The compressor’s easy and effective one-knob-operation is supported by elysia’s signature Auto Fast function, which will automatically reduce the attack to its shortest value when strong impulses and transients require it. This alone makes for a very musical and unobtrusive dynamics section on a par with the best compressors the market has to offer. The all discrete class-A circuitry provides a premium quality audio path, and the RMS detector has been optimized to react noticeably well on vocals and instruments. Its potentiometer sets the threshold based on a fixed 3:1 ratio and a soft knee characteristic, while the attack and release parameters were selected for their universal usefulness. The elysia skulpter 500 features an integrated compressor operated by just a single knob. The sound shaping potentials of the elysia skulpter 500 can help to produce a “finished” sound already while recording – especially in combination with the onboard dynamics section. The corresponding potentiometer is actually a mix controller, so that any desired amount of this effect can be blended to the original signal, while in the fully left position the original remains completely unaffected. The preset EQ curve is of course a different one for vox, with up to 10 dB of high mid boost around 4.5 kHz. Vocals benefit from the same saturation enhancement and, like a tube-like characteristic curve, this results rather in musical soft clip limiting than in actual distortion. The resulting sound is huge, with a massive body but no harsh peaks at all. At the same time, a pre-tailored EQ curve with a high frequency cut starting around 4 kHz is applied to the signal.
The intensity of this saturation is determined by the input level and the amount of preamp gain. The first ingredient to achieve that big, fat sound is adding harmonics (THD). The very open and natural sound character of the elysia skulpter 500 can be shaped by two independent combinations of saturation and specially tweaked filter curves: When an elysia skulpter 500 is powered off its current gain setting is saved automatically, so the preamp will start with exactly the same amount of gain on the next session.
#Diy 500 series mic preamp serial numbers#
As a result, multiple preamps do not require factory matching or consecutive serial numbers when forming stereo pairs or multichannel configurations. Using single resistors arranged in a cascade guarantees exact gain values.
This comes in really handy as in most of the cases microphones require a considerably higher amount of gain, which would be way too much for a synth or similar sources plugged into the DI. If you change from Mic to DI or vice versa, the gain will automatically change accordingly. The actual mic preamp and the direct input have a separate gain value each. A huge benefit of this is that an additional pad becomes completely unnecessary, resulting in a better signal-to-noise ratio. The elysia skulpter 500 provides an ample amount of gain, starting at unusually low values and going up to what you’ll need to properly amplify ribbons with high gain requirements. The result is an extremely natural and beautiful sounding preamp. Similar to many tube amps, it operates in feed forward mode, which means it works without high amounts of negative feedback. The following amplifier is a fully discrete class-A design. This setup is controlled by an encoder with 20 steps per rotation, providing a total of 40 gain values in 1.5/2 dB steps (total gain range: 3 – 65 dB). The elysia skulpter 500 does not use a potentiometer for changing its gain, but a much more audiophile topology instead: Fixed resistors switched by a cascade of relays and electronic switches.
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