Well, unfortunately, this product is way before my time with the company and before many current people's time as well. So I can't drum up a lot of information on short notice.
However, the most obvious design and marketing reasons there is no
makeup gain on this product:
1. Live sound. This product was intended for, and was mostly used in,
live sound. In live sound you use a dynamics processor for protection
purposes (limiting mostly). When you hit the compressor, you don't want that
signal to exceed a predetermined level. If it does, bad things happen (blown
speakers, lawsuits, etc.). So in this market, more gain is very bad.
Definitely no need to make any gain up!
2. Front panel real-estate. It's a feature packed product... Where
would you put an extra knob?
3. It's a multi-processor box and many controls are multi-purpose
depending upon the mode. Some functionality you would find on a dedicated
processor has to be sacrificed. This happened to be one of those features that one could live without if necessary in order to get the other functions. If
you wanted a full featured compressor/limiter, one of the other products we
had available at the time would have been a better choice.
I gather from your signature that you are using this processor in a
studio environment. If that's the case, you should have several quality gain
stages at your disposal (mixer, line amp, downstream processor, etc.) and any of those should suffice.
Trent Wagner
Product Specialist
Symetrix, Inc.
6408 216th St. SW
Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
Tel: 425-778-7728 x239
Fax: 425-778-7727
http://www.symetrixaudio.com
http://www.lucidaudio.com
http://www.airtoolsaudio.com
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Neil Pearl [mailto:
> Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 2:43 PM
> To:
tech@symetrixaudio.com
> Cc:
> Subject: No Makeup Gain control on Compressor? Please help us
> to understand...
>
> Hi,
>
> My question is about the Model 522 Compressor that Symetrix
> made long ago...
>
> I know the unit is no longer supported, and as such, you are
> certainly under no obligation to respond to this email, but
> here it goes anyway...
>
> Me and the folks on the homerecording.com forum are currently in debate
> regarding the lack of a GAIN control on the 522
> Comp/Limiter/Ducker/Gate....
>
> Was there any reason (other than financial) that this
> seemingly standard control was omitted for the control set of
> this Compressor? All of the other standard controls are
> present. (Threshold, Ratio, Attack, etc...) Is there a
> recommended workaround to compensate for gain lost due to
compression?
>
> I am the one who started this discussion on the forums, and
> it seems to have stirred up some interesting responses, but I
> suspect that none of them are actually the truth.
> I'd like to know the real story, and thought the actual
> manufacturer/designers would be a logical place to turn.
>
> Thank you for your time, I am very pleased with all of my
> Symetrix products. Thanks !!
>
> Neil Pearl
> Engineer
> Shedding Cat Studios
> El Dorado Hills, CA