Review by Roger Nichols
Some people add a certain charisma to the recording session by just showing up. Some of us need help. My help came from SPL (Sound Performance Lab). The Charisma 9527 is a box containing eight tubes with line level in and out for each tube channel.
On the front of the charisma, there are three knobs, a bypass switch and two indicator lights for each channel. The knobs are labeled DRIVE, CHARISMA, and OUTPUT. The switch is for BYPASS on the individual channel.
DRIVE
This knob sets the drive level of the tube. This gives you complete control over the tubes saturation threshold. The higher the setting, the more tube harmonics are being generated and added into the signal, along with tube limiting which increases the density of the tubes distortion.
CHARISMA
The CHARISMA control works much the same as a hard knee - soft knee adjustment on a limiter. At the HARD setting, the signal remains clean up to the limiting point, where the tube limiting jump in with both feet. This adjustment tends to make the sound punch out at you with crisp crunchiness. (You can quote me on that.)
At the SOFT end of the control, the tube-ness sneaks in gradually and low level signals start getting the additional harmonics. The results is a smooth, warm sound. There are more harmonics here than at the HARD setting.
OUTPUT
This control is used to set the output level of the channel to compensate for the level increase due to the setting of the DRIVE control. When you drive the tube harder, it gets louder and you have to turn it down somewhere. This makes it easier to compare a signal with and without processing while maintaining the same relative level.
Now What?
That's it. What in the world do I use this thing for, you ask? Just about everything, I answer. I have used devices in the past to add tube distortion to instruments, and I like it. The problem is usually that you want to perform the tube compression on more than one channel. With only one device, you have to set up your crunchiness for the first channel, record it to tape, and then work on the next channel. What usually happens is that after you start hearing the interaction between the two crunch channels, you need to go back and change the original sound. It usually takes a few trips back and forth to get the final sound you were looking for.
The Charisma is an eight channel box, so you can easily hear the interaction among multiple instruments that are all being crunched. You can also set different channels for different parts of the song, and then switch back and forth between them as necessary without losing your presets.
I tried it on acoustic guitars, and it warmed them right up. If they got any warmer I would start worrying about spontaneous combustion. Drums sounded great. I used a little warmth on the overheads and tube limited the kick and snare. It sounded just like two inch 16 track analog tape (which I am not allowed to use anymore). Tube compression on a sequenced Moog bass line lept out at you like a car-jacker from behind a bus bench.
Now that I have a Charisma, maybe I will get more respect when I walk into a studio. Try it sometime.
Manufacturer: SPL Charisma Model 9527.
Application: Warm sound for digital recordings. Add crunch to direct guitars & keyboards.
Summary: The opposite of Wintery.
Strengths: Multiple channels, line level, balanced or unbalanced without level change, sounds great.
Weaknesses: No digitally controlled settings for memory storage of parameters. What, am I supposed to remember where I set the knobs?