before I bought the Brick. The vox were recorded using my SafeSound Audio P1, so they are still definitely "keeper" tracks ...but you know how that goes!

Anywho, I have found the brick to add a nice, dare I say it, "warmth" to the guitar cabs I have used it to record, both clean and dirty guitars. It adds a certain subtle "robustness" to the sound, like a scoop of Jamaican Blue mountain coffee adds to a pot of good regular coffee. The Brick has helped my guitar tracks sound as if the amp is sitting next to you and you can feel the harmonic elements of the sound, rather than just the flat "wall of loud guitar" sound my other pre's have gotten me. I can hear more nuances, while also feel more of the power, not just a buzzy fuzzy f#ckfest of distortion. Clean guitars really cut through mixes much better now, more harmonically pleasent sounding to my ear, less ear fatigue from jangly clean chords. Oh sh1t! I almost forgot, I used it to record a 12-string guitar track!! ...smooth!! Very smooth sounding!!

As a bass DI, I have found it excellent because it translates to tape what the bass "really" sounds like. That's great if you have a good sounding bass, but if not, it sucks, because it is very true to the original tone.

This pre really works into my band's overall "vintage" vibe ....not vintage like 1950's rock, but vintage as in "this is what we really sound like without all the newfangled Otto-Toone mojofication plugins" sound.

That was the long version.

Short version: IMHO you will most likely *not* be disappointed if you buy one!

-mr moon

 

[Mr Funk]

I'd love to know how the Brick sounds in comparrison to the P1, as I plan to buy a new pre soon and the P1 was at the top of my list, having reviewed one (first one made) for Digital Pro Sound and liking it a lot!

I realise the P1 has all the other stuff as well, but simply as a pre, how does is sound against The Brick (vocals)?

Thanks

 

[Mr. Moon]

I'd love to know how the Brick sounds in comparrison to the P1, as I plan to buy a new pre soon and the P1 was at the top of my list, having reviewed one (first one made) for Digital Pro Sound and liking it a lot!

I realise the P1 has all the other stuff as well, but simply as a pre, how does is sound against The Brick (vocals)?

Thanks

Honestly, I cannot compare how the two compare for recording vocals, as I have not really attempted to record vocals through the Brick yet, only bass, electric guitars, and an acoustic 12 string guitar.

As a DI for bass, the Brick really shines. It is very accurate and has a really nice buttery smoothness to it. What really works nicely is chaining the Brick and the P1 for recording the bass; Brick as DI, then into the P1 to get the compression/limiting effect, then into my soundcard. Very nice for "popping" bass players and such, you get the smoothness, compression, and limiting.

As for using the Brick to record acoustic guitars, (12-string recorded with a SP C1 mic) guitars, it's like you're sitting in the room next to the guitarist. IMHO, very accurate reproduction and balanced tone, minimal high-end hype, which I attribute to the C1 which does have a bit of hyped highs.

I think the Pre in the P1 is really good, but a bit more "flat" than the Brick. Of course, I have not done any rigorous side by side testing to figure these things out, as I work at a "real job" all day and would rather record tunes than do preamp research...

If I had both preamps stolen or destroyed, I would replace both immediately (or as soon as I could afford to), as they are great individually and work really well together in a signal chain for some instruments (i.e. bass)!! One of the greatest things about them is that you can really tweak them to get the sound you want without having to have the manual in one hand to figure out what does what. The Brick has one big knob on it for gain ...VERY MOIST!! The P1 has a few more controls, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to get great sound out of it ...which is a good thing as my dominant blonde-gene can really make things tough at times, but even I could get these things to sound great!

-mr moon

 

[Mr Funk]

Thanks mate!

Do you use the expander on the P1 while tracking? I liked it when I tested the unit, but I did not track with it in, as my opinion has always been to gate or expand later if needed, but I have heard that many people track with it and in fact say the expander is worth the price alone? I thought the whole unit sounded great. The comp and limiter are first rate.

 

[Mr. Moon]

Thanks mate!

