Beginners compressor,,, advice needed !!

[rxkevco]

Hi all,
Am going to buy a hardware compressor to use with my small studio set-up, but have never used one before.
I know roughly what they do,, and what you can acheive with them, but thats as far as my experience goes,, so ,, am gonna get one and experiment.
Would like a bit of help in choosing a decent one ,, to start off with, and to learn how to use a compressor within my recording .

Dont want the cheapest, ie behringer etc,,, although they are good for what you pay for them.Would like something that i will still find useful when i get to know it.
Dont want to be dissatisfied with it, and then have to upgrade again.
SO,,,,,have been looking at the lower end DBX, and Drawmer models. Would like some advice or opinions on my choices.
Once again,, i am limited to buying used, from ebay.
I have up to £100 max, to spend.

The Drawmer models are the MX30 , and the LX20.

The DBX model is the 266XL.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ford Van]

The Drawmer MX 30 sounds MUCH better than the dbx 266XL.

 

[rxkevco]

Thanks for that,,,,
Is your veiw of the Drawmer MX30 from personal experience, or have you owned both of them at some point ???
Cheers,, kev.

 

[andydeedpoll]

a couple o' months ago, i was looking for something similar - i went with http://www.turnkey.co.uk/tkweb/stockdetail.jsp?sku=TAPC-SQUEEZ&context=WEB that, simply because it was dirt cheap (£50), has lots of features, 2 channels... and although i have nothing to compare it to, would say it sounds fine (for £50 ).

Andy

 

[rxkevco]

Any other advice would be welcome,,,,,
Come on guys,,, you must all have a compressor or two !!!

 

[Willybomb]

Well, I needed something to keep the kick, OH and bass under control during recording live gigs and the like, so I went with an Alto CLE 4.0 (not from this site, got it local). I just set it so the limiter prevents going over 0db... takes a bit of jiggling, but I can usually get a max peak of -.5 or something like that regardless of how hard I run the preamp gain. I should mark that spot down someday.

http://www.prosound.co.nz/index.htm?effects/alto-fx-page3.htm~mainFrame

Willy.

 

[Zetajazz44]

I'm not sure how £100 translates to USD right off the top of my head, but I think I'd look at the FMR-RNC 1773... They can be had new for $175.00 and occasionally you'll find one on eBay a bit cheaper...

http://www.fmraudio.com/RNC1773.HTM