UnFairchild Shootout 2023 FOLLOW UP!!

In this follow-up to the UnFairchild Shootout 2023 video, I respond to comments from Peter Rodriguez (CEO of Heritage Audio).

[@Richard_P_James]

Great video. I have to say, if I had the resources there would no question over which recreation of the Fairchild that I’d get 😎 The passion and talent is very clear in UTA.

[@DanielGlenTimms]

I bought two Heritage Audio 1073/500 units. One I bought new from Guitar Center one year ago. Now I find out they stopped making these in 2017, so apparently it wasn't new. One of them failed, the one I bought new a year ago, and is currently at the distributor hopefully getting fixed. I love the sound and hopefully it will get repaired. I worry about companies that start releasing so many different products and not supporting the ones they have already sold.

[@MillSounds]

Very classy and entertaining response. Popcorn enjoyed!

[@ten4450]

42:40 OWNED!!

[@flyhi1ghkomp]

haha👍

[@AuralFixation_]

Hey Eric, thanks for taking the time to make both these videos-I’ve found them to be very informative. I know you have alluded to your own plug-ins being in the works at the moment and I wondered if an Unfairchild Mk II emulation was in consideration? It just seems like the Unfairchild is so unique in the hardware world that it would be very cool to see that in the digital realm-although that comes with its own set of issues and problems. Thanks again for all you do. Cheers!

[@tootory9506]

Eric, your ability to follow this through and represent UnfairChild... Is exactly what I need to see from a company. It's is this kind of hard work and attention to detail that keeps me loyal to yer company ... I would never buy any of these other re-creations . For a number of reasons, #1 because of what I just mentioned and also because they do not even give you the options on the hardware unit, Thant you so eloquently detailed in your last video ... Kudos to you! thank you for the follow up video and all the best!!! UnFairchild only, all the way!!!

[@PatEmDownEQ]

Both are valid units! Now let's put them to use and make some awesome records!!

[@stereointellect]

If all audio manufacturers would have these conversations in this lighthearted fun, maybe we’d get products that make us all happier over time.. open and honest constructive criticism … didn’t Eric say in an old video, “let’s all check our egos at the door and get better at this!” [music] I’m paraphrasing… fantastic video Eric!

[@rockerbottlevideo]

You're a class act EV. Nice job.

[@MrJasonsanderson]

To give a bit of background, I'm in the process of making a Drip 670 clone. The Tesla 63F1's I'v have matched can be found for about a dollar each because it's not labelled up as 6ba6 and nobody cares to look for them. I actually went overboad with the matching process and when I say matched, I mean down to a nats fart. I could probably have used most of them together, but didn't want to risk it as I couldn't find much information on the needed tolerance, most people just say 'matched'. So I went for perfect. Even though they were mostly close given they are old Soviet Miltary tubes probably would be ok. One thing that struck me about this is if you're buying around 400 in a batch from JJ, which could set you back around 60k USD, Yes, you can sift through a spreadsheet of that dataset and find a match easily. But from what I've heard from 'real word' examples across all the DIY forums, is if you ask for a small amount of matched sets from JJ, what comes back is far from matched resulting in thumping when compression happens. That just going for a lucky dip on 8 won't get you close. More like a 3-1 to get it right. Not my words but I don't have the money to risk at 150USD per tube compared to 1USD per tube. One of the people I spoke to at length about this was Pom from Pom audio, he says he buys sets of 5 for his Pomchild and usually gets 3 or 4 matched sets from that, and has several disagreements with the company about returning the faulty ones. So for me would be the difference betwen spending 3600USD vs 150USD to get 3 matched sets. Apparently these military tubes last longer too. That the JJ's fizzle out after a year. Just thought I'd clear up why it's such a no brainer for me to choose the option I have. I understand from your point as a big company where you have the money to drop 60k on a huge batch like that and sift the dataset to get actual matches. I just wish JJ was as bothered about small purchase orders and packaged actual reliable matched sets correctly for 670 builds. They don't, which leaves the little guys/girls with no option. I think it comes down to money. i'd love to see you do a video experiment where you order 8 tubes from them without them knowing who you are and just stick them an Unfairchild and see what happens. Haha :) I appreciate you dude, great video and definetly puts a little more trust my way with JJ, glad you're getting such good results from them.