Do you use the expander on the P1 while tracking? I liked it when I tested the unit, but I did not track with it in, as my opinion has always been to gate or expand later if needed, but I have heard that many people track with it and in fact say the expander is worth the price alone? I thought the whole unit sounded great. The comp and limiter are first rate.

No problem. As far as the expander goes, I've never used it while tracking either. I also agree that the comp and limiter are excellent!!

-mr moon

 

[Poni]

I have a "Brick" which I used to mic guitar cabs and as a bass DI. I have not tried it on vocals yet, as most of the tunes I have been working on lately with my band have had the vox recorded before I bought the Brick. The vox were recorded using my SafeSound Audio P1, so they are still definitely "keeper" tracks ...but you know how that goes!

Anywho, I have found the brick to add a nice, dare I say it, "warmth" to the guitar cabs I have used it to record, both clean and dirty guitars. It adds a certain subtle "robustness" to the sound, like a scoop of Jamaican Blue mountain coffee adds to a pot of good regular coffee. The Brick has helped my guitar tracks sound as if the amp is sitting next to you and you can feel the harmonic elements of the sound, rather than just the flat "wall of loud guitar" sound my other pre's have gotten me. I can hear more nuances, while also feel more of the power, not just a buzzy fuzzy f#ckfest of distortion. Clean guitars really cut through mixes much better now, more harmonically pleasent sounding to my ear, less ear fatigue from jangly clean chords. Oh sh1t! I almost forgot, I used it to record a 12-string guitar track!! ...smooth!! Very smooth sounding!!

As a bass DI, I have found it excellent because it translates to tape what the bass "really" sounds like. That's great if you have a good sounding bass, but if not, it sucks, because it is very true to the original tone.

This pre really works into my band's overall "vintage" vibe ....not vintage like 1950's rock, but vintage as in "this is what we really sound like without all the newfangled Otto-Toone mojofication plugins" sound.

That was the long version.

Short version: IMHO you will most likely *not* be disappointed if you buy one!

-mr moon

Hey Mr. Moon did you find The Brick at all noisy.

 

[Mr. Moon]

Hey Mr. Moon did you find The Brick at all noisy.

Nope. My Brick is nice and quiet.

...But, I'm also using the EBTECH "Hum X" (link) ground-loop noise killers on the power outlets that I have my pre's and such plugged into. I use only LCD flat panel displays, so there are *NO* CRT's in the area of my studio, which have caused me noise problems in the past.

Hope this helps!

-mr moon

 

[cradlefish]

The Brick is a great mic pre for what mr.moon as mention thus far. I've recorded Acoustic guitars, Miked cab, and DI for bass and it certainly has a full robustness in the tonality of my recordings. I haven't tried vocals yet,but plan too. I kinda got carried away and bought another one about 2 months ago and now realizing that I don't need to use the other one . So I'm parting away with it. If anybody is interested in getting one? I have one for sale for 350.00. I've only used it twice and haven't need too again. So it's practically brand new in it's original box along with all the paper work.


drop me an email if you're interested at cradle_fish@yahoo.com


Brian

 

[Poni]

Well I went out and picked up a GT Brick yesterday and I'm glad I did because this baby sounds so much more musical and alive (impressions after eight hours of stick time) than what I had before (m audio DMP3). I'd like to thank you Mr. Moon for getting me of the fence regarding the purchase of this great sounding, very versatile and reasonably priced unit.

Thanks Again.
DaveG

 

[Mr. Moon]

Well I went out and picked up a GT Brick yesterday and I'm glad I did because this baby sounds so much more musical and alive (impressions after eight hours of stick time) than what I had before (m audio DMP3). I'd like to thank you Mr. Moon for getting me of the fence regarding the purchase of this great sounding, very versatile and reasonably priced unit.

Thanks Again.
DaveG

No problem. It's always fun to help folks spend money ...especially on a very good piece of gear!

-mr moon

 

[Lorde]

Wasn't too impressed

Picked up the Brick Yesterday....Not very Impressed with the results....That is just me though!

 

[Poni]

Picked up the Brick Yesterday....Not very Impressed with the results....That is just me though!

