Heritage Audio HA-73 EQ versus plugins

maartenl945

maartenl945

Member
So I've owned a Heritage Audio HA-73 EQ for a few years now and recently compared its EQ against a number of plugins. Perhaps of interest:

Can you guys hear the difference ? Or anybody in here that has any experience with this unit ?

Regards,
Maarten
 
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The hardware and UA sounded pretty similar, not sure of the free-ware. I would imagine the UA plugin has less noise and will never wear out. Most plugins you cant turn on "real time" so the hardware offers immediate tones and instead of the mouse, a turn of the knob...but then the software plug has the Save settings where the hardware has no recall other than a pen and paper.
For HR maybe not a big deal.

Id imagine if there was no EQ in the test, example- the straight preamp of the interface and the outboard without eq, the sound is even more similar.

Been running some tests on my gear and listening for noise floors and the usual mic comparisons, theres a ease of use factor that came in to play. ...basically less knobs = less confusion....my 73clone is preamp only, its a clone of the GreatRiver actually and compared to my ART TPSII, having less knobs can be good sometimes. The greatriver clone has Gain & Output, leds for both.
The ART TPS has a much more sound shaping capability with variable impedance, gain can go to distortion more (its designed for guitars and vocal) and the compressor built in is selectable etc.. but again with hardware theres no save function and I notice some amount of noise added with hardware probably not really noticeable if drums are going, but if the noise was added on 100 tracks it might sound like a freeway?

but in the end, preamp to preamp to preamp to cloudlifter to interface preamp ...in clean mode I cant hear much difference at all.

this test was mainly comparing EQ's so I can see that being all over the place, being a solo HR EQ'ing in the box later, as he did with this test makes sense. imo.

being picky I noticed the dudes room sound with the SM7b had a lot of drywall sound and the mic too far away adding to the room-drywall echo bedroom familiar sound.

overall though the whole youtube video was done really well, but maybe getting a different microphone he wouldnt need to EQ so much?
 
CoolCat said:
The hardware and UA sounded pretty similar, not sure of the free-ware. I would imagine the UA plugin has less noise and will never wear out. Most plugins you cant turn on "real time" so the hardware offers immediate tones and instead of the mouse, a turn of the knob...but then the software plug has the Save settings where the hardware has no recall other than a pen and paper.
For HR maybe not a big deal.

Id imagine if there was no EQ in the test, example- the straight preamp of the interface and the outboard without eq, the sound is even more similar.

Been running some tests on my gear and listening for noise floors and the usual mic comparisons, theres a ease of use factor that came in to play. ...basically less knobs = less confusion....my 73clone is preamp only, its a clone of the GreatRiver actually and compared to my ART TPSII, having less knobs can be good sometimes. The greatriver clone has Gain & Output, leds for both.
The ART TPS has a much more sound shaping capability with variable impedance, gain can go to distortion more (its designed for guitars and vocal) and the compressor built in is selectable etc.. but again with hardware theres no save function and I notice some amount of noise added with hardware probably not really noticeable if drums are going, but if the noise was added on 100 tracks it might sound like a freeway?

but in the end, preamp to preamp to preamp to cloudlifter to interface preamp ...in clean mode I cant hear much difference at all.

this test was mainly comparing EQ's so I can see that being all over the place, being a solo HR EQ'ing in the box later, as he did with this test makes sense. imo.

being picky I noticed the dudes room sound with the SM7b had a lot of drywall sound and the mic too far away adding to the room-drywall echo bedroom familiar sound.

overall though the whole youtube video was done really well, but maybe getting a different microphone he wouldnt need to EQ so much?
Click to expand...
Thanks for watching the video! This was indeed more an EQ test than a pre-amp test, but at some point I may also do some comparions of that aspect of the hardware.
My SM7B is a mic I ended up with after testing several others (which I also have a video about on my channel). I like the SM7B the best for the noise rejection that it has for room (mouse, keyboard) sound although it's not perfect I'm sure. The distance from the mic is not your typical DJ/radio presenter distance (for a dark voice) no but rather a compromise between sound quality and having the mic right up in my face on the video.

The Dude :-)
 
yeah I ran through a bunch of mics too and my room is a closet (by laziness) and the SM7b, 58,sm57 all do better on noisy room/drywall reflection issues. Some day some more room blankets or something...Im suspecting my next is attack problem is the ceiling and a better door.

if we get up close on the SM7b the room can seem to be less an less of an issue....lol...yes I get it , you dont want the big black mic blocking the view in a youtube. I wonder if a headset-mic would work better for youtube? Ive never tried one. A lot of live folk singers use them. I dont do all that youtube, you have a lot of topics.

The AWASH tracks sounded great, but thats a huge rehearsal room more professional room or medium level.....is that where you recorded it? I wouldnt call that HomeRecording, but I guess theres a wide range of "home studios"...McCartneys "home studio" is pretty nice too. (kidding)
 
CoolCat said:
yeah I ran through a bunch of mics too and my room is a closet (by laziness) and the SM7b, 58,sm57 all do better on noisy room/drywall reflection issues. Some day some more room blankets or something...Im suspecting my next is attack problem is the ceiling and a better door.

if we get up close on the SM7b the room can seem to be less an less of an issue....lol...yes I get it , you dont want the big black mic blocking the view in a youtube. I wonder if a headset-mic would work better for youtube? Ive never tried one. A lot of live folk singers use them. I dont do all that youtube, you have a lot of topics.

The AWASH tracks sounded great, but thats a huge rehearsal room more professional room or medium level.....is that where you recorded it? I wouldnt call that HomeRecording, but I guess theres a wide range of "home studios"...McCartneys "home studio" is pretty nice too. (kidding)
Click to expand...
I do have some treatment in my control room which you can see a bit better in another video about my home studio:
Home Studio tour and design in 2020

It sounds fairly ok now for mixing now and I've improved it a bit more by using Sonarworks speaker/room correction software. But you do still hear a bit of the room when recording these YouTube videos yes.

The Awash tracks you heard on this video were actually recorded in our respective home studios and not in our rehearsal space. Our usual rehearsal space is not as big as you might have seen in one the videos. That was just a temporary space that they provided so that we could keep at a distance during COVID times. It was basically a small concert hall that they weren't using at the time anyway.

What we do, I would still call it home recording. My vocal booth is basically an oversized closet :LOL: but I do realize that probably means something different for everybody. No commercial studios used for these tracks anyway, although we have done that too for some songs on our previous album. And everything in between .... it's fun!

Thanks again for listening/watching!
 
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