Great Analog Sound Available to Everyday Musicians: Veteran indie guitarist, engineer and producer Bryce Young launched Austin, TX-based Warm Audio in 2011 because he loves recording, achieving great sounds for himself and others and felt there was a gap in the marketplace at the time. Quite simply, he says, “Great high-quality analog sounds were not available to everyday musicians at everyday prices. If you wanted to own that gear it would cost at least a few thousand dollars.”
Warm Audio manufactures classic analog recording gear with a “no corners cut approach” to design and quality and is able to achieve low prices through high volume manufacturing and low markup. “Our slogan with our first preamp, the WA-12 ($449) was ‘a fully professional preamp at a ridiculous price,’” Young says. He and his team of audio experts bring a collective 50 years of experience to the development, manufacturing marketing and sales of their growing line of mic preamps, compressors, equalizers and microphones. The boutique company has fostered strong relationships and partnerships with premier component manufacturers, including CineMag USA Transformers, Carnhill Transformers (UK) and Tab Funkenwerk.
WA-251 Tube Condenser Microphone: Warm Audio’s most recent product is what they call a “faithful recreation of a legend,” the classic ‘251 which became popular as a vocal mic in the 1960’s and is now considered to be one of the greatest condenser mics ever created. The WA-251 was created to offer a classic microphone design to a new generation of artists at an affordable price. It’s an all vacuum tube, large diaphragm, transformer balanced, multi-pattern, large condenser microphone, based on the classic ‘251. The WA-251 is designed for pro studio, home studio, live, and broadcast applications and sounds great on vocals, acoustic/electric guitars, acoustic/electric bass, drums, piano, strings, brass/woodwind instruments, and an array of other sources.
WA-84: This is another new product, a small diaphragm condenser microphone based on classic microphone circuitry. The WA-84 is a fully discrete Class A design that utilizes a CineMag USA transformer, polystyrene and Wima capacitors and a Fairchild FET. The WA-84 has a very LARGE sound for its small size and uniquely uses a heavy Nickel CineMag transformer in its signal path to warm up and ENLARGE sound sources. It is designed for pro studio, home studio, live, and broadcast applications and sounds great on a variety of instruments and sources, such as; acoustic/electric guitars, acoustic/electric bass, drums, piano, strings, brass & woodwind instruments, and an array of other sources.
WA73-EQ Single Channel British Mic Pre + EQ: ‘73-style preamps have been massively used in recording and live applications for many years and are still considered to be the “Holy Grail” of preamp choices today. The Warm Audio “WA73 Family” consists of single and dual channel ‘73-style preamps (with & w/out EQ), that each pay careful homage to British audio history. WA73-EQ shines on all types of microphones and sources including; vocals, acoustic/electric guitars, bass, drums, percussion, orchestras, keyboards, and even as a tone shaping tool to run partial or complete mixes through. With 80dB of gain and a fully discrete Carnhill Transformer balanced signal path, there’s no recording, mixing or engineering task that the WA73-EQ can’t handle.
Contact Warm Audio, 512-348-6585, warmaudio.com