[@mrwev]

And I appreciate you filling in the details on your experience and being so clear and objective with your comments! There is definitely a good case to be made for the 6BA6/63F1s. If there was an undeniably superior choice, we would all just be doing that and there would be nothing to argue about, haha! Its interesting that the commonly perceived experience with JJs is so different than ours. It’s odd that the consensus is that you need to purchase a 3 to 1 quantity to get usable sets with JJs yet our latest build of 25 resulted in a 1.005 to 1 overage. There is something not adding up with this. If 3 to 1 is more accurate than you would think that we would end up with 400 unmatchable/unusable tubes to get our 25 matched sets of 8 or at least something remotely resembling that. For some reason that is not happening for us. We did make a small change in our approach with the UnFairchild that would in theory make it less sensitive to differences in matching and also help with the longevity. I never had a chance to quantify it but it seems that maybe it is making a bigger difference than any of us anticipated. I’m curious about the experiment you suggested as well. I’ll see if I can find a time to do that :) Thank you for the comments!!

[@ten4450]

we just gonna pretend that everyone who owns a UTA-mpdi doesn't say its the best sounding most versatile mic pre ever made? More content on this!! Im saving up to buy one. Love you Eric!!

[@Tony-kc5fi]

Oh Peter...you, im afraid got well and truly owned. I admire your bravery to take on EV with your comments in the previous vid, to go up against someone with quite clearly a unique position in the audio world....not only extremely passionate about the technolgy, extremely successful in its application and with the tenacity to succeed in the business of show...you i applaud. Having said all that, to do it knowing your company quite clearly had lifted some of UTA ideas was... well, setting yourself up for a schooling😂 I have a limited knowledge of compression, absolutely zero knowledge of the pros and cons of different valves and components, will never be able to enter into this world of purchasing these devices but i thoroughly enjoyed this video so thankyou EV keep on being a nerd of the highest order 🥂

[@dylanfischer2527]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qaerZZ-mn8Spabc&pp=ygUIaGVyY2hpbGQ%3D After watching this, I am thoroughly convinced that Peter is not only the owner of heritage but also the designer while Eric Valentine is the owner of his company but has little to no true knowledge on design. He clearly has engineers who did the design work and dumbed down the answers to make it easier for him to understand. As a electrical engineer with over 30 years of experience under my belt, Eric's arguments about the heritage’s design are ignorant at best and purposefully misleading at worst.

[@patrox247]

This needs to be said. These are the type of disagreements and arguments we need to be having in the world. It is so refreshing to get a break from people arguing about their stupid political opinions.

[@prairieboyTV]

Eric, it would be fun / interesting to also throw in the plug in versions to the mix / shootout in terms of how they sound on the same program material, etc. Insightful 2 parter - thank you!

[@flyhi1ghkomp]

Finish watching this video. Very educational and interesting. It's like watching an argument between Mk1 and MK2, but designed by two different companies. I will get a mk2 when I can afford one.

[@soulflower8687]

So, would I be right in summarizing that Heritage has copied Undertone Unfairchild's Link/Mode section and the Unfairchild's output tube section, then given kickbacks to dealers who flog their product, and now is mouthing off about the very company they copied from ? Sounds like hard business tactics from someone who thinks a lot more about money than audio.

[@hauntedbytheliving1175]

Yes. Eric had no idea that it was HIS “heritage” for sale by the “friendly” competition 🤣

[@m9shamalan]

not output tubes, sidechain tubes.

[@adamscott1142]

Nerds arguing about nerd stuff, love it!!! My lucky day

[@recordthechord]

You are definitely a jack of all trades. I’d hire you any day of the week to be my attorney 😂. Thank you for including us in this audio gear nerd battle! Quite entertaining…and illuminating.

[@ml4319]

Question: Do you keep track of the tube data sets for each Unfairchild you sell? If not, how would you be able to send the correct tube for a client that has one broken tube? Asking cause I have gone through the process of tube change with another fairchild clone with 6386s and it wasn't fun. Thanks for an interesting video.

[@mrwev]

Hey! that is a great question! and yes we do! Even though we wouldn't necessarily have to keep track of what serial was installed to what unit because the serial is printed on the tube itself. If there is a tube that needs to be replaced, the user can simply tell us what the serial # is on the tube and we could look through the data of the other tubes we have in our inventory and find one that matches the closest. Here's the crazy thing. We have not been doing it simply because it has not been necessary. Generally, We have had no problems grabbing a tube at random as a replacement. Just because the random approach has worked well in the past doesn't mean it couldn't be better. Because of your question, I just called the whole team and told them we have to implement this immediately. It would be easy to do and I think we could ensure that any tubes we sent out would be a match 100% of the time. thank you so much for asking this question!!! I LOVE KZbin!!!! haha!

[@ml4319]

Haha great! Glad to be of help=) @@mrwev

[@antoniorobbins6768]

Undertone Audio’s Unfairchild for Life

[@CarstenGoeke]

Hey Eric, at 52:10 you explain the scenarios for using the Unfairchild. Do you have multiple units or do you print every track like guitars, drums (bus? individual intruments?), vocals etc. one after another? Thank you ✌🏼

[@mrwev]

I have 2 UnFairchilds in my room. My workflow allows me to use them on individual instruments when I am either tracking or prepping to mix. By the time I am mixing, I am using very little of my hardware outboard gear. It is all baked into the tracks at that point. I then have 4 channel of UnFairchild available in the mix and typically one will go on the mix bus. I keep one at the factory calibration setting and one at the softer low bias current setting. Occasionally I will use the high bias current setting in mastering but then I put it back to the factory setting. The high bias current setting is a great sound but it will shorten the life span of the tubes so I tend to not leave it that way :)

[@CarstenGoeke]

@@mrwev Interesting. Thank you ✌🏼

[@DMKahn]

Others can say they know about Fairchild clones, but none of them were willing to bring theirs onto a nude survival show besides Eric Valentine 😂

[@a_z_e_t]

Hey Eric, great two-part series on fairchild clones, tech geekery and tube facts. Ad matching tubes using modern manufacturers - interestingly other pro audio gear vendors do the same thing as you do with JJ & other tube fabs (of the like 6 world wide that are left). It isn't the first time I've heard this. IGS audio builds a few compressors with tubes, a fairchild-like 3u mastering comp called the tubecore, and a 500 series 2-slot wide version (mono) also using OTS tubes from - who would have guessed - JJ. their philosophy: everythig is matched as all tubes come pre matched from the tube manufacturer, which is possible if you don't have to rely on NOS tubes from some stock somwhere in eastern europe to keep cost down. A friend of mine actually has both units in his mastering chain and prefers using 2xtubecore500 over the much more expensive tubecore mastering version in 3u 19 inch rack format. They somehow sound better. I never had the money for the rack version and have little interest in it but the 500 series model is excellent - as are many IGS models, their engineering is supreme with excellent parts and top-notch recreations and mods/enhancements of old outboard units or their own inventions. To quote the manufacturer: "Every single TUBECORE 500 is hand made with high quality, matched components (1% metal film resistors, 2.5% Wima caps). It is equipped with JJ tubes and individually calibrated to give you the unique and unspoiled experience of one of the best Vari-mu compressors in history. We have spent hundreds of hours designing the TUBECORE, to make sure that it is as simple to use as it is versatile" --www.igsaudio.com/tc500 they're pretty much doing the same thing. I spent some time researching tubes a while back, it's just interesting how few fabs are left nowadays and who owns them (with electro harmonix having a big market cap owning the big russian supplier) - some of the best ones I could come up with were in reality new tubes from JJ out of slovakia. Another option is military NOS tubes from eastern europe. A lot of them have been kept in ideal conditions for years as they've been spares for things like early rocket guidance systems and used for 35-50 years. But it's not a replacement for well made new tubes. And most tube fabs will make high quality versions hand made if you pay them for it - depending on the product it may be worth it. But with production lines as they're today it's not a huge deal to get regular ones instead: fully computerized production, Q&A lines will make far less production errors than well trained engineers did back in the day hand-assembling tubes for early radar etc. Human error is a big factor, even after many years of hand assembly mistakes happen (just talk to the top of the line microphone manufacturers like mojave - where everything is built by hand by people that have been doing it for ages) - mistakes happen and it causes overhead and you have to throw parts out if you can't fix the issue. Back in the day the chance of a mistake being spotted was much less than today with all the automated quality assurance and testing procedures bigger manufacturers have in place. Even optical analysis (what used to be checking by eye if everything looks alright) is now much faster, more efficient and exact being done computerized and magnified. NOS is a big market. it always will be due to guitar players swearing by specific amps. and some people make huge amounts of money with it. That being said; with so little vacuum tube manufacuters left it's highly unlikely old designs will be put into production again, newer designs perform better, are more solid and usually last much longer. And it's a really big investment setting up a production line for anything that hasn't been produced in decades even more so for something as specific as vacuum tubes. I think UTA made a good decision going with JJ, as did many other audio vendors. IGS: www.igsaudio.com

[@chrisdover8507]

Edit: It was a dealer at a very well known retailer that told me unfairchilds were no longer in production. It was a direct email to me.

[@Studio8Recording]

Again. My money is with Eric, each and every time. I'm not even sure you needed to respond to this Eric.

[@sharbono]

this is great!

[@jjslc]

I think this type of video solidifies a product more than a shoot out. Transparent and to the point, I hope for my ears and UTA you sell out of unfairchilds all the time.

[@blacksmithhammerhandle]

I'm gonna start a pro audio company called Pubic Heritage Audio and release the Pubic Herchild. It'll have all these features...

[@BullyMaguire4ever]

UnFairchild is undisputed king of Fairchilds.

[@m9shamalan]

very well done. as usual.

[@chrisdover8507]

I too was told UTA were not making Unfairs. No idea who told me that though, but it was a dealer in a forum or thread/post. I like heritage, I own their 1073 and love it. Hands down I’d buy a unfairchild over a heritage though.

