The Experts team wondered what we thought people would want to find behind the windows of a dream studio advent calendar. Some of the things we own, some we wish we did. Owned or not, we think any of the things we name in the next 19 days would be a gift to a professional studio owner
Day 6 - BAE1073mpf
My next choice for an item I’d be putting behind a window of our imaginary pro audio advent calendar would be my BAE1073 mpf. A 2 channel Neve 1073 clone I bought in preference over a real Neve because a modern Neve isn’t quite the way they made them back in the ’70s. This is. On a more practical level, this is all hand-wired, with no surface mount components and should be repairable by anyone with some know-how and a soldering iron. It will outlast me, stay compatible with anything I might have to connect it to and will never be orphaned by a new operating system. And it sounds fabulous.
With two identical channels with 72dB of gain, transformer coupled inputs (mic, line and DI) with two selectable impedances, inductor based high pass filters and incredibly solid steel casework with a chunky external power supply in steel casework this Neve clone looks right. With the RAF blue paintwork and Marconi knobs you’d expect.
1073 Sound
The sound of this thing is something I take for granted and only think about when it’s not there. I use this preamp every day for VO on podcasts and videos with my Beyer m201. It’s natural to attribute the sound of a mic to the mic, and the Beyer sounds great. But when I run it with a quality interface preamp it’s just lacking the size and that intangible, mellifluous quality Neve designs are known for.
When not used for VO this preamp is first call for acoustic guitar, vocals and for super-warm drum overheads the BAE paired with my Coles 4038 ribbons are the antidote to over-bright condensers. And if you have a bass guitar which needs a quality DI, this preamp has two.
High Pass Filters
As you’ll see from the video, the ‘f’ in mpf stands for filter and the inductor based high pass filter from the fully fledged 1073 adds far more than you might imagine if you’re used to regular high pass filters. I measured their response in this article and found a filter slope of around 18dB/Oct. A slight resonant bump is evident at some frequencies and the phase response differs significantly too. This filter sounds great. We don’t talk about it much but high pass filters sound different to each other, just like synth filters do!
As well as regular filtering duties, this phase rotation means that set at different frequencies on each channel this filter can be misappropriated for fun stereo widening effects on stereo subgroups when used in line mode, a mode in which it can add some lovely analogue flavour, from subtle transformer vibe to crunchy saturation.
This preamp is a top quality item and the price reflects this but I’ve had it for years, and will still be making microphones sound better when my equally expensive Mac is just an entry on an Apple product history timeline!