Choice of 2 Bus compressor

G for sure: think it more versatile: 33609: drum bus !

I really love the UAD 33609 on my master buss, but I’m always just tickling the needle on it. It’s always added a nice color and weight to things to my ear, things always sound massively boring as soon as I take it off. That’s how I’ve always used it, I’ve done that forever because I saw a few big names engineers doing it early on in my recording “career”.

I don’t really like it that much as a strong compressor. I’m always mixing into my API console with the API compressor doing the actual compression. Again, I like the 33609 but I don’t know if it would be fair to say I’m really “compressing” with it. I haven’t found anything else that does its thing though.

John, the biggest step I made forward sonically.

Was getting a Roll Music RMS 755 (SSL style VCA compressor)

The second biggest step was getting a Vari-Mu compressor (Thermionic Phoenix in my case)

The thrid biggest step was going

DAW > SSL > Vari MU

The fourth and final step to sonic nirvana was putting a hardware stereo EQ at the end of that chain.

DAW > SSL > Vari MU > EQ

Mixing is now like falling of a log and borderline cheating.

I think they call it top down mixing and I'm a big fan.

Personally I'm not keen on DB compressors on the mix bus and for me definitely not the 33609.

Just my 2 cents.

Thermionic "The Swift" (transformer balanced version)

What EQ are you using? I’m currently using 2 Focusrite 110’s/Manley Vari-MU/SSL 4K(AS)/API2500+
Of course I alternate depending on the material. Still always thinking about other things like Dangerous BAX EQ, but the 110’s have a really nice EQ and they get the Job done. I really like a TG1 or a 33609 or an SSL 4K on the drum buss

I've used both on Mixbus, just never had them side by side. I liked both. At the time - with PT HDC not working - it was a pain in the ass because I had to burn it down. But HDC working has been a godsend. I'm using an 1178 on Drumbus...I'd love to have the Stam 609 MkII, but alas...that has been a long story. I've probably got it all covered with the Heiders being a set of beefy transformers...but I guess you can never transformer too much. Really, I'd like to eventually have a 33609 and some sort of HW EQ...and the EQ might actually be a better idea. That stereo Pultec of Stam's looks great - just not sure of availability. That Retro one looks cool. All I need is money.

Man I would kill to give one of those Roll comps a whirl. Been keeping an eye out for a unit.

Oh the darn internet.

Who said the meter isn’t reliable!

I’ve been using mine for 15 years !!!!

And yes, you can buy a replacement meter, Justin, the designer, sent me a link to the correct meter years ago, and it’s still available.

Rumours hey …. crazy how they spread.

That wasn't a rumor, in a Purple Forum thread the designer said that -- that it was unreliable and impossible to get.

The rumours I've heard about the RMS are (and I think I read them in this forum!): that the compressor tends to make chorus sections tiny (more compressed than verse sections), and that the controls are very touchy (reportedly that a slight movement makes a big change).

I was decided to buy it before I read all of that. From the samples I've heard, the thing puts a beautiful sheen on top of everything.

If you could confirm/deny the "overshoots in choruses" rumor it would be great. Now I feel like I need one.

I can confirm, the compressor I’ve used on every mix I’ve done in the last 15 years “overshoots in choruses” and makes them sound tiny.

I love the internet - it’s such a unique experience

Honestly John, use the SSL bus in auto release. If your SSL bus comp clone doesn’t have a working auto-release that’s like 10 seconds or so in total, sell it and buy a different one or just use the Glue and set oversampling to 16x.

Auto makes the controls idiosyncratic but it is how you have the slower secondary attack and release to make it not sound like a typically crappy cheap VCA compressor (at least the Channel compressor is RMS sensing like a dbx 160 despite its often too fast or too slow attacks) and control the material.

You then need to get the signal where the compressor starts speeding up on transients like an LA whatever’s sweet spot.

Attack then sets more where on the gain reduction meter the attack speeds up more than the attack rate. If you’re only doing around 1 vu or so off, you can’t use 30 ms on auto because then something like a drum hit will initiate a long slow fade almost. You need to use one of the fastest attacks but it won’t attack that fast initially. A medium amount off, one of the inbetween ones like 1 or 3 ms, hovering around 4 or so and not really digging in like 10 ms, and really digging in towards 8 vu off approaching 12 vu of gain reduction you want to use 30 ms. If you want to compress more vu or less vu transparently, you’ll have to change the attack to change the sweet spot.

This will make the compressor react quickly to transients, without smashing them down or causing really stupid overshoots, while slowly hugging the material. It’s really important to get the amount of gain reduction right to make sure the compressor release fast enough on transients and doesn’t hold the high end down. You’ll also want to use a high pass filter to stop it from pumping on bass

Ratio doesn’t change the sweet spot, only the knee and threshold in addition to the ratio. But since it doesn’t change the sweet spot of gain reduction for each attack, it more changes the knee through diodes.

Then you need to ride / automate your faders to keep it in the sweetspot to not over compress or under compress. This will glue your track together.

Use the makeup gain too. It doesn’t control an additional amplifier but merely the control voltage to bring the vca controlling the audio back towards unity, where it is trimmed for optimal low noise and low distortion. Ideally you want it set just to where the compressor slows down. This will put the distortion away from unity only on brief transients. Not that big a deal with newer THAT VCAs but for older VCAs, it can be a big deal.

Once you know how to do this, you can use a ton of things, and I mean a ton of things (eg Waves Renaissance Compressor, Oxford Dynamics, Oxford Limiter, Daking compressors on an auto release, optical compressors if you can match them, even the stereo dbx compressors like the 162 and 164 where attack speeds up and release slows down with greater gain reduction) in place of the SSL that sound and behave differently. Also compressors where you can control the sweet spot and attack independently like the Weiss, Tokyo Dawn, and Massenburg compressors become very easy to use.

I hope this helps.

Dan

As per Dan, I started checking out some of the Tokyo Dawn stuff. Downloaded the Molotok and it’s been living on my master buss. Takes a little getting used to, but I really love it, and it was free!