[@Richard_P_James]

There's now a new company called Fairchild Recording Equipment LLC with a limited run of reissue 670s. MSRP $35,000... Wonder what what tubes they are using.

[@kelvinfunkner]

Peter Rodriguez saying that he doesn't find the extra features of the UnFairchild "interesting" and then using some of the exact features of the UnFairchild on the Herchild is absolutely laughable! And there's not an engineer alive who heard the original shootout video that wouldn't want the extra features of the UnFairchild...especially with the punchy forward sounding flavour option!

[@satch72]

We live in incredible times when multiple companies can make recreations of 50-60 year old equipment and nerd out in a public forum over nuance differences. haha

[@bernoulli1]

I will probably never be able to afford an unfair child… So I can hardly wait ‘til Eric starts an undertone Audio plugin company. Please make an unfair child plugin.

[@likovo1]

There is a huge price difference in Europe for these two units, the Herchild is around 10k € and the Unfaichild distributors ask 14k. It is also easier to get a demo for the Herchild, a lot of units on stock, couldn’t find a single Unfairchlid on stock fromthe dealers list in EU. Based on the last two videos from Eric I would actually prefer the Unfairchild, but considering the price and availability in the EU it simply doesn’t make sense.

[@oliviermpeeters]

14K ? wow.. happy I got mine many moons ago when it was still sub 10K... Recently added the UNFa1 accessory which makes it even more versatile. Not sure where you are in EU but if you happen to travel to Belgium, you're more than welcome to test it in our studio ! :)

[@beyondgrooveproductions]

Get in touch with arda suppliers

[@curtisburns]

Only $3000 difference between these units if you’re buying one in Australia. If I was in the market I know which one I’d be getting.

[@lovebirdsmusic]

fully modded/expanded pomchild owner here - very grateful to learn all the details about this wonderful circuit! any word about the transformers? i liked the idea that i could have the original 60s transformers built in the unit.

[@CarstenGoeke]

Lucky day 😀✌🏼

[@cristopherjohansson1323]

Where is Peter's respond? You go Eric!

[@dylanfischer2527]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qaerZZ-mn8Spabc&pp=ygUIaGVyY2hpbGQ%3D This seems to be his response even though he doesn't call out Eric Valentine by name from what I can tell After watching this, I am thoroughly convinced that Peter is not only the owner of heritage but also the designer while Eric Valentine is the owner of his company but has little to no true knowledge on design. He clearly has engineers who did the design work and dumbed down the answers to make it easier for him to understand. As a electrical engineer with over 30 years of experience under my belt, Eric's arguments about the heritage’s design are ignorant at best and purposefully misleading at worst.

[@CameronEarlyMusic]

praying for an unfairchild plug in

[@ten4450]

sometimes I feel like people who disagree with Eric are losing their hearing or deaf. Gotta be the only explanation.. Like just stop and listen.

[@danolivier4899]

When I grow up I want to be an Eric Valentine

[@michaelmacdonald7748]

My favourite thing about introducing an 'UnFairchild Shootout' is that it sounds like an 'unfair child shootout', wherein we make our children compete against each other using wholly unfair metrics.

[@charlesswicegood3759]

TKO

[@shakespearethief2773]

Diverting from topic slightly, would love to hear a shootout between UTA unfairchild and the UAD plugin.

[@damienlott]

Eric has already made it a couple times in some videos. Not sounding anything close, uad's attack is way faster, it squashes the living hell out of music, while the unfairchild retains the transient and lets the music breathe in time with its release

[@noisesoundtonevibe]

@@damienlott I will add that Eric found the closest plugin that is currently on the market was the UBK AR-1 (can't remember exactly which video showed it)... But he has hinted a few times at an upcoming plugin that he is collaborating on. So if you want the closest thing today, go for the AR-1. If you can wait, you might want to shoot it out with the upcoming UnFairchild (I presume) plugin.

[@chrisdover8507]

How do you feel about others ripping off your Unfairchild design? Stam cough cough

[@breakburrito]

$5k for a NOS VF14? Why doesn't one of these tube companies make a reasonable quality recreation and undercut these unreasonable prices for NOS? What did the Germans do that we can't do now? Was it materials, construction quality, etc.?

[@Am6-9]

Probably just not worth it. Very niche market.

[@natlove219]

Ok great comments and vid. I’m going to be petty and say that the name Herchild is just awful. Why not H660 ffs?

[@liemisenkeittiossa]

Peter really hurt its Heritage Audio’s image. Should ’t had this fight lol, Heritage lost 6-0 with K.O. to Eric & Unfairchild. Will not buy Heritage Audio stuff, bad losers are the worst.

[@BullyMaguire4ever]

It is a bad look for sure.