Daking is a studio outboard manufacturer founded by Geoff Daking, following in the tradition of the great console manufacturers Api, Neve and Trident. Using its vast experience in the recording industry and studio environments, Geoff Daking, set to create a line of studio products that offered the sound qualities of the classics, without the inconvenience and unreliability of pricey vintage antiques. Understanding the potential market in home and project studios, Daking created a series of microphone preamplifiers, equalizers and compressors that would sound as good as the great console modules, using input transformers, discrete amplifiers made with carefully selected transistors, capacitors and resistors, and class A circuits. To deliver the best possible value, Daking manufactures all its products using modern production techniques.
The new Daking Mic Pre 4T is the result of listening to what users appreciated in existing designs and adding requested features, while still delivering a microphone preamplifier that will elevate any recording. Each preamp channel in the new Daking Mic Pre 4T offers the full complement of controls including 75dB of gain, +24dB of headroom, variable high-pass filter (from 10-200Hz), front-panel DI, 48V phantom power, phase invert and a 20dB pad along with a high-resolution 20-segment LED meter and +25dB indicator. Totally new are the four variable high-pass filters.
Daking’s own variable high-pass filter dials out the low-frequency mud that can be subsonic and will decrease available headroom. Built in the USA, Daking uses only high-end parts like Jensen input and output transformers in a high-end design using all-discrete transistor Class A circuitry. The “low-distortion” Jensen input and output transformers offer more linear low-end performance under brutal dynamic conditions. Unusually high 24dB of headroom and easy to read twenty segment meters make proper gain staging easy and forgiving under a wider array of conditions.
Daking’s variable low pass filters make it possible to have a different low-filter setting on each of the four input channels, preventing unwanted over saturation of the transformer. The Instrument DI passes through the ultra linear Jensen output transformer for one of the best DI’s around.
The Daking Mic Pre 4T is the one preamp that’s right for many different sources, rather than the costly “different preamps for different sources” approach. The design accommodates for the widest possible range of inputs, from vintage, low-gain ribbon microphones, to high-gain modern condensers, and instruments via the DI. Avoiding clipping and distortion is critical for error free capture of a magical performance that may never come again.
Daking products are available through TransAudio Group, the company founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, and a premier U.S. importer/distributor. The new Daking Mic Pre 4T is available now with an MSRP of $2,999.00.
www.daking.com
www.transaudiogroup.com
