The Spectra C610- I’m not that familiar with their history, which seems pretty vast, but Spectrasonic gear had some part in early ZZ Top lead guitar sounds and was the desk used on at least one Big Star record. I was always kind of interested after first hearing about them in an interview with the drummer for Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Timothy Herzog, who is also some kind of Bill Dilley studio gear tech specialist not associated with the revived company, and there’s a good interview with him on the Truth About Recording podcast if you’re interested, and it starts with nerdy stuff about impedence.

I gambled on the C610 as it was listed new for cheaper than any had ever sold online. I’m not sure how close it is or isn’t to an original 610, but I’m not that interested because I will never own one or have a chance to use it. Thankfully the C610 isn’t all hyped up on certain pro audio forums but I was getting the impression some people complained about them because isn’t sufficiently Tchad Blake-y enough, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, though I was not interested in a $1000 color box. Of course there aren’t a whole ton of threads about the C610, so you start to see the same names talking about them over the years, and it turns out that a lot of the people writing about them have never actually touched one, just got rubbed the wrong way by a youtube video or something somebody said. Lucky for me, everyone on the internet is an asshole because this thing is great.

I once saw them compared them to an 1176 purely because it has input gain, but I think the similarities end there as this thing is much different from the Audioscape version I have. The C610 starts compressing at -40, which is mic level, so you can run a mic, guitar, synth, or line level track straight through it. It also has a preamp with a lot of range, so you can also use it as a mic amp, though you would have to use external phantom power. I haven’t had it for very long, so I was still using DI and reamp boxes when not sending it instrument level tracks because I wasn’t sure how the impedance shook out, and I haven’t had a lot of time to test.

It has peak limiting and compression modes - with output gain at 0, you feed your source to the input w/ ratio and release at 0 and slowly bring up the input level until the peak limit light starts blinking without the GR needle moving - I’ve been putting that on everything and it works wonderfully. The sound seems to change though its not compression as I’m used to hearing it. It just kind of levels off the peaks so that you can crank the tracks more. I guess it makes the dynamic range more musical, is the best way to describe it? It’s not a loudness wars type of effect at all - I understand that recording to tape has a similar effect, and I’d certainly run everything through this box if I could, if only to see what happens. Apparently the C610 is so fast that the 100 nanosecond attack speeds are capable of going in between samples but all that is over my head. You can crank processed tracks louder since headroom is being increased though. .

From there you can add compression to the limiting or compression only by changing the ratio and release until the peak light is always on and the GR needle is moving. It might sound a little more complicated than it is, but there isn’t a limit/compress switch. It sounds pretty great and can get into what I imagine is Omnipressor territory - reverse sounds, room sounds obliterating the attack, all sorts of stuff. It’s kind of hilarious to me that people are describing this version as being “boring” - I even saw one guy compare this unit to a RNC, which is hilarious. I wish. It’s got input and output transformers, but its a vintage styled item that isn’t supposed to be a plugin style color box. So no relic option. But the regular compression does sound good and not like a fuzz box, though there is the potential there.

The crazy effects are fun, but it’s basically outside of its intended use and I think Spectra is trying to play that aspect down. You can use the 3 position pad and juggle hot signals for minimal compression or peak limiting or whatever you want, and it always sounds good once you get used to using it unless you’re just messing around, which is easy to do on a deep box with sort of minimal controls. It does sort of feel like some kind of scientific instrument, and its capable of broadcast levels of output, so much that they also recommended using a inline pad after the compressor to push the amp into peak clipping for additional limiting in the manual. It’s also very light and isn’t supposed to consume that much power, which is says something about its efficient design.

It’s worked great on guitars, bass, and percussion, but I haven’t tried it on vocals yet, though I plan to. I also haven’t recorded with it as a mic preamp, but it’s intended to work cleanly on that end, which the input gain adding character as its increased.

Anyways, I’m sold on this stuff, so much that I’m going to get rid of a bunch of stuff I like and use in order to offset the purchase. Depending on how I like it as a mic pre I see my use of it being mostly as a badass front end with a lot of utility for further processing down the line. My dream has to run hardware sorta console style with essentially the same type of preamp used for everything, so I hope I can manage something like that with this.

WTF - antique store on a freezing morning passing through the middle of Tasmania - 1959 Guyatone LG-60. I think the dealer saw my eyes light up and he got more than I should have paid out of me, but still pretty cheap for that model. Lots of work to do.

matttkkkk wrote: Wed Jun 04, 2025 7:24 pm WTF - antique store on a freezing morning passing through the middle of Tasmania - 1959 Guyatone LG-60.

I think the dealer saw my eyes light up and he got more than I should have paid out of me, but still pretty cheap for that model. Lots of work to do.

Beautiful guitar

Balls Electronics Dummy!

