Coil preamp tests

Sent out the CA-70 to live with a friend for a bit, so it's gone. Messing around for an hour or so, I tended to prefer starting with the 286 and then feeding into the 70, regardless of either being at mic or line level. I'm finding I just like the 286 as a starting point over the 70 most times. Biggest exception being the fiddle track from the videos, I vastly preferred the 70. Biggest take away I had was messing with the old ribbon mic and cascading the 286 into the 70, both at mic level to make a higher gain preamp channel. It sounded pretty massive and really cool, but the noise floor was definitely there. Running the RCA mic into my AEA TRP preamp and then into either Coil at line level worked much better and cut down on the noise floor significantly. That was my preference on vocals and acoustic guitar, it might have been different on something like drums. Still didn't have time to mess around with an SM57 yet.

It's hard for me to feed any ribbon mics through anything but the TRP the last few years. That crazy high impedance and super clean gain just puts me in my happy place. Any other preamp I try with ribbons now just sounds muddy and pushed back. That's just a preference thing on my end. It did sound WAY better to me running into the Coils at line level after though, I felt like the TRP was the better starting point.

I've got one of the first generation ones that is the little half rack grey two channel units. They're usually pretty cheap used, if you want to save some money.

ok cool ! good to know!

andersmv

I would love to hear the Soyuz into the 286 at some point if you have samples! All the samples I've heard of the mic sound amazing. It's been on my must try list for years. I like my Schoeps but sometimes I'd like something more flattering, something with more vibe.

I totally see what you mean about playing into the preamp. I love tracking acoustic guitar and pushing it a bit, the compression is so natural sounding but you really feel it under your pick, I've never quite found that in another preamp.

Sounds fantastic. A little bit of Hipass filtering and it's good to go.

What I love about these pres the most I think is the way they deal with transients, I compress way way less nowadays because I'm not trying to tame that initial transient.

I wish they sold single 013 tubes, I don't really need a pair.

I checked out your video a couple months back and I have to admit it’s one of the examples that made me want the tube one!

The fet sounds great but once you’ve heard the tube it’s hard to unhear it. It’s true it’s not a huge difference but that little extra glow is really nice, it sounds finished right out of the gates.

Had someone send me a song to mix today. It was all done in home studios with not the best gear, when I pulled up the files I knew they were going to need some help. It was a small session with vocals, acoustic guitar, and some synth stuff. I ran each track through the 286 at various settings and printed them back into ProTools before I started mixing, gave me a drastically better starting point. I was waiting for something like this to see how much it would help, it wasn’t small. A lot more body, smoothed out all the harshness issues and just sounded a lot more exciting and “done”.

Went ahead and ordered a second 286. I’m still avoiding a patch bay as there’s a lot up in the air as far as “moving forward” and how I want to expand/reshape things. Need to figure out an easy way to get the pair of Coils into the Master Insert on my API console during mixing so I can send groups out to the API and throw in the 286’s. I need to read up on how the inserts are incorporated into the master section, as I’ve never tried to run something like this over a whole mix. Since the Coils can switch down to line level and easily padded down, I don’t think it should matter if they’re on the master insert or thrown in at the end at the console output. There’s no bypass on the Coils, so having them on the Master Insert on the console (with a button to engage it) would be an easy way to take them in/out and compare. I noticed I got pretty carried away today and pushed a little too hard in a few spots with the stems going to the coils. There was one or two vocal spots I had to reprint once I pushed the signal chain harder at the mastering stage. I’m going to need a way to bypass the Coils for a while to check myself, they’re so damn addicting when pushed.

That must be a very, very good friend!

My vocal sound IS the Coil CA-70.

There’s nobody I like more than I like my Coil vocal sound

I quite agree. I don't have one, but I will have one. It is extraordinary.

I just did a fun review of the new MixWave CA-70 plugin, lots of direct comparisons with the analog preamp. If you haven't checked out the plugin yet, MixWave did an amazing job. It's worth your time and money.

Depends on the singer.

I dislike anything with EF86 tube in it for my voice - as it’s always too hi-fi sounding.

So my preference when buying a Coil was the CA-70s for tracking my vocals with a 47.

Sounds great with acoustic guitar and bass too for certain genres.

I’m certain the 286 is great too on other sources and other singers and if I had rack space I’d like to own both.

Regardless of the design differences between the two, they're both very much "coil" sounding and share the same unique features that make them sound so good. Both have a nice, smooth top end and sound warm. Both add a lot of body to the source. I would say the 286 is the less extreme of the two and sounds clearer and more open. When pushed, the 286 keeps the low end together a lot better in terms of the punch and power. The 70 is more like a tape machine, lots of great non linearities and harmonic distortion. It's a bit darker/warmer and adds a lot of great character and weight to the mid range. The low end will come out the other end sounding a bit different, many times I find it rounds out the super low sub frequencies and pushes the emphasis of the low end "up" a bit in the frequency range. With kick drum for example, you might loose a little bit of the sub'ey low end when pushed through the CA-70, but there's a bit more focus on the lower mids and attack that can make it push through a mix better.

If I had a baritone coming into the studio, my first inclination would be to patch you into the 286. You've probably already got a lot of great character and power in the lower register, I wouldn't want to overdo it. 286 would help round you out nicely and give a bit more focus and clarity up top. That's just my gut reaction, it's obviously going to depend on the mic/singer/whatever.