One of the perks of living in Boulder is that Grace Design is here. I've known Mike and Eben for more than 20 years and have watched Mike go from being a dedicated member of the taping community to developing and manufacturing some of the best mic preamps, monitor controllers, and other studio goodies out there. Eben is also a wonderful guitar player who I've had the good fortune of playing with a number of times. A couple of years ago, I got one of their channel strips, the M103, to use as a bass preamp. It works very well, but has a few quirks that come from it being designed primarily as a recording device, so there's no separate volumes for the XLR outputs and the 1/4 output, but the tone is ridiculously great. However, now that I'm stereo most of the time, it's been sitting around, as I've used my F2B and a Radial stereo DI.
Well, Mike and the gang at Grace Design have come up with a new instrument preamp called Felix (I don't know how it got that name, as most of their gear has much more abstract appellation). It's a stereo preamp with 3 band EQ (low shelf/fully parametric mids with a range of 70Hz to 8Khz/high shelf), sweepable high pass filter that can be converted to a notch filter, a mic pre available on channel one (with 48v phantom power or 12v phantom for some of the mics used in acoustic instruments), a tuner output, a blend output for the two channels, a foot switchable boost, a tuner output with footswitch to mute the main outputs, a headphone output, two XLR outputs that can be assigned, and a main 1/4 output that can go to your amplifier. Lots of features (such as selectable input impedance, polarity switches, etc.), a veritable audio Swiss Army knife. The only other preamp I've used that has as many features and options is the D-TAR Solstice, which is also a fine unit, but doesn't really operate in the same range of fidelity. One of the goals of the preamp was to provide acoustic musicians with a studio quality stereo preamp to blend mics and pickups with the best of fidelity. I didn't get to check it out with those instruments, but I'm sure it's stunning.
So, Eben was kind enough to lend me one of the demo units (actually, Jamie, who is one of the designers and techs at Grace pretty much assembled it for me at the last minute) for my gigs last weekend. I was trying to figure out in my head how I would integrate it into my system, where to put my effects, which are stereo, where to put the F2B, etc. Finally I decided that I would just use it straight into my power amp. I wanted to hear what it would do all by itself. So, 1/4 output to my Peavey power amp and the Sunn 200S and the DI outputs to the splitter for the PA and my recording rig. From the moment I plugged in and fired it up, it was clear that this is something special. The clarity of tone is spectacular. It's a solid state unit, but the sound is very warm and full. In fact, it's the best low end I've heard from any preamp I've used, save the M103, which has been my gold standard for DI. Having the 2 EQ sections is great, but truthfully, I ended up setting it pretty much flat. The sound man, who has mixed us many times and has been very patient with all my sonic experiments, was extremely impressed (although he's a pretty laid back guy, not given to outbursts of enthusiasm). We've played through this PA (Meyer speakers) many times and I've got a good feel for the PA and the room. The low end was definitely the best I've gotten, not in terms of amount, it's easy to crank up a bunch of bass, but in terms of being deep, and powerful, but not muddying up the signal. The rest of the band all noticed a huge difference in the tone. Just for fun, I decided to pan the pickups hard left and right in my in ears and it sounded great.
So, the downside? It's not cheap. I don't know if they've set a price yet, but list is probably going to be just under $1k. However, these basses we love are also not a casual investment, so in my view, it makes sense to get the signal out there in the best way you can. It's also extremely versatile, so if you play multiple instruments, it can blend them, or footswitch between them, etc. And, it's definitely in a whole other class above the Radials, Countrymen, etc. It's probably more in line with Millennia and other high end studio gear. If you google Grace Design, you can see what their reputation is, and visiting their factory is not unlike visiting the mothership, in terms of seeing a place where people are fanatically dedicated to making incredible gear to make great music (when I was returning it today, I had a conversation with Jamie about the difficulties and expense of finding good potentiometers, which was very similar to a conversation I had with Mica a month ago). There are absolutely no corners cut in the quality. I know I'm raving a little bit over the top here, but it was one of those experiences where you hear in your ears what you've been imagining in your head.
Another issue I had is that channel one, which has the mic input, is higher gain, designed to accommodate DPA microphones, so my neck pickup was right up against the upper limits of level with the gain turned all the way off. But, Jamie assured me that they have already designed into it a system of jumpers, so that the gain get be set to unity like the other channel. Grace, like Alembic, is very accommodating to modding their designs to suit individual customers, so if you might have an individual desire for something to be a bit different, it's usually possible.
So, I recorded the show and while the general sound quality isn't as good as the Row Jimmy as I posted, the bass sounds great. I'll work on finding some good clips and post the solo bass sound, in stereo. I also played a set with my Modulus, but I'm so spoiled by the Alembic pickups and electronics in my Starfire that it was a bit frustrating. I think an upgrade in that bass in order.
So, look for a future link here to clips.
And, in the meantime, check out
http://www.gracedesign.com/products/felix/felix.htm I have to say that it's going to be a long month or two of waiting until these go into production and I can finally get one of my own!
Again, sorry for being such an unabashed fanboy, but I get excited about things like this. Good sound rules!