Isn't that funny, I'm starting to get emotionally attached to mine, not hard to believe considering my other choices are a DMP3 and a Behringer MX802a mixer. Lorde what preamp's have you been using up till now.

 

[Mr. Moon]

Picked up the Brick Yesterday....Not very Impressed with the results....That is just me though!

Yeah, I felt the same way about mine for the first week or so ...until I started tracking some bass with it and adding it to a mix! Once I did that, I was able to appreciate The Brick for what it is. The bass tracks just started popping out with much better definition than before, sounding more realistic and honest to the source, rather than hyped and inaccurate. I've had the same results with electric and acoustic guitars as well.

I listen to the tracks recorded with the Brick outside of a mix (soloed), and it's like "yeah, so what? That's what the (source) sounded like; It doesn't sound (warm, robust, accurate, etc)!" Then I plop those suckers into a mix, and it all makes sense. The tracks sit in the mix better and have more definition than my other bass (etc.) tracks recorded with my other pre's.

YMMV, of course...

-mr moon

 

[EVT]

Mr. Moon,

I also have the p1 and I love the results on vocals, and bass, but I don't really like the sound on electric guitar. I am going direct in to the p1 with my guitar then going monitor out into my blues Jr amp and micn'g with a sm57. Do you have any suggestions? I'm not sure if it's the setting i'm using on the p1, or if something else should be used.
Thanks for the info.
evt

 

[Mr. Moon]

Mr. Moon,

I also have the p1 and I love the results on vocals, and bass, but I don't really like the sound on electric guitar. I am going direct in to the p1 with my guitar then going monitor out into my blues Jr amp and micn'g with a sm57. Do you have any suggestions? I'm not sure if it's the setting i'm using on the p1, or if something else should be used.
Thanks for the info.
evt

Personally, I would change you signal path to something like this:
Plug guitar into guitar amp and get the tone you want. Plug the SM57 into the mic input on the P1, set the SM57 in front of one of the speakers on your amp (where it sounds good to you while monitoring through the P1), and then take the output of the P1 into whatever soundcard/DAW/recording device you're using. Then start tweaking mic position, compressor/preamp levels, etc. until you get the exact sound "to tape" that you're looking for.

...Beware, that last step might take you several years!

-mr. moon

 

[lumbago]

I have an old Groove Tubes MP1 Tube Mic pre sitting here - anyone else heard of or used this?

 

[Warhead]

EVT, you're not compressing that electric guitar heavily going in are you? Compression alone (any type) can mess with certain guitar tracking, I typically track with no compression on electric guitars with my P1's, just using its preamp.

I have tracked tons of electric guitars with the P1. It likes guitar work.

I have yet to record a vocal track without a P1 since obtaining them, due to the preamp, compression and limiting being such a perfect match for vocal tracking.

The Brick is another great flavor of preamp, with a bit of that transformer smoothness. Very smooth gain top to bottom, and also pushed my R84 ribbon well. It's not a noisy pre, in fact I find it to be very quiet.

War

But hey I'm biased!

 

[EVT]

Thanks for the replies...
Warhead,
What I was doing is going direct into the p1 and adjusting the knobs till I got something I think sounds good . Then I was just running an sm57 and a studio projects b1 through a mixer set up something like this photo ( I'm using a blues jr. amp.)

http://www.homerecordingconnection.com/news.php?action=view_story&id=140

Then I went the p1 into it's own track on my fostex vf16 and the mixer with the 2 mic's mixed in together into another track on the fostex. Then I mixed the two tracks together. But, I'm new to this and I am just fiddling around to get a good sound. I have the recommended settings for bass and vocals in the p1 manual which is where I begin, then just tweak a bit. But, I kind of just turn the knobs all over without understanding what I'm doing and not having a starting point. I know that I shouldn't rely on the manual, but it helped me and I am just learning.

So Mr. Moon, you think I should use the p1 as the pre for the sm57 on the mic'd amp? One track recorded in of guitar you think? Do you think I should eliminate the use of the condensor mic (studio projects b1). I'm just trying new things I'm finding that others seem to like to do for a good sound.

Thanks for the replies,
evt