David Fisher : What is Noise Blog

I had been meaning to practice what I preach, and pick up a set of compressors for a while now for at home. I figure I’m normally pretty conservative in my levels while tracking, gain structure, etc… so up until now having some really wasn’t a massive concern, or in the budget. But the other week I put some stuff up on Gearslutz, one of my favorite gear/engineering forums, to sell or trade. Someone offered to trade a pair of FMR RNCs + Funklogic rack for my Lexicon MPX-1 that I had up for sale. Seemed pretty fair of a deal, since each of us were getting rid of something that was worth around $400, so I did it.

I got this nice set in the mail on Monday, and took them home and racked them up. I put one pair as inserts on channels 1/2 on my Mackie 400F for tracking, and the second set on channels 7/8 in a loop, so that I can use them with Logic Pro for content that needs extra compression (or as a bus compressor).

I haven’t had time to mess with it as a bus compressor yet, but so far for the inserts I’m very happy. I tried it out with my voice (using an AT-4060 mic), my Machinedrum, and my Moog Voyager.

My thoughts so far: It’s killer on voice. Really helps keeps things in control. It’s a VERY fast compressor. Fast like an 1176. The Super-Nice mode really is, super nice. It’s a bit slower on the release, but it makes it so that you only hear ‘louder’ but not ‘compression’. It’s a quiet unit too. The Moog doesn’t need much transparent compressions most of the time, since I don’t have most of my patches responding to velocity anyways. It does help to keep it in check however when making new sounds and preventing you from clipping out the track or blowing out the speakers. With the Machinedrum I’ve only gotten to use it only for the entire track, and it was nice to help gel things together.

This is a very clean compressor, with almost no character. Its downsides that I can see are not enough metering, no ability on the front to switch in and out the sidechain (a simple mod could fix that), cheapish pots, wallwarts for power supplies, and it doesn’t work all that great on bass for many settings. Its ok on bass, but I’ve used much better. They are unbalanced, but as an insert I don’t care… and if I really need to balance them then that’s just some simple transformers and wire and its done. No biggie.

In case anyone is reading this and thinking, “WTF is he talking about”, I’m talking about a hardware compressor. What’s a compressor? It’s a unit that helps level out the dynamics in audio. Basically it makes the quiet things louder and the louder things a bit softer. It sounds good.

These guys sell for ust $180 or so new. Killer deal. Unfortunately, now I was to get a pair of compressors with a little more character, and a better preamp with more dirt to it also… oh what have I done?

I used to work at a pretty decent sized studio as an engineer. I liked it, and felt I was good at it. Prior to that I had been building up my home studio. I’m going to edit/update this list as it grows/shrinks for anyone that cares. Hmm, should make it more like a Wiki, but whatever.

• Macbook Pro SR 2.2ghz 2gb 15″, a handful of fw drives
• Mackie Onyx 400F
• Event 20/20BAS monitors
• Lexicon MPX-1
• Sansamp PSA-1
• emagic Unitor 8
• Commodore 64 w/Prophet 64 cart, running using an eyeTV into MBP
• elektron Machinedrum (had a Sidstation too, but sold it)
• x0xbox
• Yamaha TG-33
• Moog Voyager Signature #144

Microphones:

• SM57s
• SM58s
• AT4060
• MXL 990
• MXL 991
• AT4060
• (2) Cascade Fatheads
• D112

I actually used to have a lot more. Here’s the gear that I’ve had/sold that I can remember:

• ART SGX2000 w/X-15 foot controller
• Some Crate guitar amp
• JP-8000
• Nord Lead (borrowed from fellow bandmate for a while)
• Juno 106 (ditto as above)
• Sidstation
• Sansamp PSA-1 (had second one)
• Sony D-7 Delay
• (2) AMS/Neve 1580S delays
• Quantec QRS
• (2) Line 6 DL-4
• Urei 1176 (rev H? it was cheap)
• Roland GR-33
• Akai S-5000
• Digi 001, Digi002r
• Mackie LM3204
• More computers than I can count.

So I’ve had some pretty neat stuff, and some crap. It may seem that I downgraded on some things (MPX-1 vs 1580) but I’m happy with what I have, it’s fairly reliable, lightweight and a simple workflow. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to get more gear of course, but what I have is managable. I never imagined that I’d have some much gear

I completed my soldering-fest called the x0xb0x recently, which now sits between my Machinedrum and C64 nicely. I’m rethinking that not-having a patchbay thing. I’d have a mixer if I had room for it. Hmm. Anyway that’s another issue.

So I need something else to build and burn my hands on.

I’m thinking the following need to all be built at some point:

• Two of each Seventh Circle Audio preamp
• Two 1176 clones
• LA2A clone
• SSL Bus compressor clone
• Midibox Sid 4x (or 8x if I can find enough matched 6581s)
• A handful of modular synth modules
• My guitar amp idea (have to finish design first)
• My effects pedals (delay, fuzz)
• And I have one special composition/midi thing to build

Building a modular starts me down a long and dangerous path, since once you start building a modular, until it fills up all of your available space, then you’re never done.

Overall, I need to start saving to do even one of these. Ideally I’d like to do one a month, but that’s a lot of money (~500/month for some of them). Maybe I’ll try building some for other people or whatever. Finish my amp design. It should be cool. It has things other amps don’t- and that seems rare these days.