Your UAD-1 Fairchild Experience

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tkingen

Djembes Rock
In the book "Behind The Glass", Geoff Emerick discussess how much the Beatles used the Fairchild compressor in tracking and mixing. A couple of his examples were Revolver and Sgt. Pepper - two of my favorite recordings of all time.
So now I'm thinking about the Fairchild 670 for the UAD-1 card. My demo has lapsed - twice now. I didn't buy it either time because it just seemed like it made things sound dull - and I liked the 1176N and LA2 so much more. But this Beatles reference is intrigueing. Revolver and Pepper are anything BUT dull sounding. Maybe I just didn't know how to properly use the Fairchild.
To all of you UAD-1 Fairchild lovers out there - what's cool about it? How do you use it?
 
I tend to use it on rare occasions for M/S work, but otherwise, it's a bit too "warm and vintage" sounding for me. Which is pretty much what it was designed for - So I certainly understand your "less than thrilled" thoughts about it.

There were so many people going nuts over that thing... We were calling it "Child abuse" for a while.
 
Thanks John for your response. I do remember you mentioning "Child abuse" in a post awhile back. Funny!
I was listening to Sgt. Pepper on the way to work this morning. It's been awhile so I was listening with new ears. Some of the tones - especially vocals - seem "warmer" than I remembered. Although it's impossible to second guess or criticize the Beatles, George Martin, Geoff Emerick, etc., it made me realize that I do prefer a more open, modern sound.
Actually, 'modern' probably isn't the right word. This past week I spent considerable time listening to Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald Together Again. Ella's voice had that smooth, warm vintage ribbon sound. You can see it in the picture - it's the famous one that's shaped like a pill. But Louis had a different mic (wish I knew what it was and it's hard to describe the shape) and his voice sounded a lot more open with rich, detailed presence. And that was in the late 50's, I believe.
Anyway, what this babble is leading to is that I'll probably leave the Fairchild alone. The 1176N and LA2 do a wonderful job at colored compression and they seem to offer more high frequency detail than the Fairchild. And a guy with a humble little studio in his spare bedroom doesn't need to emulate every sound under the sun.
 
I am one of the first proud owners of the Flexi Pak, and once again I passed on the Fairchild. First of the all, the plug is too damn big. Yes I know a real Fairchild is a huge honkin' hunk of tubes & trannys, but I don't care! I am not going to buy another LCD just for the Fairchild.

Yeah, and the sound was meh. I'm sure it really could sound better, but too many knobs for me. I like the LA2A much better :)

So far I have the 1176LN, LA2A, Pultec Pro, Precision EQ & Limiter, and Plate 140 for $1100, including two cards. Pretty good deal if you ask me, compared with the Ultra Pak. I don't have the Cambridge, but it confused me :confused: Gimme the Pultec any day, I need simple plugs!

Last night I discovered I could run 8 140s together :cool: at 73% :) No, there is no useful application for that I am aware of :o
 
I can understand why a lot of people would not take to the Fairchild. The UAD 1176 and LA2a sound pretty nice and are very easy to use. The Fairchild however is a lot more complicated. There are a lot more options that can greatly change the way it reacts. This makes it a lot harder to use. It's not really one of those comps that you can just throw at a track. However, the Fairchild can be really cool on things like drum busses, bass, guitar, and for certain vocal sounds. It is one of those really fat comps that will suck highs at the same time unless set up properly.
 
I use it primarily to test the mix by placing an instance on the main buss and punching it in and out to see what effect mastering is going to put on the sound. This along with the Cambridge or possibly the Pultec and other things.

Occassionally I have a really thin sounding source so I might use it to fatten things up a bit.

I will say, it always makes it on something in the mix so its kind of indespensible for me. All 3 of their compressors get used a lot here.
 
There is one assumption that seems to be made here that I think is misleading: that the plugin Fairchild sounds and responds like the real thing.

The Beatles used a real hardware Fairchild, not the plugin, at a time when the hardware was still new and presumably operating at its best. The discussion here seems to be making the leap of faith that the UAD-1 Fairchild is just like the hardware version--but it's an emulation that mimicks the Fairchild.

So while a discussion of a the UAD Fairchild is useful in discussing the plugin, I don't think you can say it applies to getting the same actual sound that the Beatles got with their hardware. Also, there was a heck of a lot of other gear involved that gave the Beatles their sound. You'd probably have to replicate their entire signal and mixing path with the actual hardware they used to get it close.

You'd probably do better to try to emulate the Sgt. Pepper sounds using the best currently available, rather than cherry picking a piece of gear or two that they used and applying a plugin that has the same name.
 
FWIW, the Fairchild is my go-to plug when I need one on bass. I don't really like the LA2A on bass, but sometimes the 1176 is OK.
And it is cool on the stereo mix sometimes.
Definitely an eyefull, though.
Still not sure what this means:
Balance controls the bias current balance, and always goes with one channel of the compressor, regardless of what the nearby ‘metering’ switch is set to.
The point of perfectly calibrated bias currents is achieved when the “dot” in
the screw slot is at 12 o’clock. At this setting, the amount of additive signal
deflection (“thud”) which happens due to an attack is minimized. Setting this
control counter-clockwise from this position results in a thud of one polarity on transients, and going clockwise produces a thud of opposite sign.
Click to expand...
:confused: :confused: :confused:
 
1176LN is my choice of compressor on synth bass. Specially the more subby ones that don't have much harmonics definitely benefit from the slight distortion that it produces when compressing, specially when pushed hard.
 
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