[Jeff[_4_]]

Hi Rec audio folks.

Man oh man, I feel like the folks at Focusrite screwed me.

I purchased a Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro on Ebay. I had been searching
for a channel strip. I had heard good things about this unit.

I got it and it seemed ok, but still, the sounds were not what I had
been expecting.

I have a friend who is much more experienced at recording. He lives
fifty miles away and I don't get up there much. I realize now I
should have took him up on his offer to come check some stuff out
before I spent my money.

I told him that I was not satisfied with the VM Pro and he said come
up and we would test it out and do some comparisons to his pres.

I get there and we setup a test with his Seagull acoustic guitar
(awesome sound). He has a nice room and a big Mackie board. Well,
he says we will compare my VM pro with a couple pres in the same price
range that he has.

First we recorded the song amazing grace with the seagull. He puts
two guitar tracks, far left and far right and he does a vocal down the
center. The first unit he used was an FMR RNP in front of an RNC
compressor. When I heard the three tracks over his studio monitors
and then his studio headphones, I was dumbfounded at the delicate
color, the detail, the beauty of the recording.

Then, he did the same three tracks again and used a Presonus Eureka
preamp strip. Again, the recording was stunning. Magical, delicate,
Different than the RNP, but not better or worse. The rnp had a type
of color while the Eureka had intimate detail and a 3d quality. Both
sent chills down my spine, literally, goose bumps. I swear, I could
not stop listening to the tracks made with these two preamps. They
sounded like I had bought a CD of the song at a store, that's how
good.

Well, then he hooked up my VM pro and did the same three tracks again,
and I was heart broken. My VM pro didn't even come close to the RNP
and Eureka. NOT EVEN CLOSE. The poorer quality was instantly heard.
My friend thought that it could be that he wasn't used to the
compressor settings on the VM, so he recorded the 3 tracks twice more,
each time playing with the controls, but nothing changed. It wasn't
the eq or the compression, the damn VM pro just sounded no where near
as good as the RNP and Eureka. He tried to console me and said I
would probably make many bad decisions on my road to recording.

I feel so po'ed at Focusrite. When they made this product, didn't
they sit down and compare it to other units in the same price range?
No way they compared it to the RNP and Eureka cause they would have
been too ashamed to release the thing had they done that. I feel like
I wasted my money and I got a sound not much better than my hundred
dollar M-audio DMP3. The RNP and Eureka were simply in another world.
What kills me is that I could have got a used RNP for 450 or so, I saw
used Eureka for around $350-400

My unit is supposed to be class A, just like the Eureka unit, so why
doesn't mine sound as good as his? Nothing was different when we
recorded the three. he sat in the same chair, same mic Tl103 and
position, same everything. The rnp and Eureka blew my unit out.

Focusrite, why even put these out on the market without comparing the
quality of sound to the competition and making sure you can compete?
had you compared these units you would have said to yourself "hmm, our
unit sucks in comparison to theirs, lets get it right before we
release this product."

Sorry for ranting, but I feel I wasted hundreds of bucks and could
have gotten something of better quality for the money.

[Gareth Magennis]

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
Hi Rec audio folks.

Man oh man, I feel like the folks at Focusrite screwed me.

I purchased a Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro on Ebay. I had been searching
for a channel strip. I had heard good things about this unit.

I got it and it seemed ok, but still, the sounds were not what I had
been expecting.

I have a friend who is much more experienced at recording. He lives
fifty miles away and I don't get up there much. I realize now I
should have took him up on his offer to come check some stuff out
before I spent my money.

I told him that I was not satisfied with the VM Pro and he said come
up and we would test it out and do some comparisons to his pres.

I get there and we setup a test with his Seagull acoustic guitar
(awesome sound). He has a nice room and a big Mackie board. Well,
he says we will compare my VM pro with a couple pres in the same price
range that he has.

First we recorded the song amazing grace with the seagull. He puts
two guitar tracks, far left and far right and he does a vocal down the
center. The first unit he used was an FMR RNP in front of an RNC
compressor. When I heard the three tracks over his studio monitors
and then his studio headphones, I was dumbfounded at the delicate
color, the detail, the beauty of the recording.

Then, he did the same three tracks again and used a Presonus Eureka
preamp strip. Again, the recording was stunning. Magical, delicate,
Different than the RNP, but not better or worse. The rnp had a type
of color while the Eureka had intimate detail and a 3d quality. Both
sent chills down my spine, literally, goose bumps. I swear, I could
not stop listening to the tracks made with these two preamps. They
sounded like I had bought a CD of the song at a store, that's how
good.

