Fredenstein HD Commander – Remote Module for HD Reference Microphone Preamp Fredenstein

The Commander Remote Control unit looks very similar to the HD Reference and notably ALL of the controls are included. Only the meters are missing on the Commander, as there is no audio involved in this box to meter. In the control room, one typically uses the meters of the recording device. However, the Commander does have a two color LED to show signal presence when lit GREEN or near clipping (+24 dBm) when RED. Generally, if the LED is lit GREEN and not flashing RED, you are probably in the safe zone as far as the HD Reference, but you still probably want to avoid overloading the recording device, so those meters are worth watching. However, the best thing is to use your ears and if it is seeming like there may be some unwanted warmth and mid range build up, probably turning the Gain down will help. Alternatively, maybe you want some warmth and color, so increasing the Gain should get you there, but you may have to turn down the gain elsewhere or insert a compressor after the HD Reference to prevent overloading an analog to digital converter.

The Commander does have one button that the HD Reference does not, but does have a corresponding indicator. This is the LOCK button. If the HD Reference pre-amp is located some distance away, it is possible that someone might push a button accidentally (like P48) or just tampers with settings.

Fredenstein includes a pair of short 3 meter mic cables with the Commander remote. We encourage you to place the HD Reference in close proximity to the microphones and use mic cables that are as short as possible. Long cables can introduce appreciable capacitance into the chain. In extreme cases, this might attenuate high audio frequencies. In less extreme cases cable capacitance can affect phase response at 20K and can be a difficult load for some microphones to drive and maintain the optimum wave-shapes. To get full benefit of the very wide bandwidth and fast impulse response of the HD Reference , we do suggest short low capacitance mic cables. Good shielding and low micro-phonics can also be important, depending on the gain needed and whether phantom power is used. This is why we include a pair of good quality short cables with the Commander.

The control cable for the HD Reference can be a typical balanced mic cable. The jacks are labeled “Commander” at the preamp and “Preamp” at the Commander remote control. The communication technology is similar to 2400 baud modems that we used in the 90’s to connect computers to phone lines. The signal can be patched through a conventional patch bay and run significant distances. The signal is transformer isolated, balanced and low level to avoid cross-talk to audio lines. And like a phone line signal it is bi-directional, so one cannot route it through digital snakes that are intended to convert and pass a signal in one direction. The main thing to avoid is routing this signal to the console because, frankly, it just sounds like an old computer modem.