Chandler Germanium - WHO HAS ONE?

[AudioJunky]

If anyone has a Chandler germanium and has some sort of an audio sample - I would REALLY like to hear it. I'm thinking about getting one- and I find it interesting that there is so much talk about it with no links to audio examples.

help is greatly appreciated

Audio

[joel hamilton]

If anyone has a Chandler germanium and has some sort of an audio sample - I would REALLY like to hear it. I'm thinking about getting one- and I find it interesting that there is so much talk about it with no links to audio examples.

help is greatly appreciated

Audio

I have four. I am in the middle of mixing a record where I used them for like 90% of the tracks. When we are done mixing, I will post a clip.... I just tracked Lou Reed with a Manley reference and a germanium. One mic. One pre. No compression. Totally fun. (i obviously can not post that stuff).

The germaniums are great.I will post what I can, whatever that will mean to you on the other end.... I cant ever figure out the "audio clip" type of situation. You could just try one, if you have a credit card, and send it back if it doesnt kick your butt.....

[AudioJunky]

Would love to hear anything. I'm kinda inching towards buying a channel of great river and a channel of germanium.

[mjau]

I just tracked Lou Reed

[joel hamilton]

Would love to hear anything. I'm kinda inching towards buying a channel of great river and a channel of germanium.

One of the things I love about the germ's is that it can change color to suit the sound... Meaning that they can grind a little if you want, or they can just be big, forward, "gleamy" sounding pre's... its up to you. The fact that you can get the input REALLY getting killed, and roll back on the feedback, and wind up with an incredibly different sounding pre... most designers fix the feedback circuit, so it is "optimized" for their pre (oversimplified stupidly), but with the germ's you can really change the whole "feel" of the pre as needed. Thats why I have four, and wind up "tailoring" the sound of the pre to the source/mic combo. Really amazing.

Wade really hit on something with these things.

[mjau]

Would love to hear anything. I'm kinda inching towards buying a channel of great river and a channel of germanium.

One of the things I love about the germ's is that it can change color to suit the sound... Meaning that they can grind a little if you want, or they can just be big, forward, "gleamy" sounding pre's... its up to you. The fact that you can get the input REALLY getting killed, and roll back on the feedback, and wind up with an incredibly different sounding pre... most designers fix the feedback circuit, so it is "optimized" for their pre (oversimplified stupidly), but with the germ's you can really change the whole "feel" of the pre as needed. Thats why I have four, and wind up "tailoring" the sound of the pre to the source/mic combo. Really amazing.

Wade really hit on something with these things.

I'd actually describe the GR as being able to do the same thing. Haven't used the Germ, so it's overdrive color might be different, but with the GR, you can definitely change tonality depending on how hard you drive the gain.

[jmpizzoferrato]

a studio i work at just got a germ. unfortunatly the 'thick' switch didnt work so we sent it back. you'd have to hold it half way between on and off to hear it. with that said though.. there are some great tonal options. esspecially with what i can hear from using the thick switch the little that i did. we used it on guitars (57), vocals (C12). the germ stood up the V76 we were using that's out to be retubed!

[matyas]

I just tracked Lou Reed with a Manley reference and a germanium. One mic. One pre. No compression. Totally fun. (i obviously can not post that stuff).

Joel, you tracked Lou Reed? WOW - he's quite possibly my favorite songwriter of all time! Was this at Studio G?
(Sorry for the thread hijack.) On topic - don't have a Germanium (I wish - probably some day), but I heard it at Joel's studio, and it did sound pretty amazing, with a ribbon mic right up against the speaker of an old squawkbox.

[pk]

While I don't have the kind of experience Joel has with good quality pres and outboard in general, I can tell you that the Germanium has completely elevated the fun of tracking for me. Like many others, I come from a pro-sumer level and finally had a bit of cash to just treat myself a nice one. I was leaning on 2 channel for various reasons but after reading so much positive feedback on the Germ, I couldn't resist the sacrifice of one channel for better quality. The difference I hear between using Digi stuff for 5 years and now tracking vocals, guitars, bass on the Germ is anything but marginal. As mentioned above, you can tweak so many settings to get a variety of tones, it's very flexible like that. I have never heard vocals I tracked captured so well with such presence, warmth and clarity, and then bass direct is all of a sudden a beautiful thing as well. Guitar tones I am still struggling with but that's just me needing to experiment more, not the Germ. Anyway, that's my opinion of it. Like Joel, I would also consider getting a bunch more when finances permit.

[joel hamilton]

I just tracked Lou Reed with a Manley reference and a germanium. One mic. One pre. No compression. Totally fun. (i obviously can not post that stuff).

Joel, you tracked Lou Reed? WOW - he's quite possibly my favorite songwriter of all time! Was this at Studio G?
(Sorry for the thread hijack.) On topic - don't have a Germanium (I wish - probably some day), but I heard it at Joel's studio, and it did sound pretty amazing, with a ribbon mic right up against the speaker of an old squawkbox.

I did the session up at some weird little studio on the upper west side... Brought moy own microphones though.... they had a pair of germs and a couple other mic pre's....Lou LOVES a few certain microphones.... and they worked well with the germ and some other mic pre thingy.amek or something.

[Coco]

I have one, but never thought about using it on vocals. I bought it mainly for electric guitars but will have to try it on vox. Could be neat for backing vox with a bit of germ drive in there.

[joel hamilton]

I have one, but never thought about using it on vocals. I bought it mainly for electric guitars but will have to try it on vox. Could be neat for backing vox with a bit of germ drive in there.

Depending on the mic you are using, the germs can really get a beautiful, harmonic "grind" to them. It is not quite drive, but it feels like it is working hard when the singer really gets up in the wires, ya know?

It reminds me of all my favorite "killed" vocals on stones records, or zepplin, or something classic I cant quite put my finger on.... Anything where the sound of the vocal seems to "outweigh" the capture format... old blues stuff does this a lot for me, where the vocal just NAILS whatever is recording at the time, and the drive is such an intrinsic part of the sound that you feel like NOTHING could handle the power in that persons voice. I love that.

[Coco]

I have one, but never thought about using it on vocals. I bought it mainly for electric guitars but will have to try it on vox. Could be neat for backing vox with a bit of germ drive in there.

Depending on the mic you are using, the germs can really get a beautiful, harmonic "grind" to them. It is not quite drive, but it feels like it is working hard when the singer really gets up in the wires, ya know?

It reminds me of all my favorite "killed" vocals on stones records, or zepplin, or something classic I cant quite put my finger on.... Anything where the sound of the vocal seems to "outweigh" the capture format... old blues stuff does this a lot for me, where the vocal just NAILS whatever is recording at the time, and the drive is such an intrinsic part of the sound that you feel like NOTHING could handle the power in that persons voice. I love that.

I would be using it with a Blue Mouse or Gefell UM92, maybe a Gefell M582 with UM70 capsule. Those are about the only mics I own that I would put up in front of a singer.