Heritage Grandchild (500 series 670?!)

Checked out some other threads, which confirmed my suspicion from this thread, bit of a BSer indeed.

No, you seem to have very strong opinions, and not really worried about how you come off when you share them. Especially for a new member. So lets all play nice.

Here you go, I'll officially release this in the next day or so...

Sounds nice. I'd dig one I think.

I don't know if it works best without it, but that was my preference. I've talked to a few other people that have one, some really loved the first sidechain setting and are keeping it there. I think it's definitely a preference based off of how you use it. I tend to be a little more subtle with vari-mu's, like 3 dB or so max compression most of the time (I like sprinkling them in). I never felt like the low end was getting in the way with the sidechain off, but not a huge pain to pull it out a switch it every once in a blue moon.

I've found myself using the higher time constants a lot more on this hardware one than I ever have on plugins. Most Fairchild plugins, I'm always using time constant 1 and that's it. It's nice they they included an "Ardent Mod" in this for Time Constant 1, Time Constant 2 on the Grandchild is the normal "1" on a Fairchild. Especially on vocals, turning the DC Threshold more to limiting and doing Time Constant 5 has done a really good job of adding some nice weight and color, here I'm hitting maybe 3 dB of compression at the most. I tried that with the UAD Fairchild plugin back to back with the Grandchild and the UA plugin just sounded way overcompressed and pumpy on a vocal. 

But ya, the Ardent Mod Time Constant 1 setting on the Grandchild rocks on acoustic guitar. I would have been happy just using it for that one thing...

For the first time in one of these videos, I had a really hard time level matching things in the final video montage. I've never done anything this extreme where I'm comparing a whole mix with and without compression. The Grandchild added up really nicely at the end where you're hearing it subtly over every track, as well as a little on the master bus. I was able to level match the two files in the louder choruses, but then on the verses the Grandchild mix sounded a lot louder. I had to decide if I was going to level match the files in the verses or the choruses, so I chose the choruses.

Even though all that compression is technically adding up to stomp things a bit in the loud choruses, it's barely doing anything in the verses, so they're louder. At the same time, it doesn't sound like the verses are getting slammed when the loud parts come in, it actually hit harder to me and still sounded more dynamic with the Grandchild mix than the "no compression" mix. That was a "learning moment" for me when I heard that, and I think it's one of the things Vari-Mu compressors do really well if you don't overdo things. I was careful to subtly stack the Grandchild on everything, as well as just sprinkle it on the master bus. I think the results speak for themselves, and I was definitely able to hear what it was doing and understand it's "sound" a lot better after doing all of this.

Again, who knows if it's actually doing what a "real" Fairchild is doing. At this point, I would say it stands on it's own and sounds great, regardless of the pedigree. I talked with Heritage for a while about arranging a demo of their Herchild 670 so I could do a larger video showcasing both of them, and doing a little bit of comparing. It didn't sound like they were really interested in doing that unfortunately, which I kind of understand. It's not really fair to compare a small 500 series unit to a massive $10k tube and transformer monster, and I'm sure they want the Grandchild to be able to stand on its own a bit without constantly being compared to a Fairchild. At the same time, I think it's inevitable that someones going to do it. I wish I would have gotten the chance!