Modern Saint
Starve your Fear, Feed your Dream!
Note: I have not had any real hands on experience with this product, so the following review is pure speculation, mostly based upon wishful thinking.)
The unassumingly named Banjo Eliminator may just be the most anticipated piece of gear to hit the market in decades. Not since the likes of the fabled U47 microphone, or maybe the Fairchild 670, and possibly even magnetic tape itself, has a development of such potential benefit to good sound been unleashed upon the world.
Clad in a handsome blue casing with vintage style white bakelite controls, the unit is somewhat unique in that it appears to have only an input, and no output, thus creating the perfect "high impedance air gap" for the intended use as banjo reinforcement. This is a tremendous cost saving design by the manufacturer, Emma Electronic, as otherwise I thought perhaps they would have to use some sort of adaptive phase cancellation, or maybe extreme limiting combined with some well-tuned noise removal algorithm. But, simple is good, and in theory at least it should work fine.
The unit, if it exists, fills a desperate need amongst audio professionals everywhere to "clean up" otherwise decent sounding tracks, and especially live performances, by eliminating one source of audio contamination that has plagued the music world since its spawning in the 1600's, with widespread infestation by the middle of the 1850's. The distinctive clucking plunk of the "dead animal on a stick" actually has made it onto recordings occasionally, although the huge majority of "hit songs" going all the way back to Mozart have skillfully avoided using it. Probably one reason why they were hits.
If you are like me, you may have tried many "workarounds" over the years to emulate what the Banjo Eliminator so effortlessly accomplishes.
Because truth be told, no matter what mic and pre-amp you put on the instrument, you can never get far from its characteristic sound. Or as some would say, you can never get far enough away from it. But with the Banjo Eliminator, at least you'd have a fighting chance.
If this product catches on, and one cannot imagine that it wouldn't, it is easy to envision a whole slew of similar, and almost as useful, products, such as: "Same Drum Fill Always Randomizer", or "Busy Busy Busy Bass Simplifier", and perhaps "Turn Lame Ohhs Into Real Lyrics-izer" , among many, many other possibilities.
For an immediate, real-world example of where the Banjo Eliminator could be extremely useful, and perhaps preserve someone's sanity, I have two words: Taylor Swift.
I am curious as to what others may think of this product?
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/reviews/704336-1-banjo-eliminator.html