Well, then he hooked up my VM pro and did the same three tracks again,
and I was heart broken. My VM pro didn't even come close to the RNP
and Eureka. NOT EVEN CLOSE. The poorer quality was instantly heard.
My friend thought that it could be that he wasn't used to the
compressor settings on the VM, so he recorded the 3 tracks twice more,
each time playing with the controls, but nothing changed. It wasn't
the eq or the compression, the damn VM pro just sounded no where near
as good as the RNP and Eureka. He tried to console me and said I
would probably make many bad decisions on my road to recording.

I feel so po'ed at Focusrite. When they made this product, didn't
they sit down and compare it to other units in the same price range?
No way they compared it to the RNP and Eureka cause they would have
been too ashamed to release the thing had they done that. I feel like
I wasted my money and I got a sound not much better than my hundred
dollar M-audio DMP3. The RNP and Eureka were simply in another world.
What kills me is that I could have got a used RNP for 450 or so, I saw
used Eureka for around $350-400

My unit is supposed to be class A, just like the Eureka unit, so why
doesn't mine sound as good as his? Nothing was different when we
recorded the three. he sat in the same chair, same mic Tl103 and
position, same everything. The rnp and Eureka blew my unit out.

Focusrite, why even put these out on the market without comparing the
quality of sound to the competition and making sure you can compete?
had you compared these units you would have said to yourself "hmm, our
unit sucks in comparison to theirs, lets get it right before we
release this product."

Sorry for ranting, but I feel I wasted hundreds of bucks and could
have gotten something of better quality for the money.



Maybe its faulty.



Gareth.

[Nick Brown]

If you bypass all the signal processing, does it sound any closer to
the RNP?

-Nick

[hank alrich]

Jeff wrote:

Hi Rec audio folks.

Man oh man, I feel like the folks at Focusrite screwed me.

Actually you screwed yourself in the ear by not using either your ears
or your reading skills prior to purchasing the unit.

You bought a "Voice-optimised Channel Strip" offering all kinds of crap
that is not included in the price of an RNP.

Then you start comparing peanuts to persimmons and feel like you got
cheated.

Why would you want a "Voice-optimised Channel Strip" for pristine
recording of acoustic guitars?

With a little studying ahead of the purchase you would have known this
was not the tool for your job.

None of this is Focusrite's problem, and it is disingenuous of you to
suggest it is.

Sell it and move on. Learn something.

--
ha
Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam

[Paul Stamler]

"Jeff" wrote in message
...
My unit is supposed to be class A, just like the Eureka unit, so why
doesn't mine sound as good as his? Nothing was different when we
recorded the three. he sat in the same chair, same mic Tl103 and
position, same everything. The rnp and Eureka blew my unit out.

Focusrite, why even put these out on the market without comparing the
quality of sound to the competition and making sure you can compete?
had you compared these units you would have said to yourself "hmm, our
unit sucks in comparison to theirs, lets get it right before we
release this product."

Sorry for ranting, but I feel I wasted hundreds of bucks and could
have gotten something of better quality for the money.

When I reviewed the VoiceMaster, I found the preamp section to be distinctly
substandard. I did some measurements, and the distortion was higher than
spec.

It turned out that the unit was defective; probably a leaky capacitor
mis-biasing a transistor. You may be having the same problem; get somebody
to run some distortion tests, or send it to Focusrite for a checkout. It may
be that they got a whole shipment of bum capacitors.

Peace,
Paul

[Scott Dorsey]

Jeff wrote:

My unit is supposed to be class A, just like the Eureka unit, so why
doesn't mine sound as good as his? Nothing was different when we
recorded the three. he sat in the same chair, same mic Tl103 and
position, same everything. The rnp and Eureka blew my unit out.

Because the operating bias of a piece of equipment has nothing whatsoever
to do with how it sounds. When manufacturers advertise stuff like "Class A"
it's because they aren't taking you seriously.

Focusrite, why even put these out on the market without comparing the
quality of sound to the competition and making sure you can compete?
had you compared these units you would have said to yourself "hmm, our
unit sucks in comparison to theirs, lets get it right before we
release this product."

But they CAN compete. They are in business to make money and to sell products,
not for any other reason. Putting money into marketing is almost always more
profitable than putting it into product development.

Sorry for ranting, but I feel I wasted hundreds of bucks and could
have gotten something of better quality for the money.

And this, in short, is why you should never, ever buy anything without
auditioning it yourself first.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Jeff[_4_]]

On Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:20:42 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

Jeff wrote:
Hi Rec audio folks.

Man oh man, I feel like the folks at Focusrite screwed me.

I purchased a Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro on Ebay. I had been searching
for a channel strip. I had heard good things about this unit.

New or used?

If used, who certified it as being in "as new" condition, the seller or
an independent engineer?

Then consider *why* the seller's disposing of it.

