Gear Reviews

Here at The Mill I’ve been playing with a new mono digital 24-bit reverb manufactured by a yet another boutique Californian pro audio company – Meris – who design and manufacture in Los Angeles. The Mercury7 takes up a single space in a 500-series rack, delivering lush, somewhat old-school sounding reverbs (in mono) that can…

(first published in CX magazine – January, 2016)   It may come as a surprise to some readers The Mill’s website that I play live gigs pretty regularly in two different bands: one as a singer/guitarist, the other as a drummer. I’ve been playing live for over 30 years, on and off, and in that…

The latest microphone to come knocking on my door down here at The Mill has been AEA’s new N8 phantom powered, bi-directional ribbon; a mid-sized, side-address mic that sounds superb on a wide variety of sources. From the moment it arrived here it’s been hard at work recording everything from loud drums and percussion to…

(first published in CX magazine in October, 2015)   New to The Mill’s long list of software recently has been HOFA’s CD-Burn & DDP – standalone version – a fairly simple but effective red-book audio CD burning and pre-master DDP (Disc Description Protocol) manufacturing program that runs rock solidly on the Mac platform (it’s also…

(first published in CX magazine – August, 2015) I’ve probably reviewed Audio-Technica headphones once too often in recent times, and I promise this will be the last instalment for a while. But I haven’t been able to resist having a quick chat about the Japanese company’s new ATH-R70x open-backed reference model. It’s only just hit…

(first published in CX Magazine – June 2015) A fantastic new channel strip arrived here at The Mill a couple of weeks ago – which I’ve been giving a damned good flogging ever since… The Canadian made MA-PEQ is an all-discrete, transformer-less single channel mic preamp and passive program equaliser housed in a single rack…

(first published in CX magazine – May 2015) I must take my hat off to Røde. It really is a company of doers, its latest release the long awaited active ribbon microphone, the NTR. Looking like its design inspiration came from Sydney’s Anzac Bridge, the Røde NTR is a sturdily constructed mic that makes a…

(first published in CX magazine – March, 2015)   Well, this name is a blast from the past! I haven’t really seen the name ‘Drawmer’ much for years. When I was young, the brand was relatively hot property, particularly well known for its analogue compression and gating. It was standard fair in many commercial studios,…

(first published in CX magazine – Feb, 2015)   I’ve had ‘The Box’ – API’s relatively new compact recording/summing console – at The Mill for a while now and I’m still torn about what I truly make of it. It’s one of those consoles that seems caught in a nether world between comprehensive large format facility…

(first published in CX magazine – November, 2014)   I’m on a real 500-series module kick at the moment and the latest of these to land on my doorstep has been a pair of Maag Audio EQ2-500 two-band EQ modules. The Maag 2-band is a high quality no-nonsense, great sounding, well constructed and easy to…

(first published in CX magazine – October, 2014)   If there’s a single word to describe the Retro Doublewide 500 Series module its ‘silky’… as in, smooth as. I’ve got a pair in the rack here at the moment, and my lordy they are incredibly smooth. They have such a beautiful ability to control audio…

(first published in CX magazine – June, 2014)   One of my favourite plug-in developers in recent years has, without doubt, been two guys from the Netherlands who call themselves FabFilter. I’ve got their entire suite of plug-ins and use them every day. Across the board, these plug-ins are great sounding and fantastically intuitive to…

(first published in CX magazine – June, 2014)   A cool new multi-pattern condenser mic lobbed on my desk the other day – the Lewitt LCT 640. This is an Austrian designed side-address large diaphragm mic that features modern-looking satin black chiseled features, great noise specs and clear balanced audio performance. It’s a brand that’s…

(first published in CX magazine – May, 2014)   I seem to have written about a few sets of headphones lately. I guess it’s because, like most studios around the country, I’m always on the lookout for new ones because they take such a beating during recording sessions. This time it feels a bit like…

(first published in CX magazine – March, 2014)   I’ve currently got a four-channel SSL rack-mounted preamp – the X-Logic Alpha VHD Pre – setup down here to marry up with a dummy-head stereo microphone I regularly use as an ambient mic. Ambient miking techniques can tax the noise floor of any mic/preamp combination, especially…

(first published in CX magazine – March, 2014)   A few things have arrived at The Mill recently – some for review, others that I’ve purchased for the studio outright. One of these is by no means the most glamorous bit of gear I’ve bought in recent years, but it’s without doubt the lightest and…

(first published in CX magazine – February, 2014)   At ENTECH (Sydney) last year I stumbled across some headphones that I wasn’t expecting to see – Ear Monitors Australia’s EMA Pro 80s. Actually, I had to laugh at the time because when I first clapped eyes on them my first thought was that they looked……

(first published in CX magazine – December, 2013)   Since Rode Microphones took over Event Electronics back in 2006, the company has gone gangbusters, producing quality speakers to suit high-end and budget studios alike. When its Australian manufactured flagship ‘Opals’ first hit the market in 2009 I was amazed by their quality and power –…

(first published in CX magazine – October, 2013)   In the spirit of maintenance, I thought I’d do a short but particularly relevant review of a product that’s been around years; one that has saved my arse on countless occasions. The product in question is the humble can of Electrolube EML200F. Unlike many other products…

(first published in CX magazine – September, 2013)   I’ve had a pair of these new Neumann monitors here at The Mill for a few weeks now, mainly to see how they fly on my Neve console. Why? Mainly because the Neve sports a relatively high meter bridge, which can cause some vertically aligned speakers to…

(first published in CX magazine – August, 2013)   A notable new tool perched on the outboard rack at The Mill currently is a Radial Workhorse Cube housing SSL’s new G Series Bus Compressor. The G Comp is a ‘double wide’ 500-format module based around the bus compressor from an SSL 4000 G console of yore. These…

(first published in CX magazine – July, 2013)   The Retro Powerstrip is a 2RU tube mono ‘channel strip’ that’s been on the market for a couple of years now. It’s a transformer-balanced tube preamp, Pultec-styled EQ and mono tube compressor all in one. The preamp stage contains facilities for mic, line and instrument inputs as…

(First published in CX magazine – May 2013)   It’s not so much what it does as what it doesn’t do that I love most about Audio-Technica’s AT5040 fixed-cardioid condenser. What doesn’t it do? Part your hair with an on-rush of supersonics the moment sibilance is emitted from a singer’s mouth. One of the worst…