SPL Gainstation 1 AD

My backbone for proffesional Voice Recordings

I use this mainly for voice a few times for clean electric guitars. I saw it during a course in a recording studio with optical ADAT, and have never regretted the purchase. It is great that you can mix clean gain, tube gain and output freely. It is also easy to change imped. The Leds are clear to see and it is really easy to use.

It is really great sounding. You can extreme linear gain without distortion or you can choose more tube amp to get the "warm" feeling. With this Preamp you don't need an U87 to get awesome recordings, because the gain is so great.

Pro:

- Awesome sound with strong and clear gain

- tube and transistor amp

- easy to use

- Very good manual(!)

- Digital output is good

Cons:

- A bit heavy for use outside of studio

- Gets quite warm, since a class A Amplifier is inside.

Essential for the home studio

I bought this for my home studio where I regularly record vocals and acoustic guitar using a selection of high-quality condenser microphones. I'm aware that many people, myself included, often use the A/D converters built into a computer audio interface. However it can make a lot more sense to spend your money on a really good recording channel, especially if you tend to record just one instrument at a time. In recent years I've used an RME Fireface USB interface and a UAD Apollo Twin USB - both of which are highly regarded for their converters. The SPL Gainstation gives audibly better results than these and has extra features such as tube vs. clean gain and built-in limiter. Its digital output simply connects to the digital input for the computer interface - this is easy to set up and effectively bypasses any other A/D conversion. A nice surprise was when I also tried the Gainstation to DI a bass guitar - this yielded a tasteful range of sounds by controlled by balancing the clean against the tube gain stage. All in all I'd highly recommend this for a home or project studio. It's a robust unit and likely to continue to be useful much longer than computer-based audio gadgets.