Seems like a direct copy of a Memory Man to me, except its got a slam switch for self oscillation and a rate knob instead of a chorus/vibrato switch. I was kind of bummed when I didn’t see a vibrato mode there, which is my fav mode on the OG Memory Man, but of course you just turn up the rate control and there it is! But I never even really use the modulation that much on the old units - the level control is much more important to me.

The classic Memory Man preamp is an important part of the sound. Sounds a lot better than the drive control on the big Moogerfooger boxes. Usually I just plug my guitar into it directly and adjust the level until the overload light blinks at the loudest parts, which is the classic use of it (correct me if I’m wrong), but there’s also a lot of tonal options there. Its great to just crank it for lead sounds and acts just like how you would want a good overdrive to act where the pedal is causing the guitar and amp are interact more with each other for 3d pseudo feedback effects. The kind of stuff why I think its a bad idea to play guitar from a control room.

Anyways that murky, room filling kinda quality is all there so it seems spot on to me. I will A/B it at some point with my 90’s reissue, but this thing has a lot more going for it already simply because of the fact it wasn’t built by Electro Harmonix. A+ would recommend.

^ Damn. This is reminiscent of that scene in "It Might Get Loud" where The Edge has his DMM through an AC30 just blasting to the sea off of Ireland. Hopefully you brought out your Explorer for the occasion.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Sat Jun 14, 2025 8:43 am Seems like a direct copy of a Memory Man to me, except its got a slam switch for self oscillation and a rate knob instead of a chorus/vibrato switch.

It is basically exactly that, from an operation perspective. 1) slam switch to momentarily dime the repeats knob, 2) replace the 2-speed modulation (chorus OR vibrato) with a variable rate to go everywhere in between. The 3) doesnt affect the sound, but the power supply is reconfigured to work off of 18VDC instead of 120VAC, so more pedalboard friendly.

That’s me! Except pointed out towards the brownest water in the Gulf of Mexico.

While not what they’re designed for, I’ve found that these can work a treat for rebalancing neck-heavy guitars:

Music Nomad Acousti-Loc

My local music shop installed one on my acoustic when I asked them whether anything could be done about its neck dive; this little gadget was almost a complete cure. I subsequently installed one on my Mustang bass, using a washer and a pan-head screw through the “jack”; not a complete cure, but a definite improvement.

And as a bonus, they’re designed to take Schaller strap locks.

I needed a smaller midi controller for my desk cause my only other one is 49 full size keys and too big for sitting on the desk so I bought a Arturia Keystep 37. 37 "mini" keys, but I'd describe them as Mid-sized compared to other mini key controllers and synths I've used. Not to hard to get used to. Good feeling velocity sensitive keys. 3 full octaves, has a cool built in sequencer and CV Gate Mod and Pitch out as well as analog sync in and out. It's a fantastic little controller. Feels REALLY well built. Not cheap and plasticy like my Novation. NO menu diving. just a shift key for alt actions. When I finally replace my Novation I'm going to get a Arturia full sized controller cause this little guy is perfect.

Kniferide wrote: Sun Jun 15, 2025 3:28 pm I needed a smaller midi controller for my desk cause my only other one is 49 full size keys and too big for sitting on the desk so I bought a Arturia Keystep 37. 37 "mini" keys, but I'd describe them as Mid-sized compared to other mini key controllers and synths I've used. Not to hard to get used to. Good feeling velocity sensitive keys. 3 full octaves, has a cool built in sequencer and CV Gate Mod and Pitch out as well as analog sync in and out. It's a fantastic little controller. Feels REALLY well built. Not cheap and plasticy like my Novation. NO menu diving. just a shift key for alt actions. When I finally replace my Novation I'm going to get a Arturia full sized controller cause this little guy is perfect.

Years back I got the most basic version of the keystep. Loved it. Feels solid, super easy to use. I can't play for shit so I don't mind mini keys, but these feel good nonetheless.

Yall are way ahead of me with keys, so fair warning:

I bought a big 88-key Arturia Keylab Essential for my Yamaha CP and Moog Subsequent and its pretty great, at least compared to the minikeys. I can’t play either, but the difference in playing those instruments with vs without is significant. I might only go without the big controller if I was taping down keys or traveling with space restrictions, though it does kinda hold up some real estate I need to find a decent place for.

The only thing to watch out for on thr Arthuria Keylab is that I thought I was getting a crazy deal used, not realizing there’s a difference between the Arturia Keylab and Arturia Keylab Essential. I think that the keys and action are the same, but the extra features are different. Not that I will use them - I only bought this as a hardware controller. So the deal I got was fine, not enough to fabricate a return or anything, but lesson learned.

Plus, used keyboards… kinda gross in a way that I haven’t found guitars to be? Maybe its the texture or just that I’m used to cleaning guitars.