The Rupert Neve Designs 542 is a single slot, mono 500-series version of the highly popular Portico 5042 Tape Emulator designed to provide the thick and musical colouration associated with working with tapes.

The Rupert Neve Designs 542 features a “true tape” circuitry which brings out 3rd-order harmonics as well as the rounding and compression associated with the sound of tape. The RND 542 is the ideal companion to your digital recording setup helping breathe life and round harshness often associated with digital audio. The “true tape” circuit uses a small magnetic “record head”, coupled with a correctly equalised replay amplifier. This hardware emulation works in the same way as true tape; as the voltage increases on the “record head”, so does the saturation. An additional soft-clipping circuit emphasises 2nd-order harmonics rounding off higher peak transients and can be used tame harsher sounding sources.

The Rupert Neve Designs 542 is extremely flexible and offers many options to change the sound such as a 15/30 IPS switch which emulates the sonic characteristics of tape speed, from the punchy low-end of the 15IPS to the beautifully clean 30 IPS. A pre/post-tape blend control allows you to control the amount of tape distortion is used, and a variable Silk/texture circuitry found in the Portico II series which allows you to fine-tune the harmonic relationship and tonality of the output transformer imparting a tonal colour very reminiscent of early Neve’s vintage class A designs.

Rupert Neve Designs 542 500-series Tape Emulator Overview:

• 15 IPS, Input @ -0 dBu -3dBu @ 28kHz Saturation @ minimum 0dBu @ 10Hz +5dBu Peak @ 60Hz
• Saturation @ maximum -3dBu @ 20kHz -3dBu @ 12.5Hz +2.4dBu Peak @ 60Hz
• 30 IPS, Input @ -0 dBu -3dBu @ 120kHz Saturation @ minimum -3dBu @ 10Hz +3.15dBu Peak @ 125Hz
• Saturation @ maximum -3dBu @ 100kHz -3dBu @ 12.5Hz

• Refer to sweeps on page10 15 IPS, Input @ -0 dBu 0.4% @ 3kHz to 1% @ 175Hz typical
• Saturation @ minimum Greater than 1% below 175Hz typical
• Saturation @ maximum 1% at 6kHz typical 0.3% @ 1kHz to 3% @ 50Hz typical
• 30 IPS, Input @ -0 dBu 1% at 1kHz typical
• Saturation @ minimum 0.6% @ 400Hz 5% @ 20Hz typical
• Saturation @ maximum 1.5% @ 20kHz to 0.4% @ 1kHz typical 0.4% @ 1kHz to 2 %@ 50Hz typical

The Fredenstein Bento 2 is a 2-channel 500-series enclosure with advanced audio routing capabilities.

The Fredenstein Bento 2 allows for the daisy-chaining of modules by engaging the switches on the back panel making easy to create your perfect custom channel strip without resorting to complex cabling configurations. A link switch allows for the linking of two compressors for true stereo operation. A ground lift switch is also included in case of ground loops. In addition the Bento 2 features Aux TRS inputs and outputsworking in parallel to the original XLR connectors for all 10 channels which can be used with certain modules which use this extra port for additional functions such as parallel processing.

The Bento 2 provides a lot of power and will easily feed the most power hungry modules such as valve mic preamps or compressors and uses a universal power supply which means that you can travel anywhere in the world.

Fredenstein Bento 2 Overview: