Nasty Compressors?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Somnium7
  • Start date Start date
I use the SRV-2000 in a similar way to your Korg DRV1000. As kind of a grainy color reverb. It's great on drum loops and that kind of thing.
 
i'd also check out the line 6 gearbox silver and gold bundles, which are being cleared out at very low prices ($100 and $150 respectively). they include a usb interface, which can serve as a dongle essentially and/or serve as both a di and a hardware accelerator for the processing. you can record tracks through your regular interface and then use the plugin bundle to mess with the audio later. there's tons of amp and cab sims as you would expect, but also tons of effects (modulation, distortion, dynamic (including an la2a model)) and some preamp models as well. it's a great price for a large plugin bundle and i bet many of those plugs would be great for synths and loops. i used to use my line 6 pod 2.0 to mess with synth sounds (it actually worked great on some older korg organ patches to get a convincing distored leslie sound).
 
Well I'll now confirm your suspicions that I am two fries short of a happy meal. I went and pulled the trigger on another transparent compressor :eek:

I know, you're thinking WTF? But it was a deal I couldn't pass up - a brand new ghetto purple DBX 162XL!

Don't worry, I'm still gunning for the MXR. It's just there are some priorities at work here. While I was digging for lunch-money-robbing compressors I came across a very nice deal on a clean compressor I can use on my mix buss. I've been looking for a unit to do this job for the past several months without seeing anything in my envelope of price/performance. The deal for this DBX couldn't be ignored and priority took over.

Now I just hope the MXR doesn't get too high because my wife is about an inch away from castrating me :D
 
I ain't worried - those gigantic compression knobs on the DBX will provide me with a renewed sense of manlyness :D
 
Do you mean the 162SL?

I feel like you are kind of thrashing around buying on impulse based on whatever deal presents itself. Not that you are getting bad compressors, in actuality you are getting some nice ones that are better than the ones you were talking about earlier. It's just that you are saying one thing, giving an indication of a certain budget, then going and doing something else and blowing through any perception of what the budget was.

I suggest you develop clear a vision of what your needs and budget are, and try to stick with that. If you are jacking up the quality (which is a great idea) then you need to have an overall plan. So before buying any other compressors I'd suggest putting together a list of compressors that will cover all the bases for you.

I personally think that if you are going to spend that kind of money on a 162SL you'd be better off going for broke and getting a pair of Distressors. Also, if you are looking at buss compressors, then there are other candidates besides the 162SL that you should be looking at. The 162SL is a great compressor, but I'm getting the impression of an impulse buy because it doesn't fit the needs you've stated earlier, and it would probably not be a first choice to meet those.

You really need to avoid making snap gear choices based on whatever "deal" pops up. Been there, done that.

My opinion anyway.
 
There is a method to the madness. My long-term priority was to get something nice for the mix buss and color compressors later. As it works out, I'll soon have a buss unit (dbx), a Swiss army tool (triple-C), and a signal cruncher (MXR). Since I'm paying so little for the MXR and Triple-C I can afford something nice still. I was actually having a toss-up between the Distressor and the SPL Dynamaxx. Since I had little to go on for the SPL it was looking like the Distressor. The going-for-broke thing was a big problem with the Ball-and-Chain though. The DBX is TWO channels of really good compression for the price of one channel of Distressor.

I think I now have all my bases covered really well. I've got grunge, quality transparent, Multiband + Envelope, and all for significantly less than a pair of overpriced Distressors.

If I am dead-wrong I can always trade these units up at a later date. I must say though I really like the flexibility I'll have with 6 channels of compression available from my console. That's 6 less channels of plugs I'll need to employ at mixdown!
 
in the software realm, i've really been digging the urs classic console strip pro plugin suite-- worth demoing if you do the ilok thing. lots of compressor, eq and input transformer models and it sounds great.
if you want a ton of colors, there's always the lunchbox route. i'm waiting for my purple action compressor (kind of like their mc77 (1176 clone) scaled down to fit a 500 series lunchbox) to arrive sometime today. api makes great compressors for this format which can be used for buss duties and a bunch of companies are making 500 series pres, eq's and compressors. anamod is making a unit which is supposed to replicate the sound of the fairchild 660!
 
SonicAlbert said:
You really need to avoid making snap gear choices based on whatever "deal" pops up.
Click to expand...
I agree to point... you do need to know what you're looking for... but it's very hard to find great deals on a particular piece when you're looking for it... So I look for everything, all the time... and those incredible deals... I snap them right up. As a result, I've probably acquired twice as much quality gear as I could have afforded hunting for specific individual items. Every once in a while, sure... I'll pick up something I don't need, or don't use much... but it's easy to turn it around and sell at a profit...

I agree with Alby on just about all of his advice on this board with one exception... He doesn't tend to consider in price in his purchasing decisions, sound is paramount... If there's a unit with a sound he likes, it's all the money for that, even if there's a close substitute for significantly less... Not saying that this is a good or bad thing... for Albert, but all of my purchasing decisions consider bang for the buck...
 
That classic console strip does look very tasty as far as plugs go, I remember reading up on this package awhile ago and it does have some great options.

I also like the lunch box idea - I'm a modular synthesizer guy so yeah, modular appeals to me in a big way. It's obviously the ultimate in flexibility and variety.

BTW, the DBX162sl really wasn't an uninformed impulse buy. My friend owns one and everytime I'm over his place I've got my hands all over the thing. I almost drowned myself in drool one day listening to him run drum submixes through it. I know what the machine can do and find it very impressive.
 
