Manley TNT MICROPHONE PREAMPLIFIER - Manual (Page 16)

Like most mic preamps, the TNT has high-pass filters
to remove unwanted low frequencies. The most
common situations to use it is for vocals to minimize
“pops”, wind noise, and air conditioning rumble or
leakage, or for sounds that have little low frequency
information anyway, like acoustic guitar or high hats.
The basic idea is removing the garbage before it gets
recorded. You just might want to compare the effect
of a good analog high pass filter compared to the
standard digital ones and also check out what happens
when both are used, from time to time. There are some
engineers that use a combination of a high pass filter
and a low frequency boost EQ to get a tight fat bottom.
For that situation, we might suggest auditioning the
combination, but recording only the high pass filter,
saving the boost EQ for playback and refining in the
mix.
There is a 3 way toggle labelled “CLEAN”, “70’s”,
“60’s”. The CLEAN setting has the TNT operate in
a standard clean mode. In fact, we probably could
have labelled it “damn stunningly clean” if there was
enough panel space. Telltale things to listen for if you
want to compare clarity are ‘harshness in the highs’,
‘smoothness and liquidity in the mids’, but also ‘snap
and punch’ and ‘dynamics in the deep lows’. It is hard
to overdrive this mode. We should point out that for
“absolute clean” use the ¼” output and the IRON
knob set to 1 (12 o’clock, straight up) to avoid any
transformer coloration. And “virtually absolute clean”
is using the XLR transformer output along with the
IRON knob set to –1 or fully counter-clockwise.
This method compensates for the transformer. Often
the 300 setting on the IMPEDANCE switch sounds
slightly clearer as well. And while we are at it, if pure-
clean is the goal, choose your mic carefully and avoid
processing or choose it extra carefully because it all
adds up, and nothing is perfect. In other words, maybe
use nothing, except a great passive ribbon mic, TNT,
and a great converter running at 192K.
So if you are comparing preamps someday, your
natural tendency may be to set everything as flat and
level as possible on each one, use the same mic and
try to judge which basic sound you prefer. If it seems
you tend to pick expensive transformerless discrete
preamps, the TNT should do well that way. However, if
you tend to prefer color boxes, then maybe you should
be working with the TNT controls, setting up modes
and gains appropriately. Otherwise, it would be like
comparing a several different cars without adjusting
the seats or mirrors. Even if the range of colors isn’t
drastic, one is still expected to adjust to taste.
While the CLEAN mode is a relay bypass of an
additional module, simply selecting “60’s” or “70’s”
engages this special module. It is a discrete class-A
circuit meant to simulate some of the stronger
characteristics of circuits and analog tape of those
eras. The most important thing that we must point out
is that it is purposely very level dependent and that it
is between the two gain controls so that the user can
drive it as hard or soft as they want to get a pretty wide
variation in tones. Driving it very lightly by keeping
the GAIN switch lower and the GAIN TRIM way up
mostly affects the EQ and introduces a faster roll-off
in the deep lows and some shaping in the highs, so
that there is a subtle “presence” boost. Driving it a
little harder is particularly interesting and one begins
to hear typical vintage sounds including 3D depth,
richness and edge, and a little further becomes a bit
ballsy, aggressive, and forward. The trick is careful
adjustments of those gain controls and mic technique
to land in the “sweet spot”. This module can also be
driven quite hard and be used for some obvious dirt
and you may find that the character of the distortion is
unlike most clipped electronics and perhaps smoother,
like analog tape or a guitar amp. For the best overdriven
guitar effects, you may want to combine TNT with
some good stomp boxes driving into the instrument
input, and some EQ at the TNT output, and you might
try feeding a real speaker/room/mic or convolution
reverb so that it doesn’t end up too dry and clinical.
There isn’t much that can be said about the difference
between the 60’s and 70’s settings. “60’s” has subtler
shaping in the distortion and should sound brighter
when pushed hard. “70’s” uses more drastic shaping
and forces the output transformer to be biased, much
like some famous old British console electronics of
that period. One might say the “60’s” setting is more
like tubes and tape, and the “70’s” more like discrete
and transformer, depending how one associates tones.
In both cases, the distortion starts off mostly even
order and becomes more odd order as it is pushed
harder. Both tend to help get hotter levels due to
softness of the clipping character. Both are pretty
easy to overdrive and require care to avoid effects
that cannot be undone. Keep in mind that usually an
instrument starts softer and gets louder during the song
and during the session and that our ears become less
sensitive & critical as the session wears on. When in
doubt, back down the GAIN switch one notch – better
safe than sorry.
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