Review: Harrison 32Classic Mix Strip

US company Harrison has a long and storied history, building great mixing consoles and other audio gear. From personal experience I can say that mixing on a vintage large-format Harrison console is an absolute joy – the overall sound and feature set are at least as good as any of the other famed names in audio. In recent times (since Audiotonix [think: Digico, SSL, A&H, Calrec etc] purchased the Harrison IP) the brand has been busy building on that legacy while making the classic sounds of Harrison preamps, EQs and compressors more accessible to a new generation of producers and engineers. Key to this ongoing renewal is the company’s willingness to explore new ways to integrate their classic designs into modern pro and project studio workflows. As well as continuing to design and build new console models, Harrison has released a new cohort of processing units that look to offer the Harrison sound in both 19-inch rackmount and 500 series formats. Perhaps the most intriguing of these is the 32Classic Mix Strip which we’ll look at here.

WHAT BIRD IS THAT?

At first glance the 32Classic Mix Strip’s faceplate is reminiscent of many channel strips on the market. Upon closer inspection however, the compact 1U size of the unit reveals its multi-tasking abilities as both a tracking front end and as the building block of a bespoke mixing system – thus the moniker ‘Mix Strip’. The layout is tidy and well structured, with signal flowing from left to right starting with a well-endowed line and mic preamp, progressing through high- and low-pass filters and a four-band parametric EQ section before arriving at a routing, panning and volume control section. The build quality is very good and all knobs and buttons feel smooth and precise in operation while the colour coding (very reminiscent of the old consoles) does an excellent job of clearly delineating the various functions. I really appreciate this last aspect of the 32Classic Mix Strip as rackmounted units with lots of controls can quickly become tricky to operate without the kind of thoughtful layout and labelling smarts on display here.

The larger picture, then, is that purchasing multiple 32Classic Mix Strip units will allow users to cascade them and build a high quality multi-channel rackmounted mixing solution. Applications that spring to mind are as a drum tracking and mixing sidecar, a mobile multi-channel podcasting rig, an analogue sub-mixer running alongside a DAW mix session… the list goes on. Harrison has made the cascading of multiple units simpler by incorporating daisy-chained AC power I/O, compact mix bus connection ports with supplied ribbon cables, pre- and post-fader outputs as well as insert sends and returns, all on the back panel. Another thoughtful touch is the duplication of the rear XLR mic input on the front panel in a combination socket that also accepts Hi-Z instrument inputs. The 32Classic Mix Strip covers a lot of bases in terms of functionality, so let’s take a deeper dive into it’s sonics and performance in real-world situations.

ALL STRIP. NO TEASE

I had the Harrison 32Classic Mix Strip in my studio for a month or so of varied tracking and mixing duties. My first impressions of the preamp stage (lifted in its entirety from the large-format console design) were that it had a slightly forward upper midrange married to solid lows and a sweet top end. Over time I found the mic pre to be a very versatile tool for anything from vocals to strings to drum overheads to double bass. The clear midrange character, far from being a limitation, was a great strength and I quickly came to rely on it in a wide variety of tracking situations. The pre is transformer balanced and comes equipped with phantom, phase reverse and -20dB pad buttons as well as switches with status indicator LEDs for line and Hi-Z inputs. Using the unit’s line input obviously opens up access to the EQ section further down the line in post production processing situations and it also has a full and open sound with a nice mixture of warmth and clarity. With outputs being available both pre and post fader at the mixer section, the 32Classic Mix Strip is also very flexible in terms of gain staging and can be driven hard at the input for subtly aggressive tones and a touch of harmonic saturation. Dialling the input back delivers lovely clean signal that shines on a wide variety of source materials and marries well with dynamic, condenser and ribbon microphone types. The input stage also houses a very handy two-colour indicator LED which shows green with the presence of signal and flags clipping with a warning red. At the end of the input section an insert button brings the rear panel insert send and return XLRs into play prior to the signal hitting the EQ section.