jimmarchi1's Reviews

Swiss army knife stereo VCA dynamics processor

Every studio I worked at had one of these save the crummy ones. This is a swiss army knife of compression/expansion/de-ess... does whatever you need. Goes fast, slow, subtle, extreme. Most versatile and effective sidechain going so its more than a de-esser. Tonally neutral when used moderately and can also smash like a valley unit but cleaner. I believe these were meant for live sound but this particular model has a huge, versatile feature set and excellent sound quality. I'm on a quest for one but no one ever sells them. Do not be tempted to get the 4 channel or later series versions like the 5s and 9s, not the same.

A real workhorse, not glamorous but solidly useful for troubleshooting stuff you missed when tracking or (more likely) on other people's dodgy home recordings you're mixing... you have to really fiddle with a pile of plugins in the box to solve problems this thing gets in about 5 minutes tweaking. If you're a novice this will be too much processing versatility for you. You can really fuck up your sound pretty quickly but its that power that makes it such an excellent piece.

the JBL name attached to some of these untis keeps them cheap

This is a great stereo Urei unit. I don't know if its actually an opto compressor as its quite late in thegame. If you have a choice between this and a pair of LA-4s this has way more features, costs less, and uses less rack space... similar sound to my ear, defiintiely more in the vanilla camp than than the LA3 but effective. Once you get past the fact that it doesn't look as cool as a pair of LA4s you'll realize its way more useful. The sacrifice of a VU was worth it.

I took my 160a out of the main rack

I recently acquired a well loved 160x from a nearby hire company that's going under in the pandemic. I've never had an X. XT and A side by side until now.... though there have been few changes to the circuit apart from a switch to a 3rd party copy of the VCA over the in house 70s/8-0s version having tis 80s X side by side with the A I prefer the X. it actually sounds better to me in subtle ways. The time constants feel a little more music and non-linear.... the old fella is actually a more music device and I think it will see more action than my kick drums. I like this as much as my valley units and that's high praise. The reputaton of the 70s and 80s units is well founded and now i want a 160 or 165

the destroyer is better than I remembered

got one ofthese and man... everything I remembered.... this lives on my B Bus in parallel... just god yeah, its everything a distressor tries to be at extreme settings with nothing but the anger and pummeling and subtle distortion... on its own maybe good for room mics or something but as a parallel send jesus! SWEET JEEEE-ZUS... sounds like a record.

Get a later valley international branded unit, the original rack case is total garbage and was improved later in the 80s.

goes from daisy cutter to car compactor

this will whack the peaks right off a signal if used tastefully.... 30:1 ratio and like 3 microsecond attack with 3 release settings that are all interesting. There's a couple versions but they're fairly similar, but one is for true limiting with no peak clipping and I have 2 of those. The other is a peak clipper/limiter or a slower limiter. I think that one is asymmetrical all the time for AM broadcast whereas mine have an FM/TV mode and then 2 asymmetrical modes which you shouldn't use probably LOL. There's a huge swing on the input gain to deal with different equipment and content from radio stations of yesteryear. So you can easily blast the first stage and get distortion before you even compress and its nasty, FET distortion. Thing is all discrete FETs and bipolars and loaded with transformers and inductors. I know where the in and out iron is but the other parts I have no idea what they're doing. It weighs a ton.

This is not a swiss army knife. Its not a sta-level. Its not a federal. Its not an 1176 or a neve, its not usually tasteful or polite. It does its job well when used with moderation and otherwise its like conan the destroyer. Let it off the chain and you will hear sounds that can never be unheard! Think 1176 on all buttons in coupled with the limiter from the neve bus comps and shades of that direct guitar sound from Revolution by the Beatles. That's the best I can describe it. Not meant for the recording studio and not a tool for the timid nor for the inexperienced. It has great powers for good or evil... but mainly for evil.

I've nicknamed one 'the Headsman' and the other 'Bloodrocutioner'.

too expensive normally

get this in a bundle or on sale... if you don't have a real 160 this will work... f you have a 160a you might still use this to save a console channel doing the parallel kick trick. At full pricing with the greedy waves upgrade scheme a 160a for non-parallel is a better bet and it has resale. On sale? Well, you'll get your 30 bucks worth. This plugin has the aggressive dbx snap at higher settings, go-to kick shaper and when my snare is already good but needs some nudging with an extreme snap in parallel this is an option over my go-to hardware units that I haven't use parallel since going hybrid due to channel count... liket he hardware VU 160s its kind've a 1 trick pony (that was remedied on the 160a, x, xl etc but at the cost of the magic of the 1 trick which is inferior to most ears though still good.... and no VU)... I also have the arturia 160 and I still kinda prefer this, its meaner. I think softtube ahs one or did one for NI, but this is raw and surprisingly lifelike. Waves hardware emulations are hit or miss usually but this guy? Its not even that sensitive to RMS levels of the track like the more famous stuff. My only gripe is that VUs on plugins even on the best native systems never give you the accurate feedback of real VUs but for an effect like a 160 its not that critical, its barely tickling or full bore, no inbetween or you're using it wrong. Plus it can do stereo like a 162 or sorta M/S if you use multiple isntances cleverly, but why would you do that with a dbx?

