which compressor

[zakary]

Hi everyone,
greetings from athens-greece, i'm thinking of getting a compressor, either the Focusrite Compounder Platinum or the Behringer T1952 Tube Composer. I'm into deep-jazzy house.

Any other tested suggestions are also welcome.

thanks
z

[O'love]

for what do you want to use the compressor mainly?
whats your budget?

Olaf

[zakary]

while in the process of producing a track, initially the drums, maybe after that the bass and then overall compression of the track

z

[zakary]

Originally posted by O'love:
for what do you want to use the compressor mainly?
whats your budget?

Olaf forgot to mention budget, something up to $900

[O'love]

ok...i guess you want to compress "live" stuff?
if not, so you want to process "digital/recorded" stuff i would definately recommend the UAD1 card from universal audio...the compressors and EQ's on it are top-notch, only super-expensive hardware stuff can touch it......

otherwise the focusrite compounder is a very good choice..a friend of mine has it in the studio, although after purchasing the UAD1 card he doesn't use it that much anymore.....

so bottom line: if you want to use the compression for monitoring/during tracking/recording you should go with the focusrite compounder......if you want to process already recorded stuff and/or don't mind tracking without compression and processing afterwards, and don't mind doing stuff in the computer, definately check out the UAD1

Olaf

[ April 15, 2004, 10:39 AM: Message edited by: O'love ]

[zakary]

thanks Olaf for your reply,
i think i should mention my setup and way of working.

Desk : Mackie 1642 VLZ PRO
Synths : Novation Nova, Yamaha SW1000XG
Samplers : NI Kontakt, NI Battery
VSTi : a few other plugins (Mda)
Sound card : RME MULTIFACE
Effect processor : Lexicon MPX1

A home studio to sum things up, i do all work in the pc, run everything through the mackie desk and back to the pc. I don'r record live instruments, when i need to do that or for vocals, i go in a bigger studio and return home with recordings in digital format which i then import in the pc.

I hope that gives a better description of my setup and way of work.

One more question, do people compress instruments / vocals before recording them or record and then compress them ?

thanks again
z

[O'love]

ok that makes my advice a lot easier: invest in an UAD1 card.... it really is amazing....you have a bunch of vintage classic compressors (1176 and LA2A), vintage EQ (pultec), a really good reverb (realverb pro), a channelstrip with very nice 5-band EQ, compressor, delay, reverberation engine, and a guitar-amp sim with lots of good modules like phasers, autowahs, delays etc...... only a pultec EQ in hardware would set you back 15.000 dollar only....... the UAD1 can be purchased around 500 US dollar.... www.uaudio.com (http://www.uaudio.com)

i notice that sometimes a musician finds it important to have the monitor-sound compressed/reverbed etc. to deliver a better performance, but i tend to prefer to record the sound un-altered and then process afterwards.... of course you need a seperate monitorting and recording-chain for that..

Olaf