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How to Choose 500-Series Gear

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500 Series gear lets you pick, mix, and match components to create a setup that’s space-conscious, modular, flexible, configurable, customizable, affordable, and offers you the best of the best in analog sound quality. We have the experience and knowledge to help you choose the 500 Series gear that best suits your needs, tastes, and budget. Give us a call at (305) 595-3002.


Your 500 Series rig all starts with the chassis, more commonly called a 500 Series rack. Each module fits into a slot in your rack (some modules may span 1 or even 3 slots), and racks come in many configurations ranging from two to 10 slots. Some are tabletop units, and others are designed to mount in a standard 19″ equipment rack. Your 500 Series rack isn’t just the housing for your modules, it’s their power supply and their primary I/O, commonly including either multichannel DB-25 connectors or discrete balanced I/O such as XLR or TRS jacks. Some 500 Series racks include complex signal routing, including internal patching, stereo linking, and even full audio summing.

500 Series preamps come in the form of vintage tube designs, classic solid-state console re-creations, and unique creations that offer an expanded range of tone shaping and coloration. Whatever type of mic preamp you want, it’s probably available in a 500 Series module. Most of these preamps provide 48V phantom power and include a hi-Z instrument input, and impedance-matched ribbon mic inputs are fairly common as well. Some 500 Series preamps even add channelstrip elements such as EQ and dynamics processing, adding even more value for the real estate.

Many 500 Series compressors are based on classic models, which have been redesigned to fit into the 500 Series format. You can choose from a number of types, ranging from opto to VCA to FET models. Many 500 Series compressors include sidechain capability and stereo linking unavailable in the original compressor designs. Despite their scaled-down size, you’ll still find detailed VU metering and all the controls you’d expect. What’s more, 500 Series dynamics processors today include many original designs, as manufacturers take advantage of this low-cost format to try out unique approaches to compression, expansion, and more.

500 Series equalizers range from classic parametric designs to precision graphic EQs, with a selection of specialty frequency shapers in the mix as well. In most cases, these EQs are as close to the actual EQ sections of the consoles that inspired them as it gets, including many of the most popular 3- and 4-band parametric EQs in music-production history. Some of these models even allow for greater tone-shaping freedom than ever right inside your custom 500 Series rig.

There's a wide selection of 500 Series effects processors from digital delays and harmonic generators to analog distortion boxes and much more. They're perfect for live signal chains, and some creative guitarists use 500 Series gear as part of their live rigs. Along with effects modules, the number of 500 Series specialty processors and signal routing tools available in the 500 Series format continues to grow rapidly. Impedance-matching direct boxes, reamping systems, headphone amps, and even mixers allow you to create complex signal flows for specific applications. These specialty modules are particularly handy for integrating guitars into your rig, but they’re also ideal for tasks such as analog summing a signal distribution. If there’s a need, then there’s probably a 500 Series module for it.
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