Langevin

[Burnt Ernie]

In my never ending quest to emulate Kearney Barton's/Gerry Roslie's (The Sonics) vocal overload/in your face presence sound,I ask for guidance on Langevin DVC/preamps in getting close to the AM-16 distortion/overload profile that Barton got on The Sonics. Yes,I have plug ins. I have an old magnecorder pt6j i run vocals through. It's close,but not right.
A couple old Altec Solid State mixer/preamps. Again,close,but no chain saw.

[Nick Sevilla]

I don't think the Langevins would distort enough... Also, the DVC did not exist in the 1960s... The circuit is probably not the same as Langevins original console schematics.

Do you have an example of what you're going for?

[emrr]

AM-16's are fully push-pull, most things aren't. That defines a lot about the type of distortion made. Most of The Sonics sound would seem to be tape overload, and possibly the tape machine's electronics overload.

[digitaldrummer]

just as an FYI, Audio Maintenance Limited has a very reasonably priced 500 series kit that I believe is supposed to harken back to the AM16... I always thought about picking up a couple to try but then never had room in my 500 chassis... I do have one of their 5003D preamps (with the Carnhills - the 5003D is no longer made though) and it's a great 1073'ish preamp.

http://www.audiomaintenance.com/acatalo ... _info.html

you'd probably have to use something like the ATTY after since there is only one gain control (no output fader) if you were trying to drive it to distortion.

[The Scum]

With the exchange rate where it is right now, 209 quid for a preamp that's not a toy is a screaming bargain.

[digitaldrummer]

With the exchange rate where it is right now, 209 quid for a preamp that's not a toy is a screaming bargain.

even better when you buy a pair... and yeah, last time I looked at the exchange rate they were 2x so this is really amazing.

you don't see that many around, but AML (Colin) has some really nice kits (or assembled gear) and they are definitely not toys. I've had the 5003D for 8-10 years now and I use it a lot. I was doing a vocal session yesterday and we pushed the preamp and then clamped down hard with a compressor (to keep my converter from going into the red) and the harmonics and then distortion were amazing. But in the end it was a bit much for the track so we had to back it off to just get a bit of the harmonics instead of the fuzz...