As a part of working with Lee Safar on her up and coming album, I’m also helping her build a studio in her home, so that as and when ideas come to her, she can record them, completely professionally, right then and there.

In order to aid this I’ve suggested she use a Shure SM7b microphone and an Apogee Duet 2 sound card.  One of the missing parts of that chain however, is a big, classic, beefy sounding preamp.  The two types of tone I wanted to give her in particular are the smooth sound of a Neve 1073 and the forward mid-biting rock sound of an API 70’s pre.  I wanted both types of sound extremes to be recorded simultaneously each time she records, so that I’m able to blend them how I want during the production stage.

In order to give her these two sounds within a small budget, I decided to build them myself from kits.  The two kits I decided upon were the Sound Skulptor MP73 and the ClassicAPI VP26 with a gar2520 discrete opamp.

Today the MP73 arrived.  It was beautifully packaged, and didn’t take very long at all to ship to Australia.  I’m very impressed with every facet of the kit, from how thorough it is ( ALL nuts and bolts, the front faceplate and even the pot knobs are provided…. ) and I can’t WAIT to start building it.  You can see in these photos the large heavy iron transformers, which impart the warm sound of this pre:

When finished, it should look a little something like this: