AMA - Vanguard V14 Variable-Voltage Tube Condenser

Hey all

we're doing two listening parties - one in Denver at Evergroove, and one in Los Angeles at Sunset Sound. V14 and V24 vs some heavyweights.

Details here for the LA one.

Vanguard Listening Party @ Sunset Sound
 

We have an OCT 6 Listening Party @ Sunset Sound

and an OCT 12 Listening Party @ Evergroove Studio.

You must RSVP to sales@vanguardaudiolabs.com to attend as space is limited at each venue.

Interesting that the vintage 12's were kind of between your 12/251 settings. Do you think some of that is just a combination of older capsule/components and things mellowing out over a few decades and being slightly out of spec? I see/hear this a lot with warmer sounding mics like U47's. Whenever I see a shootout with a vintage U47 and a nice modern one from someone like Flea or Wunder, the consensus is generally that the newer clones sound more modern and open/brighter/whatever. I always assumed that the vintage models probably sounded more like the clones when they were brand spanking new. If you want the vintage sound, let everything cook for a few hours every day for 50 years (and don't forget to smoke regularly around the mics  ). 

Kind of like that Fender seafoam finish they do now. Most of them look that way now because they sat in smokey bars their whole lives and the finish started to change. We might have to start aging all our components and knocking them out of spec to get that "vintage" tone we all love...

Mine just got here!

In ribbon mode, sounds like siblings to me! And so versatile

Definitely closer than i expected TBH, and i designed the dang thing.

When you're good at what you do.... you're good at what you do! LOL

Here's a shoddily-produced video doing a bit of a deeper dive into the variable voltage control with two different 1kHz signal levels. Obviously this is just a single frequency, but gives you a visual of the THD.

I had my first "real" session with the V14 a week or so ago, 5 song EP for a singer/songwriter kind of in the Noah Kahan camp. I finished the first round of mixes yesterday, the V14 was used as the vocal mic. I ended up keeping it in the flatter C12 voicing and turning the voltage all the way up to hit the transformer a little harder. The plan going in was to put it in 251 mode to mellow it out a little on top and sag the voltage down just a little to add some harmonic character. The singer sounded great in the flat C12 mode and surprisingly, turning the voltage up seemed to naturally de-esse him nicely. The only thing I did in tracking was drive the API preamp a little harder (and press the Filter button that does a slight high pass) and hit around 3 dB of compression with the API compressor that's built into the Box Console (I think it's an API 527). This was the guys first time in a studio, great voice but it wasn't like he had any experience working a mic or anything. It sounded nice and controlled.

Pretty early on in the process, I could tell the mic was doing well. We had done a scratch vocal for each song just to have in there as we tracked, the vocal always stayed up front during the tracking process no matter how much crap we added at different points. I'm not used to this, as I usually prefer darker vocal mics. Come mix time, I kid you not, I pretty much did NOTHING to the main vocal track... I'll post a picture of my EQ below, that's all I did to the mic EQ wise for the whole EP on the main vocal. I didn't even need to do the low pass on the FabFilter EQ, I just always do that to be safe. It's probably set right around where the API preamp filter was. I added the low pass filter at the very top towards the end of the process because I had something on the master bus pushing the AIR frequencies pretty hard. I did have a UAD Distressor compressor plugin right after the FabFilter, but only ended up using it for gain staging (I always have a compressor plugin at the end of my vocal chain to help gain stage. I like my main vocal fader to be at 0 in my DAW, so in this case the distressor was there just in case I needed it and to help gain stage the vocal).

Out of the 5 songs, I think I'm only going to have to go back in and add Soothe to one of the vocal tracks (that's my main de-esser these days). There was one song that ended up sounding pretty thick and needed a lot of push on the air frequencies on the master bus. The tracks sound great with it, but it was way too much for the vocal. I'll either try to use Soothe subtly or I'll put the same plugin from the master on the vocal track and just turn down the Air setting, we'll see). I know I talk this mic up and I'm not exactly the most "neutral party" in this whole ordeal, but the V14 utterly blew me away here. I've never had such a painless and easy experience getting vocals to work in a mix. This was so incredibly easy, it's basically cheating... I'll have to get a lot more sessions under my belt with this mic, but I'm for sure not using anything else on vocals for a while unless we really need a massive ribbon sound or something unique. Even if this thing only gets used on vocals from now on, I'm totally and completely fine with that.

This mic is no joke. I'm not going to be able to post anything publicly for a while, but happy to send a song from the session to anyone if you want to hear it. PM me...

vanguardaudiolabs

I think you've answered a question similar to this somewhere, but I can't seem to find your answer.

Can I use a impedance modulating device like the Magneto Audio Labs ML-V01 Variohm with the V14?

www.soundonsound.com/reviews/magneto-audio-labs-variohm

If so, would the Variohm go between the mic and the PSU or between the PSU and the preamp?

