Ever heard those "golden age" pop recordings and wondered how the singers of yester-yester-year were getting those smooth, deep vocal tracks to sound so good? While we can't provide you with a complete map, we can tell you that many of those recordings started with an RCA mic preamp, and one of the most popular of those times is the BA-31.
In the vein of our vintage-inspired Airstrip Console Preamp, we've cooked up the Crooner, a BA-31-inspired circuit that opens up the dynamic window of the Airstrip circuit, giving you a cleaner preamp sound when set low, and more syrupy compressed distortion when dimed.
This germanium and transformer-equipped pre features a UREI-inspired discrete op-amp out front, providing no gain when set minimally and lots of gain when cranked, pushing the touchy RCA preamp into the red with a simple turn of the Push knob.
Use the Trim control to increase the gain of the BA-31 itself for complete transformer saturating distortion that would make Neil Young blush. In between those two extremes are some of the finest and unique overdrive and distortion sounds available in the pedal world.
Controls
- Push: Gain level of the UREI-inspired discrete opamp, specially voiced to mesh well with the Crooner's RCA-inspired preamp. When set to minimum, the Push control adds minimal gain to the front end of the main pre circuit.
- Volume: Output level.
- Filter: Gentle treble cut to keep the action tight at high Push and Trim levels.
- Trim: Gain level of the RCA preamp circuit itself. As the original was not designed to give you much internal gain, this control manipulates the circuit in ways it was not designed to function, making for a wide-ranging control that is augmented by the Push control.
Power supply
9-18 Volts DC for more glossy cleans, fuzzed-out madness and much more headroom, allowing you to stack dirt in front of the Crooner.