Louder Than Liftoff Chroma

I’m always looking out for cool, new, and inspiring gear. I spend so much time twisting knobs and pressing buttons trying to hit that sweet spot. I want the gear that I use to be just as inspiring to me as the music that I’m working on. The Louder Than Liftoff Chroma is one of the most inspiring pieces of gear I’ve ever used. I’ve been very fortunate to have worked in some really amazing studios with some of the best gear money can buy. There’s something to be said for a piece of equipment that makes whatever you’re recording sound amazing from the moment you pull up the fader. Louder Than Liftoff came on my radar a few years ago when I was working on a studio build just outside of Boston. The owner of the studio had 10 of these interesting looking EQs called the Chop Shop. I was immediately intrigued. I go for pairs of things so I can see why he would have a pair or two of these EQs but not 10. After trying them out I totally understood, Louder Than Liftoff is making gear that is completely new and has its own identity. I’m pretty tired of reissues and remakes of classic gear that kind of sounds like that one holy grail compressor or preamp. I understand that these are tried and true ideas but the kind of sounds were capturing today aren’t the same as what they were recording 50 years ago. I want something new that takes this into consideration. I initially was interested in the Chroma because I needed a few more high-quality preamps. I had recently sold some gear and I was looking at a ton of different options for mic pres. I ended up going with the Chroma because it isn’t just a preamp. There’s a fet DI right on the faceplate, a high and low shelf on each channel, a color button that introduces an amazing interchangeable module into the signal path, a retro button. and an option to feed one channel into the other. There’s also phantom power, a polarity switch, and a high gain mode which I really appreciate since I’m a huge fan of low output ribbon mics. This thing sounds amazing on everything but really seems to shine on acoustic instruments. I love the high and low shelf and I really enjoy adding a little bit of the color. The color modules can be interchanged with any of the modules that Louder Than Liftoff makes, I chose the pentode module to start with which is a tube emulation. After trying it out during a few sessions I decided to try running a mix I was working on through it. I quickly realized that this thing was going to be on every mix I do going forward. I started a new mix with the high and lof shelf engaged and the color module on with the mix around 50% and the gain around 50%. I tend to tweak how much of the color module I use on a song by song basis but both of the shelves are a must for me. I find myself doing much less additive EQ on individual tracks, and I tend to get to a finished mix much faster. Recalls are super easy since the knobs are all detented. I’ve since become the owner of quite a few other Louder Than Liftoff products, I’m so happy I discovered this box. It totally changes the impact my mixes have and I love mixing into it.