I was strolling around this year’s AES in München when I got chatting to Manley’s ‘Vacuum Tube Disciplinarian’, Chris Dauray. As I was in the middle of mixing an album and already using the Variable Mu, I was eager to find out if there were exciting things happening in the Manley camp.

Although the Langevin Mini Massive has been in production for a little while, this trooper of an eq needs a new mention and if you haven’t yet come across it, here’s your chance to find out more.

I had a little play with the Mini Massive on Manley’s booth. Listening options at a trade show aren’t optimal, but even on headphones this unit managed to blow me away.

The Geeky stuff
Manley describes the Mini Massive as the little brother to the Massive Passive we are all familiar with. Housed in its sturdy 1U chassis, it shares most of the same components, has a similar circuit layout and is based on the same passive eq design as its bigger brother.

The gain in the Mini Massive is supplied by four Manley Rapture Amplifiers in combination with series and shunt PSU regulators to provide us with low noise power supply.

The headroom in this unit is truly phenomenal. The back of the Mini Massive offers balanced/unbalanced +4 or unbalanced -10 inputs, making it even more flexible to interface in any set-up.

You’ll also find a three-way toggle switch allowing you to bypass the output transformers, put them in the circuit or push the transformers even more to get that ‘70s Discrete Class A sound. Frequencies in the low band range from 22Hz to 1k to provide you with a Pultec-esque fatness. The band starts from 560Hz and goes all the way up to 27k. Manley Labs has given us higher eq bells in the four highest frequencies resulting in an extremely smooth upper end. The 31-page manual tells you all you need to know and much, much more.

The Langevin Mini Massive in action
Back from München, it was time to try this mean machine out for real. EveAnna Manley and Sable Marketing’s Gary Ash arranged for a unit to be delivered to RAK’s studio 4, where I was mixing an album produced by Elliott Randall.

The Mini Massive did not disappoint. I used it to beef up the bass, make the guitars cut through more and it did wonders to the snare drum. Apart from being smaller, black with red knobs and not getting hot enough to fry your breakfast on, the Mini Massive feels exactly like the Massive Passive.

This box performed so well at the mix stage that it ended up in my personal rack.

When it came to mastering the album, we wanted to maintain the analog chain, so the Mini Massive was hooked up again and put through its paces.

And in the end... there is more air
The Mini Massive is a warm and smooth eq with bucketloads of character. It’ll deliver in almost any situation and is one of the most musical eqs I have had the pleasure working with. Manley has tagged its Langevin brand on this unit as Big Bang For The Buck and boy, is that right.
www.manleylabs.com