And then, if you don't mind me getting ahead of that answer with a follow-up...

If I put Variohm in between the mic and the PSU will the voltage sag function and the polarity selection still control the mic if they go through the Variohm?

Or if I put it in between the PSU and the preamp will it still control the impedance seen by the microphone even though the PSU is between the microphone and the Variohm?

andersmv Thanks man for your post about this Variohm over at the purple site a long while back. I read through that whole thing and I'm still confused by it. But I ordered one anyways :-) I'll throw a meter on it and check impedances.

Everyone seemed to be saying in that thread that the Variohm was running in parallel with the preamp, which like you pointed out would defeat the purpose because then the impedance seen by the mic would be lower than that of the mic preamp or the Variohm.

But that doesn't make any sense to me. Since there's a cord going from the source mic through the Variohm into a preamp, I just can't imagine how that could possibly be parallel! It's literally in physically serial from the mic to the Variohm to the preamp. How can the purple people be saying that be parallel?

I think Variohm is serial, and I think it's going to be an absolute joy to use in terms of additional flexibility for mics. If I'm way off base and it's not serial with the impedance of the pre then it was an expensive mistake and I'll put it up on Reverb to recoup some cash.

If it does end up that I can use it with the V14 that's going to be hella fun. :-O

Oh yes, of course! (duh on my part) Thank you for the reality check. I was buried in my head rather than actually thinking about the connections. I'll try it between the PSU and the mic pre. 

And, really it's kinda odd and internet-y cool how your question more than a decade ago started me onto a path towards a device that may (or may not) be a really interesting tool for flexibility. 

Many thanks man!

I'll report on to you how it goes. :-) 

YES! I finally found out to reliably reproduce the V14 saggy-licious sound I was trying to figure out. 

And, it was andersmv insight that got me there :-)


Wow, I just realized where this convo happened before. Back over at the purple site. Dude, sorry for letting your original advice over there fall on muh' deaf ears and having to ask again.

You've got a fantastic post over there that I'll link here for posterity. 

gearspace.com/board/showpost.php?p=17141105&postcount=36

So, Variohm arrived yesterday, but no time yet to check it out. And, once I found your purple post suggesting placement of the Cloudlifter Zi I dragged mine out of obscurity and dug in.

Just using the FR 18i8 interface and pre here, and the CLZ set to noon matches the impedance (3kohm) as the pre. And I can dial up the CLZ to 15kohm or down to 150ohm.

The sound I've been chasing from the V14 is a very interesting feature of the sag. It is an effect where at lower spl levels it is almost like a analog bit reduction(!). It gets super grainy and gritty, almost like dropouts (not really dropouts but hard to describe). For vox it's like a Kim Carnes + Marlborough Man mashup. Freaking Instant Vocal Fry.

Here is that sound. You'll have to listen 'through' the voice and and vocal to hear the 'sound'. The "A" in "packages" and the "IE" in "tied" and the "E" in "strings" should be good examples of the bit reduction effect. No processing besides a stock daw eq low shelf cut at 90 hz to reduce untreated room boominess.

In contrast, when the spl comes up to really high levels the graininess and grit are reduced and it naturally, organically smooths out. 

The CLZ was the missing piece. Clean gain with impedance selection. Whenever i tried to push the gain from the fully sagged out V14 to get intelligibility from a mic pre like snow petrel or CA70 it tended to smooth out the grain and grit. I would lose the special sound I was chasing.

With the CLZ I can boost that special grainy analog bit reduction sound and dial it in judiciously.

But, it is the weekend, so what the heck fun is judicious?! Bear in mind though that this is a bit OTT and we can dial in that gritty analog bit reduction(R) to taste.

Here it is 15kohm from the CLZ, full ribbon and lowest saggy setting on the V14. 

Many thanks again vanguardaudiolabs

EDIT- I hear a sizable difference between the streaming soundclound player here and the wav file played through VLC on my computer. The stream sounds cloudy and gauzy muddy. So if you really want to hear that analog bit reduction(R) sound, perhaps consider downloading from SC and playing. 


https%3A//soundcloud.com/poppaflavor/muh-favs-v14-cloudlifter-z-lfshelf



Oh crud. Thank you for the info, appreciated. For me that isn't a side note, its the main note :-O

I wish I'd seen this before buying one. 

But, to be honest, I'm a freaking glutton for GAS punishment. It took me 4 times buying used BSS DPR402 and spending dozens of hours testing the barrier strip and returning before i gave up and relinquished that device to the garbage bin of desire forevermore.

I dearly hope your poor experience was a nuance or particularity of the mics and pres you were using with it, and not due to generally poor quality components (like noisy/singing transformers). Since it is already here box opened I have to forge ahead. Wish me luck :-)