Drawmer say that their latest release has been designed to offer a modern take on the classic channel strip, combining a versatile mic preamp with a comprehensive EQ section and vintage-style compression.
The Drawmer 1979 occupies just 1U of rack space, and features a preamp that’ll accept mic, line-level and instrument signals and delivers up to 66dB of gain via a stepped control. It’ll happily accept everything from low-output ribbons and dynamics to modern capacitor mics, and includes Drawmer’s Lift function, which adjusts gain in real time in response to the input signal, allowing users to reduce the dynamic range of incoming signals without any of the side-effects encountered by applying compression.
A three-band parametric equaliser follows, and features high- and low-shelf bands along with a midrange peak filter. The low and high shelves can be placed at seven different frequencies, while the midrange band offers a choice of nine frequencies; all three bands offer ±12dB of gain, and the midrange band is equipped with a switch that offers a narrower bandwidth.
Next up is a soft-knee FET compressor that promises to deliver Drawmer’s familiar musical tonality, and has been designed to tackle everything from subtle vocal levelling duties or ‘mix glue’ to more characterful drum and instrument compression. Helpfully, the EQ and compressor can be individually bypassed, and a Swap button makes it possible to reverse their orders in the unit’s signal chain. Finally, the 1979’s Output section houses a wet/dry mix control for the EQ and compressor sections, an output gain control, a bypass switch and a rather fetching backlit VU meter.
Pricing & Availability
The 1979 is available now, priced at £1040 including VAT.
