As you can tell from our recent posts, here at Pixel Pro Audio we have all quickly become fans of the SM Pro Audio products! When taking a step back and looking at all of the gear that this Australian audio company has to offer, we are especially blown away by the amount of practical utility gear that they have to offer at a reasonable price and a sturdy build. What do we mean by utility gear? We mean gear that makes your studio work flow much easier by taking the mess out of simple session tasks. For example, headphone routing, talkback capabilities, multiple monitoring options, or simply a clean, ample power source for your favorite 500 series gear. We will focus on the 500 series Juice Block for now, but we will get to some of those other solutions soon--you need recording to be inspiring, not exhausting! So you like your 500 series gear? So do we. What we like most is when our 500 series power supply has enough power to make the module sound the way it should! Wait, maybe we should have mentioned that some 500 series power supplies are simply under powered and your favorite API or Neve preamp may be starving for power. You know, the same way you feel around hour twelve at the studio and all you've had is stale coffee all day. More power equals more headroom in your modules. The SM Pro Audio Juice Block has a whopping 320ma per module whereas the API Lunchbox has 215ma per module. Now, to be fair, we got that info for the API lunchbox 6B which holds six modules versus the SM Pro Audio Juice Block that only holds three, so I guess it's not a fair matchup... Alright, let's look at the power in the SM Pro Audio Juice Rack 8 that holds eight modules. The power rating goes up to 350ma per module! Here's the part we enjoy, the price of the Juice Block fits the wallet of a home studio owner or a starving, free lance engineer who loves to have his bag of tricks along with him in a portable unit. For $349.99 you can give your gear the juice it needs to give your tracks that extra punch. And now that we have exhausted why the power section is so important and the attractive price, lets move on to what else we love. The block comes with built in phantom power to eliminate the need for another unit in the chain (...your annoying phantom power block). Remember how we mentioned ease of your studio work flow? This is one of those features that will eliminate cables and simplify your setup. Another of these features is the ability to link any of your modules together within the block. Got a preamp, compressor and eq in your block? You can easily send your signal through the chain via three buttons on the front of the unit! Sometimes it requires some messing around and A/Bing of different combinations of gear and settings to inspire your sound. This feature takes away the hassle of plugging and unplugging cables from behind the unit, or if you have it wired in to your patchbay. Less messing around with setup takes less time away from the matters at hand which could be impatient musicians/clients! To round out the unit are XLR and 1/4" ins and outs available on each module and metal blanks to cover up the empty spots in your block. We really like the idea of covering up those embarrassing holes in any rack that need to be filled with gear.....when we can afford it! We are self conscience gear lovers too-no shame. Check out the Juice Block 3 and put together a channel strip that gives you confidence and versatility. Click Here to see all of our in stock SM Pro Audio 500 Series products.
Powered Up with the Juice Block 3!
As you can tell from our recent posts, here at Pixel Pro Audio we have all quickly become fans of the SM Pro Audio products! When taking a step back and looking at all of the gear that this Australian audio company has to offer, we are especially blown away by the amount of practical utility gear that they have to offer at a reasonable price and a sturdy build. What do we mean by utility gear? We mean gear that makes your studio work flow much easier by taking the mess out of simple session tasks. For example, headphone routing, talkback capabilities, multiple monitoring options, or simply a clean, ample power source for your favorite 500 series gear. We will focus on the 500 series Juice Block for now, but we will get to some of those other solutions soon--you need recording to be inspiring, not exhausting! So you like your 500 series gear? So do we. What we like most is when our 500 series power supply has enough power to make the module sound the way it should! Wait, maybe we should have mentioned that some 500 series power supplies are simply under powered and your favorite API or Neve preamp may be starving for power. You know, the same way you feel around hour twelve at the studio and all you've had is stale coffee all day. More power equals more headroom in your modules. The SM Pro Audio Juice Block has a whopping 320ma per module whereas the API Lunchbox has 215ma per module. Now, to be fair, we got that info for the API lunchbox 6B which holds six modules versus the SM Pro Audio Juice Block that only holds three, so I guess it's not a fair matchup... Alright, let's look at the power in the SM Pro Audio Juice Rack 8 that holds eight modules. The power rating goes up to 350ma per module! Here's the part we enjoy, the price of the Juice Block fits the wallet of a home studio owner or a starving, free lance engineer who loves to have his bag of tricks along with him in a portable unit. For $349.99 you can give your gear the juice it needs to give your tracks that extra punch. And now that we have exhausted why the power section is so important and the attractive price, lets move on to what else we love. The block comes with built in phantom power to eliminate the need for another unit in the chain (...your annoying phantom power block). Remember how we mentioned ease of your studio work flow? This is one of those features that will eliminate cables and simplify your setup. Another of these features is the ability to link any of your modules together within the block. Got a preamp, compressor and eq in your block? You can easily send your signal through the chain via three buttons on the front of the unit! Sometimes it requires some messing around and A/Bing of different combinations of gear and settings to inspire your sound. This feature takes away the hassle of plugging and unplugging cables from behind the unit, or if you have it wired in to your patchbay. Less messing around with setup takes less time away from the matters at hand which could be impatient musicians/clients! To round out the unit are XLR and 1/4" ins and outs available on each module and metal blanks to cover up the empty spots in your block. We really like the idea of covering up those embarrassing holes in any rack that need to be filled with gear.....when we can afford it! We are self conscience gear lovers too-no shame. Check out the Juice Block 3 and put together a channel strip that gives you confidence and versatility. Click Here to see all of our in stock SM Pro Audio 500 Series products.
