Drum room mic compressor

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ex351d

Member
I am looking to improve my drum sound by adding a pair of room mics to my setup. I noticed a huge improvement when people add room mics especially to the snare drum sound. Most likely I am going for the Chinese long ribbons. I have ART pro MPA 2 channel preamp for the ribbons. I am looking for a budget compressor. I was between the FMR RNP and RNLA. I would also consider other compressors of around the same price.
 
The art pro-vla is one that does a decent job squishing room mics. It's very cheap for how well it works and how useful it is.
 
If you can find a secondhand DBX 163, 163A or 163X, that would be very interesting. I have 2 X's and and A and they are awesome. 163's are only mono, but if you get 2 they can be links to act stereo.

Alan.
 
ex351d said:
I am looking to improve my drum sound by adding a pair of room mics to my setup. I noticed a huge improvement when people add room mics especially to the snare drum sound. Most likely I am going for the Chinese long ribbons. I have ART pro MPA 2 channel preamp for the ribbons. I am looking for a budget compressor. I was between the FMR RNP and RNLA. I would also consider other compressors of around the same price.
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The RNC..? Yes. It can go fast enough to damn near eliminate a snare whack from a drum mix. Or anywhere in between.
 
It is hard here to find second hand items, so the DBX163 is out of my reach. I would love to get a pair of DBX160, but at the moment they are out of my budget. The DBX166 is within my budget but I am not sure about its sound. The FMR RNC and RNLA are cheap for a stereo compressor. The ART PRO VLA is a bit more expensive but I would justify that for the 2 channel ability. I am not sure which one would be the best to squash the room mics. Versatility is great but at the moment I am looking for the room sound especially to improve the snare sound.
 
I really like the provla because it's an opto compressor, so it always seems to react the way you want it to for how hard you are hitting it.

But for this sort of duty, just about any compressor will do. If you are really squashing the room mics hard, you will be altering the sound so much that the absolute fidelity won't really be an issue. If you are planning to do subtle compression, you need the nicer compressor.
 
ex351d said:
Would something as cheap as a DBX 166 or Alesis 3632 do it for this application?
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Shure' :>) Given the 3632 might be a bit nasty given it's rep- but would it even matter much ? Don't know.
The old 166's is nice decnt comps, all be it one speed- attack and release, so limited in the shaping' you can do.
I have the newer 166 as well w/ all the bells and whitsles' in the pa rack, but haven't used it for this.
My guess is the old 166 if hit hard might have it's own 'swack thing kind of like the 160 has at the top of a hard hit.
 
The alesis gets dull sounding when compressing. If you don't think that will be a problem...
 
I have 3 x Alesis 3630's, 3 x dbx 163's and 2 x RNC's. I am a compressor junkie.

My last choice would be the 3630's as a room compressor, but having said that I have used them as percussion compressors at some stage and they worked well for that. I don't find them dull at all and they are very flexible in setting up, but everyone gives them a bad rap, which is strange as they sold them for about 20 years LOL, maybe I like the way they apparently cock up the sound.

Anyway back to the RNC, they would also make a great room compressor, the only reason I suggested the 163's was that they are very quirky and I use them when mixing snare, kick and defiantly bass most of the time.

You know another compressor that would sound good and there are a few around secondhand would be a TL Audio Fatman.

Alan.
 
locally there is almost none second hand gear so I would be buying new. What do you think would be best ART PRO VLA vs FMR RNC vs FMR RNLA?
 
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