Yeah, I don't want to knock the 162SL, it's a great machine and I've looked at it many times myself. And since you are familiar with the unit and have used it, that's the perfect reason to buy it.

I'm a little sensitive to the impulse buy thing because I've had such a problem with it in the past. I've had so much gear through my studio it's ridiculous. So now I try to be as disciplined as I can possibly be.

It has been very helpful to me to keep a gear "wish list" in writing. This long term aquisition plan is meant to keep me on track with the direction of my studio, to help me avoid impulse buys and the so-called "deals" that dealers keep throwing out there to move gear.

The plan changes, I feel very free to take gear off the list and put other gear on. But it gives me a reference point.

After years of buying gear that was "good for the money" or a "great deal" I now do indeed try to stick to the list and get just what fits the overall plan. This does mean buying less gear in terms of quantity, and waiting longer between purchases. It takes time to save up the money!
 
By the way, that Alesis unit is called the "Smashup". It's art of the ModFX series. I think you would be interested in it in addition to the MXR.
 
SonicAlbert said:
Yeah, I don't want to knock the 162SL, it's a great machine and I've looked at it many times myself. And since you are familiar with the unit and have used it, that's the perfect reason to buy it.

I'm a little sensitive to the impulse buy thing because I've had such a problem with it in the past. I've had so much gear through my studio it's ridiculous. So now I try to be as disciplined as I can possibly be.

It has been very helpful to me to keep a gear "wish list" in writing. This long term aquisition plan is meant to keep me on track with the direction of my studio, to help me avoid impulse buys and the so-called "deals" that dealers keep throwing out there to move gear.

The plan changes, I feel very free to take gear off the list and put other gear on. But it gives me a reference point.

After years of buying gear that was "good for the money" or a "great deal" I now do indeed try to stick to the list and get just what fits the overall plan. This does mean buying less gear in terms of quantity, and waiting longer between purchases. It takes time to save up the money!
Click to expand...

Honestly I like how you plan stuff, it make alot of sense. I wish I could be more organized about doing this stuff but it's hard for me. Finding time to educate myself about gear is pretty hard not to mention time to actually shop for it. I spend 3 or 4 days every week at my contract job 200 miles from home. Then when I'm home I am playing catch-up with my responsibilities and taking care of the wife and kids. I'm trying to get my bands record made on some sort of schedule and working my ass off to repair and upgrade my console because it has become an obstacle for the remixing the album.

I also lack patience ;)
If I was good at math I'm sure I could come up with a formula to express the time-income-research-priorities equation and I'm sure it wouldn't be very pretty in my case.
I am under huge pressure from all directions so any plan I make needs to be fluid to adapt with changes in the various external variables. In the end the goal is to get the job done. I can't afford to be very picky but I try to at least make sensible decisions to match my needs. Sometimes I have to fight off the GAS monkey too :D

In the past few days that I have been home I have split my time amongst things as wisely as possible and yet still wound up soldering or clicknig into the wee hours of the morn.
But I have been productive. I've taken care of many things now including gear necessities for the album project. These tools will get me through this project one way or the other - I am somewhat skilled at squeezing as much out of gear as I can. Once this is all done maybe I'll have time to reassess my setup and be more picky and about stuff. For now it's all I can do to just try and obtain suitable tools for the task at hand in the time I have.
 
You've bought all good stuff so far. The TC and DBX are just not what I expected based on your original goals.
 
SonicAlbert said:
You've bought all good stuff so far. The TC and DBX are just not what I expected based on your original goals.
Click to expand...

If the MXR is everything you and Daisy say it is I think I'll be alright for now. I do still have a small arsenal of tools for violating my samples and such. My Sony DPS-V55 has it's disgusting compressor algorithm and a few interestingly crude amp simulations and the Driver (distortion).
Sometimes I miss my old Boss SE-50. The limiter and amp sim in that thing were grotesque for anything but intentionally destroying stuff.

Then there are my analog processors that I build - The distortion box, the Synthacon VCF and my dynamic bit-crusher unit.
The dynamic bit-crusher will beat you up and take your lunch money. Driving the VCF with a really hot signal gives stuff that is just pure evil. That thing will gun down the natives and burn their villages. :D
I designed it that way, to purposely break up in highly controllable manner. It involved a few minor changes to the original Steiner-Parker circuit and a custom FET output stage. Great fun!

So add to that a good dirty limiter plus the envelope compression on the TC box I have options. It's always the interactions between various pieces of gear that turn me on the most. Like the parametric EQ in front of the Korg DRV. Opens up many cool new vistas.

hmmmm, the VCF into the envelope compression, distortion box in parallel with the MXR then both signals into the DBX ....and on and on :p
 
I still think you might want to keep your eyes out for an Alesis Smashup. Especially now that I know about this other stuff you build.
 
SonicAlbert said:
I still think you might want to keep your eyes out for an Alesis Smashup. Especially now that I know about this other stuff you build.
Click to expand...

Couldn't find much online to read about this unit. Must have been a short-lived product line? :confused:

Nothing on Ebay - just the usual alesis stuff.

I'll have to setup a search agent I guess
 
The Alesis ModFX product line bombed, but there were a couple interesting units that people snapped up. That's why you don't see the Smashup or Bitrman very often. If you like mangling, just keep watching for either of these two.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top