In either case, have you contacted the seller asking for an explanantion
of the poor quality, & if they'll accept a return?

Have you spoken to Focusrite or their agents about getting the unit
checked for faults?

The rest of your post points out the folly of buying gear without
auditioning it first, IMHO.

Caveat Emptor......

I buy gear all the time, but always *after* I've checked it out myself.
If I buy something blind, then I accept it might not be as good as the
vendor claims, & pay accordingly. Now & again, I get lucky & it's better
than I expected. More often, it joins the pile in the corner......


Hi. Thanks for the replies. Just got off the phone with my friend
and read him what I said in this post. He said I am overreacting and
that the VM was not that much below the other two as I have gotten in
my mind. The VM is like new. You could tell in the recordings it
was doing what it's supposed to do, I guess my friend is right and I
am making a huge difference when there is not a bunch of difference.
Probably just upset that I didn't get one of the other two units and I
am over blowing the differences out of frustration. My friend said I
could get fine results with this pre. Maybe not exactly as good as
the other two but not the huge difference I have talked myself in to.

I believe he tried only using the preamp in one of the test, and it
still didn't sound as 3d as the other two. I am having buyers
remorse I guess and blowing the difference out of proportion.

My friend told me to come and try his preamps out first before I put
money out, and now I see that I should have. I would have chosen one
of the others instead of this. He said the VM will always useable
for some things and that it's no big deal to add another strip down
the line. That conversation made me feel better. He also had a
Manley and a Great River, and he told me I would have been even more
upset had I heard those. I can't afford those anyway. Glad I
didn't hear them or I might be selling my car today.

Thanks much

[Paul Stamler]

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Jeff wrote:

My unit is supposed to be class A, just like the Eureka unit, so why
doesn't mine sound as good as his? Nothing was different when we
recorded the three. he sat in the same chair, same mic Tl103 and
position, same everything. The rnp and Eureka blew my unit out.

Because the operating bias of a piece of equipment has nothing whatsoever
to do with how it sounds. When manufacturers advertise stuff like "Class
A"
it's because they aren't taking you seriously.

Rather surprisingly, in this particular case advertising the thing as "Class
A" actually does mean something.

When reviewing the VoiceMaster (and its instrument-oriented sibling) I
noticed that the high-level sections were unusually transparent; when they
weren't actually doing something (like filtering, compressing, etc.) it was
extremely hard to tell that they were there at all; they were essentially
passing a straight-wire bypass test once I got levels matched exactly.

That hasn't been my experience with other gear that has similar chips (these
were unity-gain-compensated 5534s, the approximate equivalent of 5532s);
usually there's a hint of coloration audible even when the levels are
matched. I queried Focusrite, and it turns out they're biasing the outputs
of the 5534s so they're always operating in Class A. I've used that trick
myself in designs. The opamps measure better (fewer high-order harmonics in
HD tests) and sound better, or rather sound less.

By gum, the hype was right for a change.

Peace,
Paul

[Paul Stamler]

"Jeff" wrote in message
news
Hi. Thanks for the replies. Just got off the phone with my friend
and read him what I said in this post. He said I am overreacting and
that the VM was not that much below the other two as I have gotten in
my mind. The VM is like new. You could tell in the recordings it
was doing what it's supposed to do, I guess my friend is right and I
am making a huge difference when there is not a bunch of difference.
Probably just upset that I didn't get one of the other two units and I
am over blowing the differences out of frustration. My friend said I
could get fine results with this pre. Maybe not exactly as good as
the other two but not the huge difference I have talked myself in to.

I believe he tried only using the preamp in one of the test, and it
still didn't sound as 3d as the other two. I am having buyers
remorse I guess and blowing the difference out of proportion.

My friend told me to come and try his preamps out first before I put
money out, and now I see that I should have. I would have chosen one
of the others instead of this. He said the VM will always useable
for some things and that it's no big deal to add another strip down
the line. That conversation made me feel better. He also had a
Manley and a Great River, and he told me I would have been even more
upset had I heard those. I can't afford those anyway. Glad I
didn't hear them or I might be selling my car today.

If I may repeat myself: send the thing to Focusrite for a checkout. The fact
that it's "like new" doesn't mean it's working probably; the one I had was
bad after only ten hours or so of use.

One of the unfortunate realities of manufacturing is that you can get a
bunch of bad components, put them into a run of product, and ship it all out
before you find out (from your customers) that something was wrong. To avoid
it you'd have to burn in each and every unit before shipping, for say 48
hours, then test for increased distortion. That would jack the price up way
beyond reasonable. So the manufacturers, unless they're super-high-end,
don't do it. They wait to hear of problems from the field. (Incidentally,
next time somebody starts ranting about how big a ripoff high-priced
components are, remember this. The high-priced ones are much more likely to
be burned-in-and-checked than cheap gear. You pay for it.)

