Got another new toy today...

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tubedude

tubedude

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Scored a Focusrite Compounder compounder today for $200. Going to go mess with it some and check out mainly the way the compressor reacts and its color, if any, and mess with the bass expander, which was 1/2 the reason I bought the unit. According to some people I've talked to, the bass expander is based on an induction circuit, like alot of the vintage EQ's that people seek out. It has a setting to pump up the low end of bass'es, and a setting to get the kick drum thick, too. Myles Boisen likes his a LOT for kick and bass, and what the hell, if it comes in useful for that function alone a couple of times, then it was worth $100 a channel not counting the fact that it has 2 channels of compression, too, which will be perfect for kick, snare, vocals maybe...
I'm going to go run my bass through the DI on the RNP and then into this compressor and see what it does to it with and without the bass. I might track bass line on already tracked piece and compare it to the original and see how it compares.
I think I got a good deal though.
I'll keep ya posted.

Editing in, here was some info I found about the inductors circuit, not much, but interesting... has me even more curious now...

> Does anyone have an idea what vintage or new eq's use wire-wound inductors? The
> Focusrite Compounder uses an inductor for their bass expander circuit, and this
> thing sounds absolutely amazing. Rob at Focusrite told me that he got the idea
> from 70's Neve circuits, and as far as he knows since that time no one has used
> inductors due to their size and cost. Thanks for your help - Myles Boisen


The Manley and Langevin Pultec EQP1-A and MID EQs use inductors and our
Massive Passive has loads of inductors in it. These are all passive EQs with
tube (Manley) or discrete (Langevin) make-up gain. They are LCR circuits
(Inductors-Capacitors-Resistors)
We wind all these inductors in our own in-house magnetics department. Five
guys winding 40 hours per week-- they'll probably crank out around 40,000
inductors and transformers this year.
So, yes, you are right about the size and cost thing! Ya'll can be warned
first that the price of the Massive is going to have to go up by the end of
the year. Tho$e damn inductor$ are "choking" me!!
--
Cheers, EveAnna Manley, President
Manley Laboratories, Inc. 13880 Magnolia Ave. Chino, CA. 91710
Tel: (909) 627-4256 Fax: (909) 628-2482
<http://www.manleylabs.com>
 
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Cool deal... I'm not a big fan of most of the Platinum stuff, and I'm not quite sure about this Compounder yet, but it does do what its supposed to, and the bass expander deal seems to add some meat to my bass when set to huge. The other setting I guess is more for kick since it has no audible effect on the bass that I can hear right away.
I guess I like it pretty good so far. It was a damn nice deal for the price and two channels.
 
The Voicemaster Pro is pretty killer too. The new additions like the Harmonics and Tube Sat produced some pretty great tracks here tonight.

The older unit I tried but was not that impressed, when I read they took the ISA 430 de-esser and put it in this unit, as well as the other new sections, I had to check it out.

Very impressive for vocals.
 
Middleman, did you compare the Voicemaster Pro to a Joemeek/MindPrint/TL Audio channelstrip as well?
I'm meaning to get a channelstrip, but one that can do more than just vocals... Also one with a little character, since I have 2 clean pre's (DMP3)... so I'm still looking at this list:

-TL Audio 5051 Ivory 2 (sounds great on Dot's Listening Sessions)
-MindPrint En-Voice (a lot of folks in Europe praise it, amongst JuSumPilgrim and Buck62 here)
-Joemeek VC1Q (I'm holding off 'till the new one gets out. I didn't like the fact that they went from transformer-coupled inputs to chipbased inputs (=VC1Qcs)
-Focusrite Voicemaster Pro (I've held one in my hands once, looks impressive, lots of options, but people keep telling me to stay away from the Platinum stuff... and also I'm afraid that the EQ-section is too much aimed for vocal treatment...)
 
If I had a nickel for everyone who told me not to try a Focusrite I be would rich. Now I thought the older stuff was OK so I figured that now, 3 years later, there must have been even more improvements.

So, I went, I played, I listened.

The En-voice is not like the upper end stuff from Mindprint; it does not have the transformer due to cost. It was similar to the Pro but did not have as many options in sound. It was very nice though and would have been my second choice.

JoeMeek was a one trick pony and frankly did not sound like it would cover a range of vocalists.

TL Audio 5051 Ivory 2 - Did not get a chance to play with one of these but have heard the sessions. Can't really say.

The Pro - First it is redesigned from the old platinum stuff. They took the ISA 430 de-esser and put it in this unit. The 430 is a couple of thousand dollars so this de-esser is no slouch. They have added multiband harmonics and tube sat. This goes way beyond the old EQ and can really dirty up guitars and bass if you want, so yeah, it is more than just a vocal strip. That high end harshness of the older version is not in this unit. It is smoother, warmer and hey, look at all those knobs!

On vocal, well, it was a religious experience, what can I say, warm where I needed it, hard if needed. The Harmonics can be placed pre or post EQ. The compressor can be pre or post EQ. All of the effects have bypass as well and there is a global bypass for everything. If you want to use just the preamp (Most people do rave about their preamp) you just hit the global bypass.

The loops, there are 3 of them, one is a fixed loop, my RNC resides there, the other is a controllable mix loop which goes to the latency free monitor section. This allows me to mix my M-one processor with the current signal to get my reverb sounds in the monitoring headphones. However, only the dry tracks go to the CPU. Monitoring with reverb is a wonderful thing.

The final loop is a mix-in monitoring loop which allows me to control the amount of the reference tracks I hear with my voice or guitar. None of the others have this sophisticated of a monitoring section.

One more thing, the compressor is good but I prefer to use the RNC for vocals. The combo of the Focusrite pre and the RNC is a thing of beauty.

Hope this helps.
 
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