Gainlab Audio Bishop: A Fully Tube-Based Channel Strip with Optical Compressor

In this new article we introduce you to Gainlab Audio's Bishop. Gainlab Audio is a Hungarian company that is making its way among the big boys in the world of Pro Audio thanks to its excellent products in terms of components, functionality and design, the latter of which is also very attractive.

The Bishop is a tube channel strip consisting of a dual-stage preamplifier, dual-slope optical compressor and a small equalization section. It sounds unique and is perfect as a vocal chain!

A review of the Gainlab Audio Bishop channel strip

The tube preamplifier

Let's start with the tube preamp section of the Bishop, which is very versatile and ready to accommodate any type of source, line, instrument or microphone.

This features, in addition to the classic attenuation, pad, phantom and phase reversal switches, front and, of course, rear connection options. In addition, the rear connection is separate between microphone and line connection.

Functionality of the gain knob and Drive instrument.

Also very interesting is the possibility of coloring the instrument signal via the special tool called Drive. The gain knob, which is jerky, then allows the user to switch between the first stage and the second stage via the special switch.

Lighting between the first and second preamp stages

Another really eye-catching aspect is the lighting between the first and second preamp stages. This makes it possible to feed and drive microphones of any kind while having up to 60 dB of gain available.

We will find a small area of overlap between the first stage and the second stage, that ranging from 26 dB to 40 dB, but given the nature of the preamplifier's construction structure, we can still have different sound characteristics.

Monitoring the output level with the VU Meter

The backlit VU meter allows the output level to be closely monitored, which is particularly sensitive to how the compressor is operating.

Optical compressor with dual gain reduction indication

The Bishop is equipped with an optical compressor with dual gain reduction indication. It has, in addition, a dual slope design, which means that after the compressor threshold point, another threshold point can be set.

Beyond this point, the drive curve of the compressor becomes much steeper, and the compressor starts operating with a much higher compression ratio.

In practice, this is like applying a multi-stage dynamic control. The first threshold sets a smaller ratio, with a softer compression knee, while the second threshold sets a larger ratio, thus with a harder compression knee.

EQ and filter section on low frequencies

The last part of the channel strip consists of the small equalization section with which you can give air to your recording with a very soft boost on the 20k or 30k.

There is also a filter on the low frequencies to avoid capturing annoying rumble or background noise in the room.

Final evaluation of the Gainlab Audio Bishop

As far as we are concerned, the Bishop from Gainlab Audio is promoted! From the sound to the design, everything matches expectations! The preamplifier is really nice and versatile, and the functionality of the compressor, so responsive, is obviously to be appreciated.To be critical, we can say that perhaps we would have preferred to have a sidechain control on the low frequencies for the compressor section instead of just having a high-pass filter at the end of the chain. But on the other hand it is more of a channel strip than an audio mixing machine so this lack is still justified.