Carnaby 500

[yeroc]

Looks cool! Love my Camden’s and 500R8, I’m a big Cranborne fan.

Looks like this is an EQ in a loose sense? To me it seems to be more of a multiband saturator using Thump on the lower band and Cream on the mid and high band? The Camden essentially does this saturation/eq shaping but without any band/freq specificity.

Not trying to get into all the minutia and semantics of saturation/eq, but more or less that’s what this product is?

If so, cool! I use Fabfilter’s Saturn 2 all the time for this same purpose, great to see multiband saturation in analog form from Cranborne.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and review Hugh!

[Matt Houghton]

News story here for those who've yet to see it.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Not trying to get into all the minutia and semantics of saturation/eq, but more or less that’s what this product is?

More or less, yes. Kind of a 3-band mojo harmonic saturation combined with gentle 3-band EQ. I found it effective and pleasing, although when used on individual instruments I generally ended up with the band gain controls at max or min (or flat) — intermediate positions were mostly ineffective — and tuned the sound with the band centre/corner frequency controls (which determine where in the spectrum the saturation harmonics come in.

Its a musically enhancing form of processing on kick/snare, guitars, basses, synths, and (with care) on lead and backing vocals. Anything a bit weak or plain benefits a lot...

But like the old Aphex Aural Exciter, it can become wearing if used on everything...

The OptoSync function for ganging controls across several adjacent units is utter genius, too.

[Martin Walker]

Nice, and given their reputation, I expect this to sound stunning!

(by the way, anyone remember Craig Anderton's Quadrafuzz )

[Luke Wood SOS News Editor]

Hugh's review is now available for all to read online. Link below:

Carnaby 500 Harmonic EQ

[Hugh Robjohns]

Ooh! That was quick!