Bang for buck.

I think a lot of solid dudes will back me that soundcraft boards of the 80s nd 90s make great mix room consoles. Mine was meant as a 16:8:2 monitor mixer for live. It has full submix in stereo on 8 sub masters but no aux/fx return card n mine so my timebased effects kinda route a weird stupid way, but I knew that going in. I use a lot of stuff ITB for verbs as well as my outbaord so its fine. The submixes. Yes. My submaster setup is hella developed and I need at least 3 of those busses going all the time to be truly happy. I do this kinda not-so-brauer, post-NY compression thing a lot. I keep refining my personal methods for my mediocre little home post-room.

Mine is all serviced, upgraded in a few places. Sounds very tridenty. 80 series. EQ is wonderful, if you get silly the opamps in it add a little hiss, just a twinge. THhe balancing on this board stock sucks because they didn't bother but I never have issues. There are mods to that effect plus I have a slew of radial and jensen ISO transformer boxes. ISO transformers of good quality like this tend to improve your lows. A lot of guy put tweaky burr brown opamps in these and open them up but for a lot of what I do working with the people I work with an imperfectly defined sum with some haze and smoke can be really helpful. The board is well defined and musical but forgiving and flattering. Man-sized stereo width. Preamps aren't bad. Line amps are just the preamps padded down and you're thinking 'ow, shut' but its fine. They bring some vibe back to all the digital stuff that goes into them. I just wish I ahd room for a larger frame ebcause I would do it or buy a later model. Any 2 digit numbered soundcraft sounds similar. A lot of the 4 digit ones do too. And they're all very pleasant to work with and have a nice 70s british sound. Early Bowie all day....

you get what you pay for and a little bit more

Is this a pultec? I s there any chance a behringer product will be a vintage pultec? And that at under $300 new it'll have magic inductors?If it was, who would know but me and dudes like me who have had the privilege of using some old cool shit like this.What you get here is a passive EQ that acts a lot like a pultec. The amplifiers should be retubed right outta the damn box. The knobs are kinda detented, you know? So in a pair you could be fooled into thinking they match but use your ears. Use your ears ANYWAY. What sounds good is good. They have that open high end thing you want once some GE 12ax7s and mullard 12AT7s go in. These are a PITA to open by the way. How much mileage you get depends on your application. For my uses which are very specific and light handed they do the business. Big thumbs up. Its not apultec but find me another EQ that soudns this good for this kidna coin. Really, try me. Maybe a used Orban or Ashley but they don't sound this good. They work. They do a lot more. This DOES add something extra when you boost, maybe not what a real one does but it doesn't suck. Don't stop saving for a real pultec if you want one but remember this is an option and you can get piles of them if you have the space. I might buy 2 more. If you wanna get fancy you can mod a pair for better caps, mybe inductors and transformers but there's nothing WRONG with this unit stock.

My story is that I mentioned to my best friend Uli did these guys and since I'm the defacto mixer for everything he ever records he just called me one day and said "get anything from UPS?" I was like no, but they came the next day! Surprise present! In this context they're really outstanding.

Best expander/gates ever.

I have kepex IIs. As gates they are slightly better than kepex Is. The I was used to make the 'trem' sound on Floyd's Money by keying the expander from a metronome and these do that trick, but the gate is faster and more transparent for actual gating. These have been reissued in 500 series recently if you don't want to have to deal with an old 800 series rack with terminals on the back... the gatex is also very close as are the expanders/gates on the dynamite and 610 by VA. Cracking great stuff.

every studio used to have one

Orban's 622 was meant for broadcast, but its a great EQ> Good for program equalizing in stereo, or as 2 mono parametrics. If you're used to ITB parametric only this isn't that sculpty, but its pretty clinical. Its not a GML but it des its job and gets out of the way. I like the blue face ones because of the cheery hue of periwinkle.... black ones sound the same though.

these were made in large quantity and one should not overpay as they almost always work like new.

I will take this over your fab filter any day. When board EQ isn't precise enough this thing is stepping in to save the day.

