bang for the buck compressors!

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arpodthegreat

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i already have a RNC (for clean compression) and an ART pro VLA compressor for colored tube compression. what should i get if anything to add to these two for recording and mixdown of guitars, vox, drums, rhodes, etc... (basic rock/pop stuff with an old school vibe) maybe DBX? if sho which. i have heard good stuff. so whats the deal?
thank you
 
No compression is generally favorable to bad compression... and while some DBX stuff like their "Blue Series" is pretty good their budget stuff sucks ass. If I were you I'd hang onto my money and save up a couple thousand dollars and get some real equipment instead of messing about with the crap you find in the guitar stores. If you really need more compression pick up another RNC... if you need different compression then you should really wait and pick up some professional tools that will last your entire career.

Best of luck with the search.
 
dbx 163.... its one of those "how'd ya get that sound?" bits of gear... good for old school because it IS old school.. its not very versatile though, and your control is pretty limited.
 
Fletcher said:
No compression is generally favorable to bad compression... and while some DBX stuff like their "Blue Series" is pretty good their budget stuff sucks ass. If I were you I'd hang onto my money and save up a couple thousand dollars and get some real equipment instead of messing about with the crap you find in the guitar stores. If you really need more compression pick up another RNC... if you need different compression then you should really wait and pick up some professional tools that will last your entire career.

Best of luck with the search.
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The dbx 118 I was lucky to get for $35 works perfectly...Im told that its the same circutry as the dbx 160 by the dbx guy (Tom Cram)...its worth a look on ebay forsome of this stuff.
 
i cant tell you what to get but i can tell you what not to get......alesis 3630.
 
alot of pro's seems to have success using the DBX 160xt on drums and sometimes on vox(rap vox that is)
 
I second the dbx 163 nomination. It has this amazing attack, great for kick, and snare. It is my go-to compressor for toms. For $50 it will kick you in the teeth.

To be honest I find the RNC rather bland. I tend to use it across a mix bus or for instruments that I only compress lightly, though sometimes it's good on vox or guitar.

For whatever it's worth, a couple of compressors that I used years ago and hated were the ART CS2 and the dbx 166.

Cheers,

Johann
 
The 163 will add more character to your signal than the RNC will. It's real transparent. I guess it depends on what you're shootin for. Im still lovin my Drawmer MX30's, but I wouldn't classify that comp as very inexpensive, and Im also only using it for live situations. I still love Waves for mixing on my pc. I second the notion to stay away from that Alesis 3630, and one that hasn't been mentioned is the very common DBX 166. It's less than 200 bills but the only advantage it has over RNC for the money is the fact that it's two discreet channels as opposed to being stereo linked like the RNC. Outside of that, I hate it. You really can't do anything harder than overeasy without it throttling your signal into the realms of complete garbage.
 
The Alesis Micro limiter is one of the most overlooked compressors out there. This was made by Alesis in the early 90's in the USA and has no relation whatsoever to the outsourced 3630 piece of crap.

It's a 1/3-rack stereo in/out processor with only three controls -- INPUT, RELEASE, and OUTPUT. It's simple, inexpensive (used on ebay) and very effective. I have several comp/limiters, including the RNC. The Micro Limiter is still one of my "secret weapons".

:cool:
 
160X or XT are both pro sounding budget easy devices. They are limiters and compressors so are very versatile.
 
I have had great success with the Alesis 3630 in fact I have a few of them, and olympic studios in London where eddi kramer did some work also uses them on occasion. For those of us that are willing to spend time fine tuning, this compressor has one hell of a sound.
 
jamespage67 said:
I have had great success with the Alesis 3630 in fact I have a few of them, and olympic studios in London where eddi kramer did some work also uses them on occasion.
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MY DEAR LAWD, SAVE THIS INDIVIDUAL FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION!!!

For those of us that are willing to spend time fine tuning, this compressor has one hell of a sound.
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Why in the world would you want to spend (waste) an inordinate amount of time "fine tuning"(???-whatever that means) this compressor when the focus s/b on concentrating on tracking/capturing a superb performance? And, if dynamic processing is needed, why would one to fool around for hours incorporating a unit like the 3630 (widely known to add unwanted audible sound artifacts to a signal during processing) when the overall purpose is to cleanly and transparently provide dynamic level,peak & siblance control?
The 3630 is NOT the answer for basic comping & gating.

DBX makes fine units on the budget but IMHO, the RNC is unparalled in signal proc'ing. Shoot, you're better off using Beh's Composer Pro!
 
MISTERQCUE said:
the overall purpose is to cleanly and transparently provide dynamic level,peak & siblance control?...
DBX makes fine units on the budget but IMHO, the RNC is unparalled in signal proc'ing. Shoot, you're better off using Beh's Composer Pro!
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I can't comment on the Alesis comp. However I disagree with the overall purpose of compression being to "cleanly and transparently" provide dynamic control.

For example, I love me some old school 1176. It's one of the dirtiest comps around. It has a reasonable S/N ratio, but it still shapes the sound so much that EQ becomes almost redundant.

Sometimes that's the whole purpose of dynamics processors -- to give you some dirt! :D

Anyway if the Alesis is worse than the dbx "budget" units (e.g. 166) for noisy circuitry, then that's enough to keep me away. :)

$0.02,

Johann
 
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