elysia is one of the most impressive pro-audio manufacturers in the market, designing and building all discrete Class A recording, mixing and mastering tools in Germany for a surprisingly affordable price.
The Elysia Skulpter 500 is an audiophile preamp loaded with the highest grade audio circuitry to add color and warmth to the front end recording into your DAW interface. The preamp is fully discrete, Class-A and feed-forward by design, providing ultra-clean low or high gain signal without the use of a pad or cloudlifter with a full dynamic range of 3 dB - 65 dB.
Two variable saturation and filter stages are included to add more warmth or color to the mic or DI signal, getting you closer to a "finished" record sound with less work on the back end.
Shape one is for instruments and focuses on adding harmonics or THD. The amount of THD is applied based on the input signal, and as the THD increases, a gentle high cut filter at 4 kHz is engaged to eliminate any harsh peaks while maintaining a thick full sound.
Shape two is for vocals. It applies the same style of saturation, but more soft clip tube-like characteristics rather than straight THD. The EQ curve differs where in this stage it boosts up to 10 dB at 4.5 kHz to make the vocal shine. Utilize the MIX control to make the perfect blend of dry and wet signal and get as close to the "finished" sound as possible.
The onboard compressor is easily controlled with one knob to adjust the threshold. The ratio is fixed at 3:1 as well as fixed attack and release times that work well no matter what you’re recording. elysia’s Auto Fast function is included in the compression circuit to reduce the attack to the shortest value when a very strong signal and transient pass through, this helps control the loudest peaks in a performance while remaining as dynamic as possible.
The Skulpter includes a front panel DI with a crystal clear signal path and a large amount of headroom, perfect for adding some vibe to electric or acoustic guitar, bass, synths or outboard effects processors.
Way more than just a preamp, the skulpter 500 is a complete recording solution - everything you'll ever need in front of any DAW.
FEATURES
- 100% discrete Class A topology: pristine audio path and signal processing
- Audiophile gain staging: natural and incredibly detailed sound
- Dual sound shopper: mojo machine with filters and harmonics
- Intelligent onboard dynamics: smart controlled musical compression
- Variable low cut filter: flexible low frequency cleanup
- Balanced DI: instrument input with massive headroom
- Multifunction meter: level, gain, compression, and clipping
- Stepped controllers: exact and repeatable settings