Worship Musician January 2020 | Page 166

GEAR REVIEW SOYUZ LAUNCHER (IN-LINE MIC PREAMP) | Mitch Bohannon KEY FEATURES some recording at home and I have one decent It’s been a few days now and I’ve just finished mic, but I have a few basic dynamic mics that I testing the Launcher with a guitar track and a • Proprietary circuit with custom transformer really wrestle with to make effective. Most of the vocal track both mic’d with an SM57 through time when I record with a dynamic microphone a Presonus AudioBox and into Ableton Live. I • 26dB of gain into Ableton Live or Studio One, I am having to ran the test straight, without the Launcher… • Super portable boost the signal gain on my interface as well as and to get a workable volume, I turned the boosting the gain on my channel strip just to AudioBox gain to about 9.5 and then boosted get a useable track. All this gain boosting is at that signal in Ableton Live 3.3 dB. You’ll see the risk of distortion and a loss of clarity. and hear it when you check out the video. • Huge sound • Hand-wound transformer The guitar sounded pretty good direct through Do you use dynamic microphones? Do you When I opened the box for the Soyuz Launcher, the mic, but when I added the Launcher to record at home or in a studio? Do you perform I was surprised at how substantial it felt. It the signal (before the AudioBox), the sound live? Do you shoot video with secondary audio? weighs in at almost a full (0.9) pound! I got it was incredible! The specs on the Launcher Any of these situations would be a great place set up and did a channel check with a cheap list the boost to be about 28dB… The boost to have the new Soyuz Launcher in your audio dynamic microphone to get a level and then I experienced had to be at least 28dB. After signal path. added the Launcher and recorded the same editing the video, I realized that I actually could check. The photo (photo 1) shows a visual have reduced the gain on the AudioBox after I I noticed the Launcher on my Instagram of the level difference. There is power and added the Launcher (which I did on the vocal feed in November and it caught my attention presence that had been non-existent with part of the test) because the signal peaked a as it looked like a simple preamp that would the same mic! There is simply no comparison few times with a little distortion audible. improve the sound of my microphones. I do between the before and after tracks! 166 January 2020 Subscribe for Free...