Please, send it in. You may get back a much-better-sounding strip.

And if it comes back "no problem found", just e-bay it.

Peace,
Paul

[Badmuts]

So, just sell it again en get one of the other things you wanted?

Bm
(not very impressed with the quality of recent Focusrite gear, btw)

[Chris Whealy]

Jeff wrote:
Hi Rec audio folks.

Man oh man, I feel like the folks at Focusrite screwed me.

I purchased a Focusrite VoiceMaster Pro on Ebay. I had been searching
for a channel strip. I had heard good things about this unit.

I got it and it seemed ok, but still, the sounds were not what I had
been expecting.

I have a friend who is much more experienced at recording. He lives
fifty miles away and I don't get up there much. I realize now I
should have took him up on his offer to come check some stuff out
before I spent my money.

I told him that I was not satisfied with the VM Pro and he said come
up and we would test it out and do some comparisons to his pres.

I get there and we setup a test with his Seagull acoustic guitar
(awesome sound). He has a nice room and a big Mackie board. Well,
he says we will compare my VM pro with a couple pres in the same price
range that he has.

First we recorded the song amazing grace with the seagull. He puts
two guitar tracks, far left and far right and he does a vocal down the
center. The first unit he used was an FMR RNP in front of an RNC
compressor. When I heard the three tracks over his studio monitors
and then his studio headphones, I was dumbfounded at the delicate
color, the detail, the beauty of the recording.

Then, he did the same three tracks again and used a Presonus Eureka
preamp strip. Again, the recording was stunning. Magical, delicate,
Different than the RNP, but not better or worse. The rnp had a type
of color while the Eureka had intimate detail and a 3d quality. Both
sent chills down my spine, literally, goose bumps. I swear, I could
not stop listening to the tracks made with these two preamps. They
sounded like I had bought a CD of the song at a store, that's how
good.

Well, then he hooked up my VM pro and did the same three tracks again,
and I was heart broken. My VM pro didn't even come close to the RNP
and Eureka. NOT EVEN CLOSE. The poorer quality was instantly heard.
My friend thought that it could be that he wasn't used to the
compressor settings on the VM, so he recorded the 3 tracks twice more,
each time playing with the controls, but nothing changed. It wasn't
the eq or the compression, the damn VM pro just sounded no where near
as good as the RNP and Eureka. He tried to console me and said I
would probably make many bad decisions on my road to recording.

I feel so po'ed at Focusrite. When they made this product, didn't
they sit down and compare it to other units in the same price range?
No way they compared it to the RNP and Eureka cause they would have
been too ashamed to release the thing had they done that. I feel like
I wasted my money and I got a sound not much better than my hundred
dollar M-audio DMP3. The RNP and Eureka were simply in another world.
What kills me is that I could have got a used RNP for 450 or so, I saw
used Eureka for around $350-400

My unit is supposed to be class A, just like the Eureka unit, so why
doesn't mine sound as good as his? Nothing was different when we
recorded the three. he sat in the same chair, same mic Tl103 and
position, same everything. The rnp and Eureka blew my unit out.

Focusrite, why even put these out on the market without comparing the
quality of sound to the competition and making sure you can compete?
had you compared these units you would have said to yourself "hmm, our
unit sucks in comparison to theirs, lets get it right before we
release this product."

Sorry for ranting, but I feel I wasted hundreds of bucks and could
have gotten something of better quality for the money.

Jeff, pardon the bluntness of my reply, but you've shot yourself in the
foot over this one for not doing your research thoroughly enough. So
quit yer moaning...

The Voicemaster Pro is at the bottom of Focusrite's product range (along
with the Octopre). You can tell this because you find the word "Pro" in
the name... almost anything with "pro" in the name isn't.

Focusrite decided to produce a range of budget products to compete in
the rapidly growing home studio market. Consequently, cheap components
have been used and you got what you paid for.

Now if you want a really good channel strip, put this one down to
experience, sell the Voicemaster Pro, get a Fosucrite ISA 430.

This is the top channel strip in the Focusrite range. I had one on hire
for a month a while back and I couldn't find anything I didn't like
about it.

Bottom line, you get what you pay for...

Chris W

--
The voice of ignorance speaks loud and long,
But the words of the wise are quiet and few.
---

[david correia]

In article ,
Chris Whealy wrote:

You can tell this because you find the word "Pro" in
the name... almost anything with "pro" in the name isn't.



Excellent advice.

btw I think Digidesign owns Focusrite now. Many folks don't like
anything they've cooked up post Rupert, including the redone 110.




David Correia
www.Celebrationsound.com