Kevin Deschwazi
Well-known member
I built 4 of JLM’s Baby Animal mic pres recently and I want to big the company and this product up. They’re a small outfit in Australia, (the shipping is reasonable and very quick though, I’ve ordered from them twice and the stuff has always arrived within a week). They’re fantastic pres and the support is excellent if things don’t work first time.
You can use a variety of input transformers and opamps (and output transformers if you want to add more iron sound and a few extra db, this isn’t vital though). JLM make highly regarded xformers and opamps or you can use 3rd party parts (useable xformers are listed on the JLM website). I used Lundahl 1538xl + JLM Hybrid on channels 1 & 2 and OEP 262A3E + JLM 99V on 3 & 4. I also added a DI to channel 4, this was also a kit from JLM and these just plug into the BA boards.
The kits are really easy to build and are more build by numbers than proper DIY; these could be made by anyone who pays reasonable attention to detail and who does a bit of practice with a soldering iron beforehand. And like all electronics work a healthy repsect for electricity is vital! I have built a couple of things in the past but I’m by no means experienced and you could write what I know about electronics on the back of a postage stamp. After sorting out a bit of crap wiring on my part though, I had them up and running without any problems. The boards are very logically laid out and the kits are very well packaged.
I won’t go into the sound too much because a) what Steve Martin said about architecture and b) the rest of my chain isn’t of the quality where I can claim to be hearing these pres at their best. Having said that they sound excellent compared with the prosumer pres I’m used to (DMP-3, TL Audio Ivory series, VTB-1 etc). I wanted a pair of pres for recording acoustic guitar and after some advice from Matt at JLM I went with the Lundahl/Hybrid combo and I’m very pleased. These are very ‘clean’, not sterile clean but hi fi clean, a really open sound. The Hybrid can be set to run in class A or class A/B, I prefer A/B for my needs.
The OEP/99V combo is more coloured; warm but still articulate, I like these on vocals. I haven’t used the DI properly but just putting acoustic guitar through it to check it worked sounded very nice, I’ve never been tempted to blend a DI acoustic guitar with the mic’d signal before but I might have to give this a go now.
My 4 channel BA cost around £400 to build (including case, panel, xlr’s etc), at £100 per channel for this level of quality I feel like I got a great deal. It probably took me a day and a half to two days to build (I drilled the front panel myself and I’m shite with metalwork so this added a fair bit of time to the build).
If you're toying with the idea of DIY and you need pres then I'd highly recommend these. They have a passive eq and opto compressor in the pipeline, I’ll be all over those like a lampshade.
http://www.jlmaudio.com/Baby_Animal_Mic_Pre.htm
There's a thread for support at group DIY but they've just started up their own forum:
http://www.jlmaudio.com/forum/
You can use a variety of input transformers and opamps (and output transformers if you want to add more iron sound and a few extra db, this isn’t vital though). JLM make highly regarded xformers and opamps or you can use 3rd party parts (useable xformers are listed on the JLM website). I used Lundahl 1538xl + JLM Hybrid on channels 1 & 2 and OEP 262A3E + JLM 99V on 3 & 4. I also added a DI to channel 4, this was also a kit from JLM and these just plug into the BA boards.
The kits are really easy to build and are more build by numbers than proper DIY; these could be made by anyone who pays reasonable attention to detail and who does a bit of practice with a soldering iron beforehand. And like all electronics work a healthy repsect for electricity is vital! I have built a couple of things in the past but I’m by no means experienced and you could write what I know about electronics on the back of a postage stamp. After sorting out a bit of crap wiring on my part though, I had them up and running without any problems. The boards are very logically laid out and the kits are very well packaged.
I won’t go into the sound too much because a) what Steve Martin said about architecture and b) the rest of my chain isn’t of the quality where I can claim to be hearing these pres at their best. Having said that they sound excellent compared with the prosumer pres I’m used to (DMP-3, TL Audio Ivory series, VTB-1 etc). I wanted a pair of pres for recording acoustic guitar and after some advice from Matt at JLM I went with the Lundahl/Hybrid combo and I’m very pleased. These are very ‘clean’, not sterile clean but hi fi clean, a really open sound. The Hybrid can be set to run in class A or class A/B, I prefer A/B for my needs.
The OEP/99V combo is more coloured; warm but still articulate, I like these on vocals. I haven’t used the DI properly but just putting acoustic guitar through it to check it worked sounded very nice, I’ve never been tempted to blend a DI acoustic guitar with the mic’d signal before but I might have to give this a go now.
My 4 channel BA cost around £400 to build (including case, panel, xlr’s etc), at £100 per channel for this level of quality I feel like I got a great deal. It probably took me a day and a half to two days to build (I drilled the front panel myself and I’m shite with metalwork so this added a fair bit of time to the build).
If you're toying with the idea of DIY and you need pres then I'd highly recommend these. They have a passive eq and opto compressor in the pipeline, I’ll be all over those like a lampshade.
http://www.jlmaudio.com/Baby_Animal_Mic_Pre.htm
There's a thread for support at group DIY but they've just started up their own forum:
http://www.jlmaudio.com/forum/