tl audio ebony A3
Greetings,
I just received mine, and have had a week to try it out. I’ve recorded two snare drums (one close mic’d and one overhead mic’d), a mic’d acoustic guitar, a bass guitar (direct), an acoustic/electric guitar (direct), and a Vox ToneLab (the old blue one).
First, my overall impressions of the 3 sections of the unit:
Mic preamp: Pros - quiet, neutral, clean. Cons – could use more gain for ribbon mics. Not much headroom – you can get a “bump” on transients if you drive the input too hard.
EQ: Pros - musical sounding, easy to dial in a good sound. You would think that having fixed low and high bands and only the mids sweepable would be a hindrance. But in all my applications, I was able to get exactly what I wanted. Cons – can add a bit of noise at extreme frequency boost settings (as to be expected, especially with high frequencies).
Compressor: Pros – can either be subtle or really mangle your signal. The “Soft” knee setting is best when you want a bit of signal control; the compressor is fairly unobtrusive and transparent in this setting. Cons – The “Hard” knee setting is useless. The gain reduction almost seems to be random at this setting. I guess you could use this for extreme mangling, but forget using it for anything else. This aspect of the compressor really needs a redesign!
I first tried it out by micing an acoustic guitar with a CAD M177. The guitar is a Dean “Ovation style” with a composite back. I was able to dial in a sound that was very musical and smooth by using just a touch of compression and EQ. The cool thing is that you can turn on the “Tube Stage” and dial in a bit of distortion, giving the impression of tape saturation.
On the close-mic’d snare drum (again with the M177), I was able to use the comp and EQ creatively to get a nice open but controlled sound. Very natural but with enough character to make it interesting. The only slight problem I encountered was adjusting the input gain as to not cause that odd “bump” on higher input levels. This isn’t a huge problem, but you have to be mindful of it.
The overhead mic’d (M177 again) snare was a hoot! I wanted to get a “Peter Gabriel-esque” Fairlight snare…and I got it! I tuned the snare almost slack, and then dialed in the comp and EQ ‘til I got what I wanted. To me, this is what the A3 excels at. It can add some serious character to a signal, but still achieve a musical and useable sound.
The direct bass guitar was really smooth; very even across the frequency range. Frankly, I’ve never gotten a better direct bass sound. The only downer was the compressor. Even in the Soft knee setting, there was a bit of distortion added, even after fiddling with the Attack and Release buttons. Variable controls for these would be a definite improvement. Ultimately, the distortion isn’t noticeable in a finished track, so I can live with it.
The direct acoustic/electric guitar and a Strat into the ToneLab worked really nicely. The EQ and comp added a nice “roundness” in both cases. I was able to get transparent level control with the comp, and the EQ brought out a bit of sparkle and edge, without sounding harsh.
I haven’t recorded vocals through it yet. I’ll follow up when I get the chance.
Ultimately, would I buy it again…or recommend it? Yes I would buy it again, but I recommend it only if you have a “clean” unit (like
a Focusrite ISA One for example) to compliment it. I wouldn’t record everything through the A3, but for adding some coloration, I would give it serious consideration. I would give it a grade of B.
To give some perspective: I’m not a professional engineer, just a song-writer/experimentalist with my own home studio. I don’t own any high-end gear (like Avalon, Manley, etc.), but I am developing a picky ear. I wanted to step up from the ART and lower-end stuff I currently track with, and got this at a good price, so figured “What the heck?”
Hope this helps…