70s drums, this is how you make them

My dear friend Dave Lesage once said "I love the gain brain, its the only compressor you can't hear it breathing." I'm not sure if I agree with this all the time, but ti CAN be true in a lot of use case scenarios.

This is a FET circuit like the 1176 but there the similarity ends. Its cleaner when used reasonably and dirtier when used as an effect. You wll want one for every drum track but kick, but you can do kick with this and get a real frank zappa sound... You'll need an Alison or Valley People lunchbox for this guy so you might as well fill all 10 slots. I really think when urei was making those 1u fet compressors after the 76 they were trying to keep up with Paul Buff's gain brains even though Buff was moving on to VCA with the dynamite, 610 etc etc.

Paul's designs aren't hit or miss. Until he passed every Allison/Valley unit was huge bang for buck and still is although some of these thigns are getting scarce. Its those thigns that came out under the blackface valley international brand you need to steer clear of, they're not BAD, they're not as useful though... but lunchboxes, gain brains, kepexes, gatexes, dynamites. Yeah, good stuff. Not fancy, not glamorous, just does its job and sounds great. No magic line amps or whatever, although the amps are capable of some nice dirt, but its not the mystical magical 1176 make up circuit. And it doesn't need to be. Sometimes you just need lots of gear that works well and these do exactly that. I do slightly prefer the 1 to the 2 for some reason, maybe its just that the allison version is prettier than the valley people version? I dunno. I never have them side by side. I've used a lot of GB2s and own GB1s because I don't like 500 series anymore and like these dedicated old rack systems by dbx and valley because it limits your options to just what they made for it.... the problem wth 500 is everyone is making stuff for it, so what do you get? It becomes distracting. A different comrpessor in every slot? Why?

does the business and its business is kick drum

single channel VCA comp that's like a 160 with crap metering, soft knee 'over easy'... 160A sounds better than X to me. Use for kick. On bass or guitar use a symetrix 5 series for cheap VCA peak limiting work. Hard knee better in that role. If you just need soemthing boring and functional on snare to even and tame everything down? it can be used there as well. If you think you need 2 just buy a 166x or similar alesis stereo unit, pretty close. For kick get an A. You just need the 1. You will never do kick drums without this again. You probably know that though... the cat is out of the bag on the 160s for kick, like everyone knows that now and if they didn't pensado mentioned it and showed the parallel trick to everyone

What the alesis 3630/32 tried to be

not quite hat you get with a 160a but there's 2 of them. Suitable for drums, can be used for kick if you don't have a 160a... do not use the limiter .

this is a very well made cassette deck

Tank like build quality and excellent stereo sound quality with 2 speeds, 80s consumer and 80s 'pro'. Can sound very high fidelity. Also has 2 more tracks, a blank spacer on 3 and another record head on 4 that can print smpte and mts time code if you can generate it, which I can. If well maintained this deck is a very professional peice of kit if you want tome 80s sound for your record.

This sounds great for drums, submix to it, return to recorder, it'll time sync... or just use it real time and bump your tracks back a hair for the delay created by that space between the record and playback heads. Lots of IO, noise reduction, soudns funny if you put noise reduction on the noise reduction LOL I'm legitimately thinking of mixing a whole mix down to this and then converting the tape... I might do it.

I didn't buy this myself, my friend had it and I as interested in it because it looked funny, so he just did a rebuild and gave it to me and we were just knocked out by how good it sounds. It can sound bad too, but mostly you wanna go high speed so it sounds good, like marantz good, or tascam 1/4" tape open reel good. Pleasantly surprised. Will see more and more action.

its not glamorous

patchbays aren't glamorous and 1/4" ones are extra pedestrian.... when you're a home studio and you change gear around a lot 1/4" and not hardwired or db25 TT is a good option. I have 2 of these guys and they're much better than the neutrik branded one I have, very sturdy. The top one is normalled in and out of my console's cchannel and bus inserts. The bottom one s not normaled and its got sends and returns for all the stuff I like the most. They don't make these now because winning... can be had for peanuts used. Does the job, indestructible. Look, if you get some gear, get a patchbay. Insert cables and actual equipment are the original plugin. And this guy is like a VST wrapper kids... it works well.

