Originally posted by Michael Earth Media:
The 3124s are...really warm.
"warm" is a very subjective word and can be vague and misleading. Perhaps some more critical and objectified descriptions?
The high end detail is not as extended as Neves (200k) etc. which makes it good for digital.
Uhhh, Neve's aren't good for digital, and neither is high end detail
??
I would think a Classical engineer would want as much high end detail as they could get, and I don't know of any that currently record to analog tape. I know I want high end detail, and I record mostly guitar based rock of one form or another
to digital. By the way, the API
is detailed in the highs for how colored it is.
The API's actually sound harder and slightly clearer to my ears (but not like a Millennia or Great River) as compared to a Neve. The lows on the API seem to be centered more in the low mid range, where as the Neve sound is softer, more like one would think of as a stereotypical "tube" sound even though it is solid state (goes to show the design makes all the difference in the world). Even though a graph may say the Neve is more extended in the highs (whether it is or not is not a factor in my point. I could care less what a graph says, I tend to follow my ears rather than eyes or numbers), I would tend to place a Neve on something that I wanted to sit in the lower registers of the freq band of the mix such as guitar cab, bass guitar, kick drum, etc. I think the API excells at percussion and vocals. Both are my bread and butter and I wouldn't feel comfortable tracking Rock and Roll without both, and of course YOMV.
