I recently got to try a pair of P1s on a Christmas medley that I was producing for the Alien Cowboys, a rock instrumental band from the San Francisco area. We first tried the P1s on lead guitarist Ralph Perucci. Ralph used custom PRS guitars into a Bogner amp with an open back cabinet. We compared the P1s to Neve 1073s, which were rounted into a Neve 33609 stereo limiter/compressor. Obviously, with the USA price of the P1 being $599, there was quite a price difference between the P1 and the Neves.

In this comparison the P1 seemed to have a more "in your face" presence than the Neve chain. The P1 also put across a sense of warmth similar to going to analog tape first. This worked out great since the project was done entirely in Protools. All of Ralph's parts were recorded through the P1s utilizing the built in expander, compressor, and limiter, all of which were very user friendly, and didn't slow down the session for long periods of experimentation.

I had received the P1s after recording Bruce Stevenson's acoustic rhythm guitars, so I couldn't use the P1 while recording his parts. But, I decided to try the P1s as an outboard stereo compressor on Bruce's part through an insert in Protools. The compressor/limiter sounded great. It gave the performance a new energy while remaining transparent and not sounding overly effected.

I knew I'd want to use the P1s for something else in the mix, so a bounce to disk was necessary to preserve them on the acoustic guitars. When it came time to mix, I had to hear what they would sound like on drums. I routed all the drums to a stereo auxiliary input, and inserted the P1s across the L/R drum mix. The P1s had the same result on the drum mix as they did on the acoustic guitars, breathing more energy into not only the sound but the performance too. A compression ratio of 3:1 combined with a fairly fast attack worked perfectly. Also, when I needed one more headphone amp, the P1 got the job here too. The only thing I didn't use it for was mastering.

The P1 performed exceptionally well in all applications, and with so many features, is a great value for the money. You can hear the Alien Cowboy's "Xmasong" and the P1 as a free download at the Alien Cowboys website.

The Safe Sound Audio P1 is distributed in the USA by Front End Audio.

The Bottom Line: The Safe Sound P1 is a good value in a recording channel that performs equally well as a mic pre, compressor, expander and peak limiter. Street price in the USA is $599. Recommended.

Links relating to this review: Safe Sound Audio Front End Audio

Bill Drescher is a producer and engineer with credits from such diverse recording artists as Rick Springfield, Richard Marx, INXS, Bangles, Ringo Starr, Shawn Colvin and Los Lobos. You can contact him at Bill_Drescher20@yahoo.com.