{"id":168,"date":"2020-07-13T22:00:17","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/blog\/?p=168"},"modified":"2024-01-04T00:31:00","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T00:31:00","slug":"brian-hansens-review-of-retro-500pre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/brian-hansens-review-of-retro-500pre\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian Hansen&#8217;s review of Retro 500PRE 500"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.briandanehansen.com\/studiojournal\/2020\/6\/9\/review-retro-instruments-500pre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"565\" src=\"http:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREandBassGuitar-1024x565.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREandBassGuitar-1024x565.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREandBassGuitar-300x166.jpg 300w, https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREandBassGuitar-768x424.jpg 768w, https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREandBassGuitar.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><figcaption> Based on the Sta-Level,  which is an incredibly vibey compressor with a ton of tone and  compression abilities (hopefully I can do a review (and own) one of  those bad boys some day!) the 500PRE has a deep, rich sound with the  ability to add warmth to your source, saturate and even distort your  signal if you desire (and I do). With up 75db of gain on board the  500PRE is a great match for ribbons, dynamics or condenser mics. With  this pre if you want warm and clean, you got it.<br> If you want some more  saturation\/color\/harmonics\/tube squish with the high gain toggle  engaged, you\u2019ve got it. <br><br>The output knob is your friend on this unit,  think of it like a..<br><strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"MORE ON HIS BLOG (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.briandanehansen.com\/studiojournal\/2020\/6\/9\/review-retro-instruments-500pre\" target=\"_blank\">COMPLETE REVIEW ON HIS BLOG<\/a><\/strong><br><br><br> I think you\u2019ll hear that the first one track has some dynamics and  sounds the most open and clean and then as you move into the second and  the third clip, the dynamics decrease and the sound thickens. This is  the tubes giving you some sweet compression! The differences between Low  Gain and High Gain 1 are subtle but I think thats the great thing about  this pre amp! You can dial in exactly what you need. If the low gain  file was just a little two clean and dynamic you could set it to  something like the high gain 1 file and get a little warmth, thickness  and transient control.  Check out the screenshot below. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.briandanehansen.com\/studiojournal\/2020\/6\/9\/review-retro-instruments-500pre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"465\" src=\"http:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREElectricGuitarDI-1024x465.png\" alt=\"BDH Screenshot\n\" class=\"wp-image-170\" srcset=\"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREElectricGuitarDI-1024x465.png 1024w, https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREElectricGuitarDI-300x136.png 300w, https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREElectricGuitarDI-768x348.png 768w, https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Retro500PREElectricGuitarDI.png 1417w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 767px) 89vw, (max-width: 1000px) 54vw, (max-width: 1071px) 543px, 580px\" \/><\/a><figcaption> You can even see  how with each pass the transients gets more and more  leveled out as the  input gain continues to get turned up.  This  happened on every source that I recorded. <br><br>The high gain passes were&#8230;. <br><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"MORE ON HIS BLOG (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.briandanehansen.com\/studiojournal\/2020\/6\/9\/review-retro-instruments-500pre\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.briandanehansen.com\/studiojournal\/2020\/6\/9\/review-retro-instruments-500pre\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"COMPLETE REVIEW ON HIS BLOG  (opens in a new tab)\"><strong>COMPLETE REVIEW ON HIS BLOG<\/strong> <\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,2],"tags":[21,23,6,8,22],"class_list":["post-168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-500pre","category-gear","tag-500pre","tag-recording","tag-recording-studio","tag-retro-instruments","tag-tube-compressor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retroinstruments.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}