VC1Qcs question
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Ted, As I mentioned in my VC3 thread, I own other joemeek gear of your design and love it all. I’m not sure if you designed the original JM47 microphone (black with the green lettering), but I have tested it against other mics and it is superb.
I was having some fun last night in my backyard home studio and decided to compare the MQ3, the VC3 (another one I have and identical to the one you just repaired), and my VC1Qcs just to hear the differences between them on vocals. I haven’t started tracking vocals on my projects yet, so most of them have only been used for micing guitar, bass d.i., and drums thus far, but of course they produce fantastic sounds on those. This testing gave me a good chance to hear the current sense circuit in detail on vocals, as well as the enhancer (on the VC3 and VC1Qcs…of course the MQ3 doesn’t have an enhancer). All sounded good, but the VC1Qcs sounded absolutely brilliant! I tested it with and without the enhancer engaged, and the enhancer was what really made it shine. It is a beautiful preamp with a lot of power (gain) and detail, fantastic if lightly compressed (slope ratio on ‘1’ and compression knob about 4), and EQ at unity. But after dialing in the enhancer circuit for my voice, this is what really sent it over the top. Compared to the other two devices (which both sounded good on vocals…VC3 good, MQ3 better in my opinion) it just captured and controlled everything I was singing into it, like magic. I have a good tone to my voice but am not trained in any way, so my voice sounds average as a singer into a mic; not fantastic and not bad. I swear this box made me sound like a seasoned professional. I was singing a capella,
You’ve Lost That Loving Feelingover and over as I was comparing and tweaking, and the big box made vocal magic. 
Anyway (and finally
😳 ) to my question: If I set the slope knob on the VC1Qcs higher than 2 or drove the compression too hard on the vox, I would hear some overload fizziness/distortion. I was hitting the levels hard, but it seemed more an artifact of the compressor. It’s not a big deal to me because I would never want my vocals THAT compressed, but I was curious if it was normal for the compressor to do this. I can’t remember hearing it on snare drum when I run the snare mic through it, but maybe I’m not listening close enough. Any thoughts on this?Sorry for the question, got it figured out. It was the high pass filter engaged interacting with what seemed like compression and high input levels. Turned off the HP filter, dialed the compression a little harder, and backed off the input level a little. Attached is a photo of my JM47 (not sure if that was your design?) with my Fletcher-designed preamp section in the rack just to share with you that your products are still being used, cherished, and appreciated! Thank you for your kind comments….. it’s really good to hear of engineers/artists using the equipment properly and getting good results. I agree with you that a good mic amp and the enhancer are the real answer to vocal recording, all my best sounds were achieved that way.
I started to wonder when I read about the odd distortion… the compressors just don’t distort! I have not heard of the HPF causing any distortion… the overload margin should be the same as the surrounding stages, well, it’s just an oddity.
That mic you are using is actually not one of mine, that one is a capacitor mic designed and made by ‘797’ company in China and badged ‘JoeMeek’, but never mind that, it’s a good mic with a similar performance to my earlier JM47 design.
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