JOE WALLACE: I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com. We're at AES 2006 and I'm talking with [PH] Peter Montessi of A-Designs Audio. How are you?

PETER MONTESSI: I'm fine. Thank you.

JOE WALLACE: Now you have some stuff that you want to show us today. Lots of portable gear I see.

PETER MONTESSI: Yes. You're interested in the 500 Series. We call it the 500 Series. We have several modules in that. We also have several modules here in this particular rack that we do not personally manufacture but are friends of ours. What we do have here is we have a 500 Series, an A-Designs product, right here. We have our EM Silver, EM Blue, EM Red, and our P1. We have our EM Gold, which is our new release, just for this show. We also have another 500 Series but it's not a preamplifier; it's an EQ. These were manufactured pretty much for an industry that we feel needs to be revived, okay? There's a lot of different pres out there. I think last count was over 3,000, and we just had to do it.

JOE WALLACE: Alright.

PETER MONTESSI: Here's a format that's been in the industry for over 20 years. Nobody's really standardized this format before. API has taken upon themselves to introduce -- reintroduce the format again, now that there are other manufacturers making pres and products for this format, to try to standardize everything, and this is where we're at now, okay?

Our pres are all different colors. The reason why there're different colors is because they all have a specific frequency range, or flavor if you will.

First we'll go left to right; we're in America, right? Our P1's. I want to make this perfectly clear because most people think that our P1's and our Pacificas are identical; they're not. The reason that they're not is because this format is limited. There's only 16 volts going across the rails in this format as opposed to 28 volts going across the rails on a rack mount. Also, one thing that we didn't realize, which was a surprise to us, is because of the size restrictions, our output transformer on this is much smaller than our output transformer here that ultimately translates into a slightly different tone. So, you're not going to get 100% the Pacifica as the P1. P1 has its own flavor.

Next, we have our EM Silver. The differences between all these are all transformers. The transformers there are going to give you that different flavor, that different color, that different frequency range. So, our EM Silver has a steel output transformer, custom-wound input transformers. All of our pres, which we see here, all have different input/output transformers, all custom wound for our specs.

Anyway, back to our 500s again, our EM Silver. This has an all-steel output transformer, custom-input transformer. This is going to translate into lower tones, your lower frequencies. When you use -- when I have this setup right now, the way this has gone, is I have this setup that I call the six-pack for drums. Real simple. These are good for overheads, great for overheads. These are great for everything actually, but overheads they shine on. Floor rack, tom rack. Now, the tom rack or the floor rack rather has been replaced by the EM Gold because the EM Gold sounds better on the floor tom for some reason.; I wonder why. Anyway, overheads, toms, floor tom, snare, bass drum/kick, has the lower tonal frequencies, sounds great on a bass drum, sounds great with a ribbon microphone, sounds great with a singer who has high frequencies, and you want to get him a little darker, change the microphone and also try that out.

The EM Blue: The EM Blue is a high-nickel output transformer. It translates into a lot more high frequencies. Great for the snare; also great for other things, depends on what your needs are. Pres are subjective. I'm not you, you're not me. What I like on a pre, you may not like. What I like on a microphone, you may not like. What you would use in combination with those microphones and pres, totally up to you, totally up to me, so we always suggest test other pres, test other microphones, find out what is good for you.

Anyway, we took the output transformer of the P1, and the input transformer, we did a different input transformer, custom input transformer on this one. The EM Reds are going to give you more upfront mids, therefore the toms come out great with that. What we did with the EM Golds, the EM Golds we took the output transformer of the Silver, we took the input transformer of the Reds and put it into the Gold, so it's going to give you more low end with more mids -- upfront mids.

All great-sounding pres. They're all not night-and-day differences; subtle differences between all of them. Here's where the magic comes. The magic comes in when you're mixing. Anybody who's done any sort of mixing at any time realize that’s where their meat and potato is. I mean they have to have a great recording to start with, but you're mixing -- that's what you're going to try as an engineer too. These are all going to give different frequencies. They're going to put you in different frequency levels. When you're mixing, the separation is going to be phenomenal for you. You're going to be able to pick out my kick drum from my bass, my snare from something that I hit with my electric guitar, or whatever. This is the magic is with our pres in the 500 Series. And that pretty much, without my voice going, that pretty much sums up what we've got here. If there's any other questions you have here, let me know. Fire away.

JOE WALLACE: I wanted to do sort of a beginner question for someone who's starting to think about their drum kit and they're starting to think about proper mic'ing techniques. It's not just enough to set up a kit and hang a mic overhead anymore. They're starting to go under the advanced stages of recording their kit. Why is this so important, and what advice do you have for a drummer who really wants to get the most out of their mic sound when they're starting to finally rig up their mic setup properly?

PETER MONTESSI: Okay. Mic'ing technique is probably the most important thing to do when you're mic'ing. In that particular instance, there's a million things. What I believe in is my front end, which is your microphone and your preamplifier is the most important part of your chain. You have to have something good going into your system to start with in order for you to work with later on. Mic'ing a drum kit: you're going to have to do a lot of homework here. There's many different -- Ross Hogarth is a friend of mine who's a Grammy Award winner. I've seen Ross mic up a drum kit with two microphones and get a killer sound. On the other hand, Al Schmitt, Grammy Award Winner, excellent engineer. I've seen him take 30 mics or whatever and do it. Ronan Chris Murphy, another friend of mine. We just finished Terry Bozzio. If you know Terry Bozzio, drummers, tell me how many drums he's got? I was stupid. I didn't know.

They said, "Hey Pete, we want to borrow a couple of pres for Terry Bozzio. We want to record his drums."

I said, "Sure. I got a couple of pres."

"No. No. You don't understand. It's Terry Bozzio."

"How many pres do you want?"

"Well, maybe about 10, you know."

So, we brought over a bunch of pres and I saw his kit and how they -- The whole thing is that with him, it was the microphone; it was the placement of the microphone, also the engineer knowing the person playing the drums, the drummer himself, all very important things. But as far as mic'ing and pres, individual, all subjective, a lot of homework boys, girls, and have fun while you're doing it.

JOE WALLACE: We've been talking with Peter Montessi of A-Designs Audio. I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com.