# NRC Days



## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

New Recording Crap Days.

I was looking at a cheap $100 Joe Meek box, and wound up buy this. It is a Cranborne ADAT500 with 5 mic pre's. The mic pre's are 2 Burl B1 (1176 based), 2 Neve 511's and a Radial Power Tube mic pre. The Cranborne ADAT500 hooks into my current interface with ADAT and then I get another 8 inputs. It is also a summing mixer, has a very high quality clock (becomes the master clock). The mic pre's and other 500 Series cards I install in it can be used as hardware plugins. It has built in converters to allow access by my DAW. There are a bunch of other features as well like a dual high quality headphone out.















I have also just bought a 500 series Lindell Audio 7X-500 Compressor / Limiter.













A week or two before I bought a set of Adam A7X nearfields with the A7 sub. Very nice monitors. (stock photo).


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

thats awesome. I've used the Lunchbox, which seem to be similar to these, at a friends but this is what the guy at L&M was showing me today. I bought a Scarlett 18i20 instead, I think its enough for me for now


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

vadsy said:


> thats awesome. I've used the Lunchbox, which seem to be similar to these, at a friends but this is what the guy at L&M was showing me today. I bought a Scarlett 18i20 instead, I think its enough for me for now


I didn't mean to buy it but I have been looking online at mic pre's and there they were. A one time opportunity.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

vadsy said:


> thats awesome. I've used the Lunchbox, which seem to be similar to these, at a friends but this is what the guy at L&M was showing me today. I bought a Scarlett 18i20 instead, I think its enough for me for now


This one? Looks great.


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## vadsy (Dec 2, 2010)

no, thats the gen2. I bought the gen3, so similar but with some slight improvements


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

vadsy said:


> no, thats the gen2. I bought the gen3, so similar but with some slight improvements


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

I bought one of these MAckie Big Knob Passive's to switch between my old nearfield speakers and my new ones. After using it I thing everyone should have one. Being passive it doesn't colour the sound. Having access to the volume is really nice. It has a mute button, and a DIM button to drop the volume but not mute it. One of the unexpected bonuses is it has 2 inputs. I ran a stereo cable from my PC to the 2nd input. Now I can listen to anything from my computer with my nearfields. Before I would have to either disable the windows graphics card. That can be problematic to go back and forth. Or I would have to open my DAW and import the file into a track and play it that way. Now I press a button and turn down my PC speakers to listen through the good speakers.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

That Cranborne is a great piece. 






Cranborne Audio 500R8


This most hybrid of devices does far more than just put A‑D/D‑A conversion into a 500-series chassis. In fact, it could even make you reconsider how you use your studio...




www.soundonsound.com


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

KapnKrunch said:


> That Cranborne is a great piece.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The first part is about the 500R8. The second part is about the ADAT500 which is what I have. The 500R8 is pretty nice. As I said I walked into a store and they showed me the box with the preamps. I never knew about the Cranborne before that.


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Lots of great ideas on the Cranborne's! 

(Yeah, I see that the SOS review is focus'd on the R8. My late night reading was kinda sloppy, lol, but enough common ground between the two for me to get the idea.) 

I always liked the Radial Workhorse but the built-in A/D/A options here are pure genius IMO.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

KapnKrunch said:


> Lots of great ideas on the Cranborne's!
> 
> (Yeah, I see that the SOS review is focus'd on the R8. My late night reading was kinda sloppy, lol, but enough common ground between the two for me to get the idea.)
> 
> I always liked the Radial Workhorse but the built-in A/D/A options here are pure genius IMO.


I'm thinking I should sell my ADAT500 and RME Babyface Pro and get the R8...


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

I just bought one of these Radial EXTC units. Now I can reamp, and all my pedals become plugins.









Radial Engineering EXTC 500


500 Series guitar effects interface




www.economik.com


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## KapnKrunch (Jul 13, 2016)

Why do you prefer the R8? 

And yeah, I have never bought anything from Radial that wasn't top notch. 

I have been gassing for their PowerStrip with a Q3 and a Komit, but I gotta be realistic... my "recording" consists of two old C1000's thru two old Symetrix 528's and into an old reel-to-reel. (The tape deck feeds a PC to make MP3's and the occasional WAV for online sharing.)


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

KapnKrunch said:


> Why do you prefer the R8?
> 
> And yeah, I have never bought anything from Radial that wasn't top notch.
> 
> I have been gassing for their PowerStrip with a Q3 and a Komit, but I gotta be realistic... my "recording" consists of two old C1000's thru two old Symetrix 528's and into an old reel-to-reel. (The tape deck feeds a PC to make MP3's and the occasional WAV for online sharing.)


I never read the article too closely, but I am thinking the R8 does everything the ADAT500 does PLUS it is an interface. The ADAT500 needs an interface. IT's converters are only used for summing and accessing the cards as hardware plugins. I don't know if I am correct with this. I really don't like the RME interface software TotalMix. It is not easy to get. It does a lot, but some programs are clunky and non-intuitive. TotalMix is like that for me. The good thing about RME is their interfaces and mic pre's are top notch. Very clean and transparent. The best thing is they have true zero latency. Seriously zero latency. Now I am keeping it until I find out the latency of the R8...


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

KapnKrunch said:


> Why do you prefer the R8?
> 
> And yeah, I have never bought anything from Radial that wasn't top notch.
> 
> I have been gassing for their PowerStrip with a Q3 and a Komit, but I gotta be realistic... my "recording" consists of two old C1000's thru two old Symetrix 528's and into an old reel-to-reel. (The tape deck feeds a PC to make MP3's and the occasional WAV for online sharing.)


Today I bought the EXTC which is their reamp box in a 500 series with some added features. With the Cranborne and the EXTC I will be able to use all my pedals (and I have a shit ton of them) as actual hardware plugins. So I can use my Origin FX Cali76 compressor as a plugin on a track without any issues or hack stuff. The EXTC also has a blend knob which is excellent. I think I am done for some time now.


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

KapnKrunch said:


> Lots of great ideas on the Cranborne's!
> 
> (Yeah, I see that the SOS review is focus'd on the R8. My late night reading was kinda sloppy, lol, but enough common ground between the two for me to get the idea.)
> 
> I always liked the Radial Workhorse but the built-in A/D/A options here are pure genius IMO.


Here's an article about the one I have (Cranborne 500ADAT) by the same author:






Cranborne Audio 500ADAT


Can Cranborne convert you to the 500 series?




www.soundonsound.com


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## player99 (Sep 5, 2019)

Here it is stuffed full. There is one blank slot. I cut a blank piece out of PVC sheeting and used my printer to make a decal. So one slot is a fake. Can you tell which one?


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

I am guessing the fake one is the F765 but this is really well made, I am not even sure!


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