Thermionic Culture THE EARLYBIRD 2.2 2 Channel mic, pre amp with eq - Manual (Page 11)

©Thermionic Culture Ltd., September 2010 10
the PAD will stop distortion in the input transformers of
the Earlybird mic amp.
5.3 Pullet
Setting the Function control to Pullet will configure the
Earlybird to take its input signal from the Pullet
sockets on the back of the unit. This means that a line
level signal can be fed into the Pullet and then into the
Earlybird. The gain of the Earlybird should be set to
44/0 to give unity gain but it may be necessary to
reduce the gain if a large amount of mid boost is used
on the Pullet and the Active lift is being used too. This
is totally dependent on the preference of the user as a
bit of distortion may be what is needed. It’s worth
noting again that the leads connecting the Pullet to the
Earlybird should be as short as possible to avoid any
extraneous noise pick-up. Some 1-metre long leads
can be obtained from Thermionic Culture if needed.
5.4 EQ
The EQ section of the Earlybird is designed to be
useful in many situations:
The EQ can be used when the Earlybird is configured
as a mic-amp and provide some extremely useful
frequency lifting when recording from a large variety of
sources. The beauty of this EQ is that there is no harm
done at all to the signal by switching the EQ section,
set flat, into circuit. This is because the EQ works on
the feedback of the circuit, so the actual signal does
not pass through any more components than before.
In fact, any additional distortion is negligible until a
large amount of EQ is applied. This allows the user to
add EQ to the signal in a very purist manner. In reality
there are many situations in which a bit of EQ added
to a mic signal is necessary. Eg. Adding top to a close
mic’d snare or bottom end to a ‘one mic’ drum sound.