who uses ramsa ?

[bantam]

i may be getting a ramsa WR s4424 24 ch board as my main out of the box interface to my digi 002.

I got it for 400 (way less than an 8 or 12 channel british board)

question is, anyone use these... are they on par with soundcraft, a$h, midas?

anyone who is using one i would love to know what you think.

[tonewoods]

I run a WR-T820B and like it alot, but I'm not using the pres or EQ all that much....

It sounds great for what I'm doing, which is running 24 (but usually 16) channels of DA38...

I mix to channels 1/2, doing punch-ins (usually a lot of 'em) on the fly, so it's kinda like poor man's automation...
Works for me...

As I remember, the Ramsa boards are not all that respected around here (all them RCAs!), but I've run quite a few boards and like the way it sounds....

And the price is sure right these days for one of these puppies...

[bantam]

i think the wr -s models are without rcas. xlr and trs inputs. these are newer though, (no vu meters, just segmented leds). I am interested in opinions on the eqs. i have outboard mic pres that ill track to pro tools, so this will just get used for mix down (eq and inserts comps),

anyone have an opinion on the ramsa eqs (or mic pres for that matter) for the newer wr-s series?

thanks

[Randy]

I have heard much love of Ramsa from this board. I have one, a WR 8428 and I like it a lot. The EQ is usable often enough, and the routing clean. The preamps are much much better than the ones in my Mackie 1202 vlz. After I started using it, I noticed that the highs weren't splashy, and the bass is more real. I noticed that the stuff I recorded with it sounds more "relaxed" and seems more like real space.

I don't know about the WR s4424, but the 8428 is modular and the parts and manuals are available.

[Sean Shannon]

I own a Panasonic Ramsa DA7 digital board (sweet), and a Ramsa WR-T820. Great boards.

[dynomike]

da7. pres and eq's are very mint. routing is also very nice, if a little clunky to use.

[norton]

i had a wrt812 and it's a real nice board. easy to understand, lots of routing options decent preamps. it's a little dark sounding and the eq CAN be kinda harsh... but it doesn't have to be...

for a while i had both the wr series ramsa and a soundcraft 200b board and in a/b testing the preamps sounded damn near identical... more gain with the soundcraft and a little more modular, but the sound was very very similar.

i'd say good score.

[tomhampton]

i have a WR-T820, with an 812 in the garage for parts, and i've been very happy with it thus far. once i managed to get my hands on a manual, it all made perfect sense to me.

the sixteen outs sealed the deal for me. love it, love it, love it.




T

[tonewoods]

Man, I remember an incredibly disparaging remark about the WR-T820B in an issue of TapeOp awhile back...
Something like "I wouldn't give 75 bucks for one of those!"

I had just plugged mine in and done the usual drill of testing the pres and EQs, and thought it sounded fine.

Nice to see that these desks are indeed getting some use out there...

[cvanwinkle]

I used the 24ch Ramsa you mentioned quite a bit for smaller PA systems. It did what I needed, and stood up to the elements quite well. Always had an interesting little "beep" (not bad by anymeans) when the power was shut off before the Amps (ugh).

-C

[Zygomorph]

I love my WRS4412. It's seriously the best investment I've yet made, because it is extremely versatile.

It is also heavy, though.

The high shelf EQ rings a bit much if you push it, but I will often use the EQ to cut things going to tape. You can get the mid frequency EQ to feed back if you crank it!

The comment about the "relaxed sound" is totally on par with my experience. I've actually found that the Soundcraft 200B pres have a natural high-mid bump that makes everything punchier or more colorful, which is desirable sometimes. But the Ramsa is more neutral overall. The faders aren't as smooth as the Soundcraft, unfortunately. The pres sound great when you push them, especially on snare!

Though it's modular, it's a pain in the ass to take apart because the modules are in sets of three cards. This is important if you're going to be using the direct outs for recording, because in order to make the auxilliaries pre-fader you have re-solder some internal jumpers on each card... because aux 1 doubles as the direct out... you probably know this by now.

And there is my random smattering on this lovely lovely board.

[Gebo]

http://boston.craigslist.org/msg/127920955.html

just saw this today if anyone is interested.

[inthered]

This is more about the DA7 than Ramsas in general, and I think maybe the DA7 had a very different design team and process than most of Ramsa's offerings.

When our co-op studio split up, I bought the DA7. www.da7.com has been pretty helpful, albeit with a much clique-ier feel than this mesageboard.

I'm using it with a MOTU 2408 into a PC, and it's been fine. While some DA7 users have moved on to other boards because of concern that 20 bits isn't enough, I'm not convinced that the bitrate is really the weak link in the DA7's 'class.' I've never been inclined to use the onboard EQ or dynamics control, although I've done it a couple times in a pinch; mainly I've just used what's onboard to time-align multiple mics on a source and maybe do high-pass.

I found that the channel knobs on my DA7 are a little rough; they don't feel very substantial. The rest of the board is solid, tho, and the routing is fine (albeit clunky, as mentioned).