New gear installed: MOTU 896 MK3

Dear all,

we are now equipped with MOTU896MK3



Previously, the unit was known as the 896HD. It is the most expensive of all of MOTU's Firewire interfaces, weighing in at USD 999 street.



The Mic preamp itself seems different from the preamps on my older presonus FP10. There is more gain on the 896 preamps. We made our first try on last Wednesday recording session. My first thought: Wow! Headroom! Yet as I turn up the gain past 6, I can hear the noise floor rush up, with a huge wash of hiss with artifacts of ground hum, we now need to watch the level of inputs closely to avoid it screwed.

But I can now tweak with SM57 with the volume knob turn to 3, i.e. these preamps will deliver with your dynamic and well as condenser mics. Its got a sweet coloration that interacts well with our My Mics TST and AKG C3000B.



The cue mix is handy.It provide Reverb during recording but not getting it recorded, I used to use software reverb during recording for a better singing experience, but now i could remove the real time plug in, same some memory resources and let the hardware do the jobs.

I am most impressed to the converter that give me much higher clarity compare to FP10.

It is chained to Presonus FP10 via Asio4all that give us the ability to record up to 16 XLR tracks simultaneously. But it is way too heavy!! It drove my PC to the corner and I guess we got no choice to upgrade the PC to i7 Sandy Bridge 2600 3.4GHz with 8 gigs DDR3 RAM in a very nearby future.^^

Used guitar for sell: Epiphone Lespaul Standard Plain Top

Yes, epiphone. No further word to upsell.



Age of guitar: 3 years.


Color: Herritage cherry Burst
Mahogany body
Maple veneer over carved top
Alnico Classic humbuckers
Chrome hardware
Grover tuners
24-3/4" scale
1-11/16" nut width
Set mahogany neck
Slim-tapered neck profile
Rosewood fretboard with trapezoid inlays
Body/neck binding
LockTone Tune-O-Matic bridge/stopbar tailpiece




Guitar is in almost perfect condition except for a small chit at the corner of body:




Brand new retail price in Malaysia: RM2200-RM2400
This guitar is SOLD
Come with a Ritter soft case.

See ya.

Project: Tube Compressor Upgrade.

Being a studio that work in the environment where the recording hourly rate is same with 10 years ago, we really can't afford to invest on tip top compressor like Fairchild 670. Hence, the Behringer Vintage Tube Composer T1952 have been in duty since we started to provide the recording service in 2007.



We have been upgrading our recording gear since then, and now this is the time for the compressor.

After a detail research, we decided to change the stock SOVTEK 12AX7 tubes to something world class, the MULLARD. Secondly, we target to remove the 4850/60 opamps with AD8599 opamps that will enhance the higher clarity with natural sound.


I started to survey for MULLARDS in Malaysia, try my luck at Lowyat forum and receive 2 quotation, guess what?? A chinese Ah Pek offer an used pair at RM500; another Teo Chew guy offer me better, RM300 to unplug from his hi fi chain. I almost fainted.><. Thanks to google, i made an international search and finally landed at the ebay US, with a brand new stock at USD15 per unit (lol), ordered 4 units with USD15 of postage and received the package in 2 weeks time.

Same trick applied to source for the AD8599, and finally settled down with Singapore supplier, and it cost RM25 for this 0.2cm chip. Damn!!


After all material collected, it is time to invite the mighty Tech, Ah Seng bro to come over and fix the matter. Ah Seng is the most warm-hearted guy that will always response to my request. Within 2 days, he has step into our studio and uncovered the T1952.




Problem!! After open up the casing, we can't find the opamps!!

It is not in the main board, and most probably hiding in side the frond panel or back panel:



It will real time consuming to remove all the connectors and the risk is too high as we might have serious hard time to put everything back. After a simple discussion, we decided not to take the risk and to do more research on the matter , haizzzzzzz, sad.

Nevertheless, the fatty tube is definitely there, but it is so sticky with 2 thick rubber holder on top of it in order to fix it on the position. But no problem, Ah Seng is always there to resolve this kind of tricky stuff, he stared on it for 20 second, started to release a strip of connector,removed the screw at the bottom of the tube to loosen it and slowly bend it out and here we go:






This is Ah Seng lo




Replacing the Tube was easy and it was only plug on the circuit with pin.

After the replacement, put back the cover, screwing and put it back to the rack.

The same night we continued to record Chee Lin backing vocal...problem again..the backing vocal sound way better then her main vocal track that recorded 2 days ago...haizzz.


We will update on the blog once we figure out how to replace the opamps. Whoever out there, if you know how to handle the matter, kindly drop us a note, will buy you big big lunch.

Later.