Around
the same time Fletcher was working on the Great River EQ2-NV Mercenary
Edition with Great River Electronics, Fletcher and Greg Gualtieri of
Pendulum Audio started talking about if Fletcher could have the all
in one box of his wettest dream, what would it be?
The answer was "Tyra Banks in a 2 RU box?!"
Getting back to reality, they talked about features and functions and
overall tonal things. Fletcher mentioned that he thought Pendulum's
ES-8 was a measure more versatile than the OCL-2 optical type compressor
in the original "Quartet", and that he didn't use "de-essers"
all that much as peak limiting because with his mic collection he rarely
ever found a use for a de-esser as he could couple the right mic with
the singers for whom he worked. But because he was working digitally
now, he could really use a brick wall peak limiter at the end of his
chain.
Greg asked, "JFET or
MOSFET?"
Fletcher replied, "I don't know...
what's the difference?"
Greg: "They both sound different..."
Fletcher: "Can they both do 'brickwall
limiting' in a musical way?"
Greg: "Sure, but they sound different"
Fletcher: "Well, can we do both?"
Greg: "Of course."
Greg
said it would be easy to include a "remote shutoff tube" style
compressor in the Quartet II, but complained that Manley Labs had trademarked
the words "variable mu". So in joking around about how to
say the same thing without getting into a trademark suit, the concept
of the Greek symbol "delta", which in the world of physics
is the symbol for "change of" and the Greek symbol "Mu"
would adequately describe the compressor, the "delta mu" name
for the section was born. Greg also mentioned that it would be relatively
easy to split the peak limiter off to being it's own section rather
than including it in the dynamics section as he'd done with the "Quartet",
which seemed like a very convenient additional feature.
Fletcher is a big fan of the Pendulum MDP-1A, which features a very
"full" sounding input transformer, and is also very fond of
the MDP-1B, which features a very "focused" sounding input
transformer. He also really liked being able to switch the input impedance
between 1500Ω and 10,000Ω, which give the user the availability
of 4 different mic pre sounds from a single channel of mic pre. These
features, the ability to switch between the "full" and "focused"
transformers, as well as the ability to switch each transformer between
1500Ω and 10,000Ω were all included in the mic pre section
Pendulum Audio Quartet II Mercenary Edition, along with an insert point
between the input and output amplifiers in the mic pre. In other words,
every option we could think of is in this box.
Fletcher
mentioned he would absolutely love to have a Pultec EQP1A3 EQ with mid-dip
capabilities of the MEQ5. Greg said not a problem. Fletcher mentioned
one of his favorite tricks with the EQP1A3 was to take a line amplifier
and ram the level through the Pultec to where it was begging for mercy.
Greg mentioned that it could be done in several different ways, and
they tried them all. Finally a transformer was chosen that altered the
level entering the inductor based passive equalizer that changed the
tone through the EQ in a similar manner to the effect Fletcher loved
with the "ram it through the Pultec" trick.
In further silliness and joking around between Greg and Fletcher, they
decided to call that feature on the passive Pultec style EQ the "Passive
Aggressive", as ramming the level through the EQ provided a very
aggressive tone through the EQ, which is a massive event in it's own
right.
On the original Quartet, each section, mic pre, EQ and dynamics, are
available individually and that functionality was carried over to the
Quartet II where now the de-esser and dynamics section are individually
accessible. In the growing tradition of Mercenary Edition products,
the "Quartet II Mercenary Edition" offers the user
maximum flexibility in the smallest amount of space possible, with the
ability to use the unit as four entirely separate units. You can run
a vocal through the mic-pre, while running a kik drum through the equalizer,
while running a bass through the "delta mu" compressor, and
a snare drum through the peak limiter and have no crosstalk between
sections, all with a very musically pleasing, yet exceptionally variable
access to differing tones and textures which will hopefully compliment
the users sense of audio aesthetic for the song on which they're working..
This seemed like the best of all worlds to the Mercenary crew, we're
pretty sure it will cover most of the things you will need covered in
your world as well.
The QUARTET II Received the
2003 PRO AUDIO REVIEW EXCELLENCE AWARD
at AES in New York.
