Elysia Skulpter Mpressor Qube Microphone Preamp 500 Series Module

The smallest channel strip in the world with the biggest sound. Never before has it been so easy to create the perfect sound while recording. With this powerful combination of skulpter|500 and mpressor|500 you have all the possibilities when recording. Process the signal to your taste with the skulpter|500 and use the mpressor|500 to shape the dynamics of the signal.

skulpter
skulpter can make your recording experience like you’ve always wanted it to be! Choose between different examples including applications like recording, mixing, use good headphones or speakers. Just press Play and A/B between the bypassed and active sounds!

mpressor
Analog Soul Food for the most flexible and powerful compression you can get. Including the power of two! of our famous and award-winning compressors from the future, the mpressor 500. So this will give you 2 dynamic processing geniuses for recording and mixing. So why don’t you make it stereo? This qube provides you a very easy recipe for cooking sounds with a serious punch and all the aromatic advantages you may already know from elysia. If not, you have to taste. mpressor 500 brings the heritage of our extremely powerful rack mount mpressor into the 500 series format. Like its bigger brother, the mpressor 500 combines serious punch with a full and detailed class-A sound. Its great tone and flexibility make it an excellent choice for recording and mixing, while its remarkable special features take it far beyond the borders of what normal compressors can do. Its massive sound, next generation features and its creative approach make the mpressor 500 a truly outstanding tool in the world of dynamics processing – the compressor from the future.

skulpter:

Audiophile Gain Staging
skulpter uses an audiophile topology for setting gain: Fixed resistors switched by a cascade of relays and electronic switches.

This setup is controlled by an encoder with 20 steps per rotation, providing a total of 40 gain values in 1.5/2 dB steps (total gain range: 3 – 65 dB). The actual mic preamp and the direct input have a separate gain value each. If you change from Mic to DI or vice versa, the gain will automatically change accordingly.

When skulpter is powered off its current gain setting is saved automatically, so the preamp will start with exactly the same amount of gain on the next session.

Dual Sound Shaper
The very open and natural sound character of skulpter can be shaped by two independent combinations of saturation and tweaked filter curves:

Shape One: Instruments

The first ingredient to achieve that big, fat sound is adding harmonics (THD). The intensity of this saturation is determined by the input level and the amount of preamp gain. The resulting sound is huge, with a massive body but no harsh peaks at all.

Shape Two: Vocals


Vocals benefit from the same saturation enhancement; and, like a tube-like characteristic curve, this results rather in musical soft clip limiting than in actual distortion.

Variable Low Cut
An essential standard tool for any preamp is a low cut for reducing low frequency rumble.

Instead of just a single or maybe two fixed frequencies, skulpter offers a variable low cut filter with a wide frequency range from 10 Hz to 375 Hz. The slope of the filter is 12 dB/octave, and its amplifier is a discrete class-A design optimized for especially transparent performance.

Pure Polarity Reverse
The Phase Reverse function has been designed to eliminate the need for an additional inverting amp. This means that reversing the phase will not add any additional circuitry to the signal path, so the sound will remain the same in both positions of the switch.

Switching the phase from normal to reverse (or vice versa) will automatically trigger a signal mute for a few milliseconds to avoid cracking and popping noises.

Signal Mute Switch
Pressing the mute switch instantly reduces the output level to zero. While in this state, instruments can easily be changed on the DI, cables can be swapped, mics can be replaced by others – without blowing ears or speakers. In addition, the mute function comes in really handy for canceling source signals from the recording room when silence is needed for listening to playbacks.

Apart from the dedicated switch, the skulpter automatically soft starts with the mute function enabled for a short moment, which avoids nasty surprises when powering up.

+48V Phantom Power
skulpter generates its own 48V phantom power on board, so this critical supply voltage is completely independent from the quality of the specific rack frame being used. Whenever phantom power is switched on or off, skulpter shortly mutes its output to avoid cracking and other unwanted noises in the signal chain.

Note: In order to avoid accidentally activating or deactivating the phantom power supply, the corresponding button must be pushed for a period of 2 seconds to toggle its function.

Intelligent Onboard Dynamics
An integrated compressor operated by just a single knob. Its potentiometer sets the threshold based on a fixed 3:1 ratio and a soft knee characteristic.

The all discrete class-A circuitry provides a premium quality audio path, and the RMS detector has been optimized to react noticeably well on vocals and instruments.

This alone makes for a very musical and unobtrusive dynamics section on a par with the best compressors the market has to offer.

The compressor’s easy one-knob-operation is supported by elysia’s signature Auto Fast function, which will automatically reduce the attack to its shortest value when strong impulses and transients require it.

Balanced DI
An integrated front panel JFET DI makes it perfect for amplifying and shaping many kinds of different signals coming from guitars, basses, synths, effects…

The high input impedance of one megohm allows users to directly plug even instruments with passive pickups into the preamp without the danger of a mismatch causing dull and lifeless sounds. On the other hand, the input can handle high levels of up to +19 dBu!

The high amount of headroom and the fact that you can feed both balanced and unbalanced signals into this DI make it the perfect terminal for line signals – which will benefit big time from the purity of skulpter’s preamp with its amazing sound shaping and dynamics features.

Multifunction Meter
The fifteen LEDs of skulpter’s meter provide four pieces of vital information:

Input Clipping: A single LED located at the top of the meter will light up if clipping is detected at the input of the preamp. If the input does not clip, it means that the rest of the signal path is good as well. The LED increases in brightness to reflect the intensity of the overload.

