Pure Class A Stereo Mic Preamp & 3-band EQ - special price through summer 2018
Features
- Microphone preamplification of up to 80dB of gain in 5dB steps
- 3 band EQ Band 1, 80Hu shelf Band 2, broad bell, selectable 400Hz, 1.6kHz, 3.2kHz Band 3, 12kHz shelf
- Ouput pot: Mute to unity gain, continuous (unstepped)
- Phase reverse switch, Phantom 48V
- D.I. Instrument Jack (High Z)
- Input Impedance selector (per channel) 300 or 1200 Ohm
excl. shipping
General
The Aurora GTQ2 offers typical “vintage Neve 1073 type” microphone preamplification.
It stands for lots of power in the mids, big and tight low end as well as characteristically round transients in the highs.
However, the GTQ2 has a more open alas more “modern” sound than even the best kept original vintage Neve 1073, without sacrificing any of the distinctive 1073 recognition value.
Its enormous headroom is striking. Producing clipping artefacts is almost impossible.
At the same time it allows deliberate saturation of program up to heavy harmonic distortion – yet it will never produce typically nasty clipping artefacts when heavy peaks occur, like most of its competitors will do.
In addition to the 100% desert island Mic Pre the GTQ2 offers the 1073 ubiquitous 3band EQ.
A meticulous blindtest in Japan with five of todays most common “1073 type” Mic Pre’s showed the GTQ2 coming through as the clear winner.
Its history explains why those in the know where hardly surprised.
Hints & Tips
One of the most important features of the GTQ2 – however odd this may sound to some – is his output pot.
Unity gain is all the way to the right, about 5 o’clock.
However, it is recommended to set the output put somewhere between 3 and 4 o’clock as a starting point, making up the lesser output gain with the input gain knob.
That way the signal will become slightly saturated and enriched with harmonics.
In most applications this will result in that signal sitting better in the mix.
When recording bass or keyboards, bassdrum or snare it is quite common to pull back the output pot down to 2 o’clock, sometimes 12 o’clock and lift the input gain accordingly.
Results will never show nasty clipping, whatever saturation or distortion you might get will remain musical and simply “sound good”.
Similarily it has become very common to use the GTQ2 as outboard processor in mixdown, for instance on guitars stereo bus, or to saturate bassdrum and snare, or on drum bus altogether.
We also know of ITB (“in the box”) mixers, that run their master bus through the GTQ2 before printing – to round of the transients, to make up for that typically ITB lost depth and generate fuller, yet tighter low end.
On the backside of the unit you will find two input impedance switches (left and right channel), by which impedance can be set to 300 or 1200 Ohm.
Typically you would set your GTQ2 to 1200 Ohm, particularly when tracking with high level condenser mics.
When recording with a vintage ribbon mic or some low level dynamic mics (like for instance the Shure SM7) you would probably want to set the GTQ2 to 300 Ohm.
Links:
- http://m.gearslutz.com/board/reviews/673788-aurora-audio-gtq2-mark-iii.html
- www.auroraaudio.net/products/outboard/gtq2-about