SPL Charisma 2 - anyone used one?
 

If so whats your thought about it for use on synths and drums (Roland TD12 V-Drum kit).

Im looking for something that can give some nice soft tape like and/or slightly tubey (but soft tubey) saturation in varing degrees.

This contraption seems like a possible... Alternatives were simply abusing a pre-amp - blue tube etc or something similar...

I dont want a hard core distortion unit, but something that can take the edge off, and age a sound a little.

ty all :)

Does it have to be HW?

If your on Mac Check out Colortone Pro
http://www.tritonedigital.com/

I'm trying to buy a second hand charisma 2 but haven't found one yet here in Finland.

Dont have to be hardware as it not the kind of processing I nescessarily *need* in hardware, though might be easier of it was...

I have been waiting for a second hand Charisma 2 to show up somewhere but I don't want to wait anymore so I just ordered a new one (and another uad1 card). I will post some samples when I get the Charisma II. :D

Btw, my rack stuff is mostly analog now. I have sold my digital synth modules and I'm building 2 analog compressors too. :mrgreen:

Wicked - will look forward to samples :)

Ive been looking for an Mk2T Vitalizer to show up for ages as well - no luck - grrrr!!

Nice one FSD, pretty interested in this.

FSD - how are you getting on with the Charisma? :)

Sorry guys. I've been very busy lately so I haven't posted a demo yet. Anyway, the charisma is a good tube distortion. However, the distortion kicks in quite early so you can basically use the unit only to distort things or set the input drive parameter to a low value that the saturation won't start if you want to warm things up. It seems that when charisma starts to saturate, you can hear it immediately so there are no gentle settings altough you can tweak the "charisma" knob. If it's set to "soft", the saturation kicks in early but increases when the signal gets louder. With "hard" setting, the signal stays cleaner before the level hits the saturation level.

I ran my track thru the charisma to get more warmth. I had to set the drive to -9dB and use the "hard" setting for "charisma" to avoid audible tube saturation. Otherwise the audio will distort. It really does something to the sound but I have to do some more testing.

I also tried the charisma with my sh101 and got some really nice distorted acid lines. It also works for distorting drum sounds.

So, it is more like a tube distortion than a box which warms up things but I'm happy anyway. I will report more and maybe a demo too when I know better.

cheers...

Hmm - surprised by that - I thought this beast was really intended for subtle warming... especially as it mentions tape-style saturation - which I tend to think of as a slight fattening but definately not obvious distortion.

I always wonder as to what the Empirical Labs stuff sounds like. The Fatso and the Distressor.

They make me... moist. Until I see the price tags.

Ok, I have tested the Charisma a little more. I guess you can warm up audio with it too. You just have to check the levels carefully that the audio won't get to the point where the charisma begins to saturate it audibly. I had to keep the input drive knob at -9 position and the charisma knobs at "hard" position to avoid audible saturation. In fact you can check the track at demo tracks forum if you like (Deliverance). It's hard to say what it did to the track but at least I am happy that I processed it with charisma. :D

I also recorded some death metal vocals with a friend of mine yesterday and I put the vocal track thru charisma and the result was amazing. A really nice box for making vocals heavier and more aggressive. :twisted:

So, the charisma is a good box, you just have to learn how to use it and how to not overuse it. :)

Btw, here's a short demo of 101 + charisma. With right settings you can get some nice results. I like the parts 0:45 -> and 1:42 -> :)

edit. ...And the link: http://www.quandace.com/f5d_101charisma.mp3 :D

Oooohhh - the good old acid days! ;)

Bring it on! - cheers for the demo mate. Sounds like its a toss between one of them and a Sans Amp PSR-1.