Compression Intensity: Another single LED located at the bottom of the meter shows the amount of compression applied to a signal if the dynamics section of skulpter is active. This LED also changes in brightness to visually represent the amount of compression applied.

Level Meter: Thirteen LEDs in the middle of the meter show the output level of the preamp. For smooth transitions between different values instead of erratic flickering, these change in brightness, too. Level related effects of the compressor and sound shaper sections can be monitored on this meter as well.

Gain Indicator: If the Gain encoder is pushed, the level meter will turn into a gain indicator. In this case, the scale printed on the right side of the LEDs will apply, and the meter will show the amount of gain the preamp currently generates.

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mpressor

Auto Fast
Choosing the right time settings is very important, but depending on the dynamic progress of the source material this can be a difficult task – no matter if single tracks or complete mixes are processed. If a very short attack time is chosen, the compressor is able to catch the short peaks, but on the other hand the sustaining signal will also be processed, which might result in audible distortion. Longer settings reduce distortion significantly, but then the compressor is too slow for catching fast impulses. This is where the Auto Fast function comes into play. For example, if you set the attack to 80 ms and then engage the Auto Fast mode, the attack time will be shortened automatically on fast and loud signal impulses. The compressor reduces the signal quickly and prevents it from slipping through.

Anti Log Release
It is characteristic of a logarithmic release that the time constant shortens when the amount of gain reduction increases. The advantage of this behavior is that short and loud peaks (e.g. drums) have a fast release time, while the remaining material is processed with a slower release time.

But if intentionally striking and creative compression is the goal, it definitely makes sense to turn things upside down. In the Anti Log mode of the mpressor the curve behaves just the other way round: If the threshold value is passed and compression starts, the release time will be longer at the beginning. If the input signal starts to decline, however, the release time will become faster as a result.

THD Boost
The mpressor|500 is a pure feed forward compressor, and the gain potentiometer is placed before the control element. This means that the intensity of the saturation can be raised or lowered by different settings of the gain controller.

What’s special: The detector in the sidechain of the compressor runs in parallel and is therefore not influenced by the THD Boost at all. The actual compression does not change, it is only the sound which is being influenced.

You generate a saturated signal which as a result is also reduced in dynamics, but the actual control of the compressor itself is always based on the original dynamics including all transients, impulses and so on.

Analog Dynamic Meter
The gain reduction meter is a very important visual tool for evaluating the operation of the compressor in addition to what your ears tell you. The mpressor|500 these uses an analog dynamic variant that combines the benefits of both VU meters and LED chains. This meter is based on LEDs, too, but a special circuit design makes it possible to show intermediate values by modulating the brightness of the LEDs.

This means a true analog way of showing the operation of the compressor: Very fast, but with smooth transitions. The user gets an important tool for precise gain reduction monitoring – finally the relationship between acoustic and visual perception feels just right.

Gain Reduction Limiter
This limiter is not placed in the audio path where you would usually find it, but in the control path of the compressor. When it is activated, it limits the control voltage according to the setting of the GR Limit controller. This means: No matter how high the input level might become – the amount of gain reduction will never exceed the value which you have set.

For comparison, imagine a fader on a mixing console with your hand moving the fader to ‘play compressor’. If now the fader was limited by a piece of duct tape at -10 dB, for example, it could only reduce the signal up to this value. If the input level dropped below this limit, the fader would be moved up correspondingly.

However, if the input signal got even louder, the fader could not be moved down any further because of the duct tape limit, and then the output signal would become louder again in correspondence with the input signal.

Negative Ratios
Negative ratios – what exactly does this mean? To get a better understanding of this function, it makes sense to realize what the ratio control of a ‘normal’ compressor does:

• 1:1 The signal remains linear, there is no compression going on.
• 1:2 After crossing the threshold, an increase of 2 dB at the input will be compressed to an increase of 1 dB at the output
• 1:∞ After crossing the threshold, the output signal is constantly held at the threshold level without reacting to further increases at the input (limiter).

At a negative ratio, the characteristic curve bends and returns back down after crossing the threshold. The louder the input signal, the lower the output signal – perfect for groovy compression effects. To get a grip on the extreme ‘destruction’ this can cause, engaging the Gain Reduction Limiter is just the right idea.

skulpter:

• Total Gain range: 3 – 65 dB in 1.5/2 dB steps

• Frequency response:
@ 3 dB Gain: 10 Hz – 170 kHz (-3 dB)
@ 29 dB Gain: 10 Hz – 170 kHz (-3 dB)

• THD+N @ 6 dBu, 20 Hz – 22k Hz:
@ 3 dB Gain: 0.007%
@ 29 dB Gain: 0.007%

• Noisefloor 20 Hz – 20 kHz (A-weighted):
@ 3 dB Gain: -97 dBu
@ 29 dB Gain: -93 dBu

• Common Mode Rejection Ratio @ +6 dBu out level, 29 dBu gain:
@ 1 kHz: +87 dB
@ 10 kHz: +69 dB

• Maximum input level:
Mic: 19 dBu
DI: 19 dBu

Impedance:
• Mic Input: 13.6 KOhm
DI Input: 1 MOhm
Output: 62 Ohm

• Dimensions (W x H x D, incl. Knobs): 4,09” x 5,39“ x 8,1“ / 104 mm x 137 mm x 205 mm

• Weight (elysia qube): 3,04 lbs / 1,38 kg

• Power consumption:
elysia qube: 8 Watts
500 Series Module: 90 mA

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mpressor:

• Dimensions: 104 mm x 137 mm x 188 mm (W x H x D)
• Weight: 3.2 lbs / 1.46 kg (incl. Modules)