No latency LOL

served me and everyone I knew very well

this owns on an alesis ADAT but is pretty laughable now.... remember when we were all saving up for these because they were better than ADAT and noisy old tape? they were cheaper than a sony HDR. My memory of these was that nothing tracked to them had any bottom, but the top sounded good. Very reliable machine when compared to like a stock Alesis hard disc 24 track from the following decade

the echo less travelled

this is not a space echo and that's okay... it does happen to sound very cool in tis own way for dub fx and shit

as far as I can tell this is a muff fuzz in a stomp not a plug

looks like 2 LPB1s, one ramming the other in the hooha from behind...

here they go again

if the sausage fattener had actual utility 50% of the time assuming we have a lot of VSTi's and not real sounds? this sucker is useful like 25% of the time or less. its a 'why did I bother?' download. There's nothing this cna do that isn't done better by dedicated gear or plugins set to your specific need. This one size fits all shit is not for me. The sound quality is good, it does the filtering you expect and soudns fine if you want that. Plugins like this and the not-so-good vintage gear emulations are why everything sounds generic and kinda overblown and bad anymore outside of big budget mainstream productions mixed by JPP or Pensado and lofi indie analog stuff by hipsters....

I'm so frustrated with where techno and house have gone.

I leave this strapped to my master bus inserts. It sounds great.

I have 2 small gripes. only 1 gain reduction meter that only shows reduction and can't monitor input and output. I would like to see what's going in and out in stereo sometimes. Gripe 2, its always linked. This is mostly good but sometimes I want unlinked stereo bus compression. I know this isn't very SSL and this is a budget SSL copy mainly, but as they've tweaked the feature set why not give me unlink, 2 meters and make them assignable?

For all that whinging I love this compressor. It sounds pretty SSLish and has that glue everyone (myself included) has a h@rd on for. It has all the attack and release constants I could ask for. It has a very responsive threshold control allowing me to just tickle the meter in 1.5:1 ratio as I like to, no plugin jackassery where subtle settings produce SLAM for the meathead market. Slam if you must, but it does so much more in capable hands. Finally it has all the ratios one might need as well as a very well implemented sidechain high pass for those club pounders that just pump the thing way too hard. I know this was built to a price point but it outperforms the G bus in many ways thanks to the augmented feature set while maintaining those non-linear feeling envelope curves and the mysterious knee that never does ya dirty. Knobs are mainly detented, other pots are smooth and of good quality. The meter they DID give you is super fast and accurate. XLR and TRS connectors feel solid.

Heres the real jam on this guy though. Its switchable from an electronically balanced IC outut stage in true SSL spirit OR a discrete transistor transformer balanced stage with cinemags. They're heavy, use all 4 rack screws, okay? I gave this thing a bit of a workout day 1 with the IC stage and was dead pleased. Then I took a mix I finished with ITB compression and looped it through. I tried it with the VST buscomp with Warm comp in bypass with the transformers off, then the transformers on, then bypassed the VST and did comp with IC output and then switched to transformers. In both transformer use cases the cinemags added an audible sheen to the top, weight to the bottom and a depth to reverbs and delays as well as pushing the stereo field outside the speakers a bit. Headphone width was really noticeable as was kick punch wether the comp was in or out.... without the transformers the mix of DI synths and chopped samples with a bit of guitar became less interesting and the song's balls shrunk from elephantitis size to "I just took a dip in freezing water". To be sure I wasn't having a honeymoon reaction I also recorded a pass of every combination I mentioned and waited a few days, then sat down and lipped between them on my favorite tannoys. No change in my perception! I didn't label the tracks and when I looked at the file names, lo and behold the compressor-in, transformer-in tracks were my hands down favorite. Its not science exactly, but its rock n roll science, which is good enough for Uncle Jim.

You have to look at the equally wonderful API 2500 or their JDK audio budget version to touch this performance. This is one of my 3 favorite API designs of all time the others being the 512 and the 560 (the only graphic I know fit for use by humans) so I'm shooting high here. On sale on amazon of all places this compressor was very affordable at $600 and tax.... a used JDK is $800 all day. Its also 2u and I have rack woes all the time. Every big gadget I get could overturn the balance and force me to disconnect a 1u or two for space or buy yet another rack and that makes a 2u even more expensive. Especially if I get another rack and then get depressed at how empty it looks and wanna fill it. OH THE HUMANITY! Hardware is a cruel mistress, ain't it?

This has not come off my master bus. It moved from one console to the next this week. It is not in the patch bay, its just hardwired as I don't want to be tempted to experiment. I think it would be a waste of time. Nothing I own will outperform this unit in this roll. For weeks I've been tempted to pull it from the rack and give it a big hug. This has made my desert island island list.

I give this 5 stars as my complaints are far outweighed by the responsive controls, familiar interface, predictable performance and superlative sound quality. The metering and unlink will not be a problem for most folks, only serious compression connoisseurs and control freaks. Buy one. If you can mess up your music with this thing you should stop mixing and just hire me. I'm home all the time these days and I'll fix you up right.

EDIT: be sure to read ALL my compressor reviews