HOEI PRECISION StartREC 400
Digital Audio Recorder, Editor and CD Duplicator
StartREC 400—which ships with a Plextor 40X CD-ROM, 6GB internal IDE drive, and four Panasonic 8x CD-R recorder drives—is the first professional digital audio editing system joined with a high-speed, multidrive CD-R duplication solution.

Housed in a four-rackspace package that weighs 35 pounds, the StartREC rack includes a 33-page reference manual that takes less than an hour to digest, thanks to an easy OS and trouble-free operation. Each of the drives has its own headphone miniplug and volume control, and a master 1Ú4-inch headphone jack with volume control and audio edit interface round out the front panel. StartREC’s rear panel has one AES/EBU and two S/PDIF (co-ax and optical) digital ports, with stereo XLR balanced and unbalanced RCA analog I/Os.

Divided into three partition blocks for managing simultaneous projects, the internal 6GB IDE drive is the first audio target when extracting songs from CDs, transferring digital audio, or recording fresh analog tracks with StartREC. Once on the internal hard drive, tracks can then be moved, deleted, divided, combined, re-indexed, and faded in or out en route to one or all of the CD-R recorder drives. Including any one of three SCMS copy-protection levels (none, 1X digital copy and fully prohibited) is up to the user, and StartREC can read and copy from CD-RW discs, as well.

The compact digital audio editor interface has CD-like transport controls, various menu, display and edit switches, concentric L/R record level rings and a 2x16-character LCD screen for accessing StartREC’s well-organized edit menu hierarchy. The latest 1.0e firmware provides an audio verification feature as well as nondestructive program playlist editing. StartREC can write Track at Once and Session at Once CD-Rs, and it can automatically or manually rearrange, add and delete track markers, and convert 32/48kHz files to CD standard 44.1 kHz.

StartREC couldn’t be easier to use or earn a quicker return-on-investment for its $3,995 price tag. I was able to digitally transfer, rearrange, and burn five master tracks from a Mac down to CD-R in less than 30 minutes with StartREC. Creating a compilation CD from numerous CD-RW session disks was easy, and the rackmounted 400 was perfect for recording a live stereo mix and burning CD-Rs at a friend’s gig before the drummer was finishing breaking down his kit. If you’re building a short-run CD duping business, transferring digital audio to CD-R, recording fresh stereo tracks, or all of the above, check out the StartREC 400.

Hoei Precision, distributed by Microboards; 800/646-8881; www.microboardsproaudio.com.
—Randy Alberts


dbx 386
Dual Vacuum Tube Preamp With Digital Out
The 386 Dual Vacuum Tube Preamp is a single-rackspace mic preamp that delivers exactly what its name specifies. In addition to serving as a conventional tube mic preamp in the analog domain, the 386 provides both AES/EBU (XLR) and S/PDIF (RCA) digital ports that can route your mic signal directly to your digital recorder/DAW at sampling rates as high as 96 kHz with selectable 16/20/24-bit word lengths.

Features include selectable dither and noise shaping, word clock sync I/O, 12-segment LED meters, plus separate analog and digital output controls. Further, the unit has 60 dB of input gain, 15 dB of output gain, selectable mic/line inputs, a 20dB pad, phase reverse switch, a 75Hz lowcut filter and 48V phantom power. The 386 also employs dbx’s proprietary Type IV conversion process, which combines the best attributes of digital conversion and analog recording processes to preserve the character of the analog signal when it is converted to a digital format.

I used the 386 in conjunction with an Audio-Technica AT4047/SV mic (also reviewed in this issue), feeding analog line level signal to my Tascam TM-D1000 digital mixer with an IF-TAD interface, and from there via a Frontier Design Wavecenter audio card to Sonic Foundry’s Vegas Pro. The unit’s operation is intuitive, and I had plenty of headroom. For digital operation, I bypassed the mixer and went straight to the computer via S/PDIF. After selecting the appropriate sampling rate, output format and word length, operation went without a hitch.

The dbx 386 is a versatile mic pre that facilitates both analog and digital connections with a wide variety of equipment. Its controls have a secure feel, and there are plenty of parameters for obtaining a sound that is likely to please all but the most finicky of ears. At $599.95, the dbx 386 offers a lot at a reasonable price.

dbx Professional Products; 801/568-7662; www.dbxpro.com.
—Roger Maycock


Lafont LP-22
ADR/Foley Processor
Here’s a product whose name is somewhat of a misnomer. Although the LP-22 is designed specifically for recording Foley, ADR and dialog in a studio setting, this single-channel, single-rackspace preamp/compressor/limiter/expander/gate with high/lowpass filters is equally suitable for any situation requiring high-quality audio processing.

Front-panel controls include phase reverse, -20dB pad, 48 VDC phantom power, sweepable highpass (35-600 Hz) and lowpass (20 to 1k Hz) filters, a 20-65dB gain pot and a +10dB gain boost switch. The dynamics section has pots for threshold ratio, release time, gain makeup and de-esser frequency, along with switches for selecting ultrafast attack (100 µs), stereo linking and external key input bypass switches for the various dynamics functions. To keep noise buildup under control—or simply for basic gating—the expander/gate has dedicated threshold, range and release pots, and switches for fast attack, gate/expander in/out and a switched input for frequency selective keying. The back panel has six (pin-2 hot) balanced XLRs for mic in, insert send, line in/insert return, compressor key, expander key and compressor out.

In session, the LP-22 proved to be a flexible performer with impressive audio specs extending well beyond 40 kHz, with EIN better than 128 dB—no surprise, as Lafont is renowned for its high-performance/low-noise film mixing and transfer consoles. The preamp is neutral and transparent, and anyone who records with low-output ribbon mics or ultralow-level sources (gum wrapper Foley, anyone?) will appreciate the high gain switch’s extra 10 dB of boost.

The preamp section can be used stand-alone (patched directly out), inserted to external gear or sent directly to the unit’s dynamic section—offering a variety of connection options. And whether fed from the onboard preamp or a line source, the compression is smooth, becoming noticeable only at its most extreme setting. The key input worked seamlessly for ducking voice-overs over music beds, and the de-essing function was natural, whether keyed internally or via an outboard EQ. Both gating and expansion were flawless in operation and cleanly handled any noise floor artifacts created by heavy-handed compression.

The unit’s main downside is that there’s a lot packed into this single-rackspace chassis, and the fine writing on the control labels can be hard to read for us old engineer types. Fortunately, the LP-22 has three LED bar graph meters indicating output levels, gain reduction and downward expansion, and an LED next to every switch, providing status at a glance.

Priced at $1,495, the LP-22 draws on more than a decade of Lafont innovation to create a versatile unit with excellent audio specs that should appeal to music and post users alike.

Lafont, distributed by Sascom; 905/469-8080; www.sascom.com.
—George Petersen

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Reprinted with permission from Mix Magazine, June, 2000
© 2000, Intertec Publishing, A Primedia Company All Rights Reserved