SSL 4000 quad compressor mod...

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Me thinks Bob is in the league of "hit it as hard as you have to make it sound right". In other words, if it sounds right, it is right.

personally, I had situations where i hitted the masterbuss like crazy to get it where I wanted it to be, and other occasions I hardly touched the gain reductionpoint... not much of an answer huh? :sad:
but Bob would say similar stuff :grin:

Cheers,

Tony
 
fooled around with some m++ley gear today, and that varimu can really be hitted HARDDD before nasty sideFX show up.
Curious to find out the differences with Gyraf' VariMu design btw :wink:

But back on topic, what makes the makeupgain difference happen?
 
The first obvious difference is that the Moonley is feedback and the G10 is feedforward.

chrissugar
 
What tube was the gain reduction element in the one you tried today, the old 6368, the 5670 or the new T-B*A*R mod?

chrissugar
 
I am wondering how hard/why he is driving his mix buss to need that.

Something tells me it probably has nothing to do with how hard he's hitting the mix bus. I'm willing to bet that was done to imitate the VCA offset control that the E series had but was omitted from the G series(and later reappeared on the J's). If it was about level on the mix bus he could just pull down the master fader. The offset control was nice if you had a hot mix and wanted to pull it back without losing all the throw of the large master fader.

Zach
 
[quote author="pucho812"]This was a mod done especially for bob Clearmountain.
It changes the make-up gain (Quad Compressor) range from -10dB to +10dB instead of 0dB to +15dB.
I am wondering how hard/why he is driving his mix buss to need that. check it out.

http://mixthis.com/Custom_Make-up.pdf[/quote]

Downsize avatar ?

Gustav
 
Yes,

pucho812, could you please adjust your avatar to the recommended max. 60x60 pixels - the one you use takes up a lot of screen because the forum software resizes to largest-avatar..

Chris - yours is on the edge too..

Jakob E.
 
Hey Jakob,

I compared two threads, one with small avatars and one where my avatar is the largest. After comparison it looks like the one with small avatars has the same width at the left side of the page. Can I keep it or resize it?

chrissugar
 
I don't understand this either. I never understood why compressors let you lower the makeup gain. If I'm loosing 5 dB from the compression why would I want to then lower the signal even more? If I loose 5dB I want to add 5dB of makeup gain. Isn't that why they call it make-UP gain, cause it gains it back up to nominal level?
 
[quote author="Tinsken"]Jens, I am using my ears for a long time.[/quote]

[quote author="Tinsken"]I own SL 6000 E for almost a year and still didn't realise should i use it as a 10:1 fast limiter, or as a 4:1 , 2:1 slow atack master compressor. [/quote]

Errr... Aren't those two statements mutually exclusive?

What Jens means is that there are no hard and fast rules on how to compress a mix. Your ears should tell you whether the program material needs to be slammed or just barely evened out by the compressor.

[quote author="Tinsken"]I hope You dont think that some amatyeur can buy a 56 channel SSL console.[/quote]

You don't get out much, do you? :wink:

Peace,
Al.
 
Thanks, AL
What Jens means is that there are no hard and fast rules on how to compress a mix. Your ears should tell you whether the program material needs to be slammed or just barely evened out by the compressor.
That´s exactly what I wanted to say.

Tino, I didn´t want to become personal, sorry for that.
But indeed I do know in my area guys who´s occupation is being son. They do have big desks (Amek, ADT), big rooms, loads of expensive outboard and no Idea of music. They do call themselves professionals in the audio industry but they don´t need to earn their bread with music since they have their parents. Thus in my understanding they are amateurs.

I´d really love to visit your studio but it´s alittle far. Thanx for the invitation anyway.

peace
Jens
 
with all due respect, if you cant hear the difference between what is happening to a mix through a SSL VCA limiter, a variable mu tube limiter and a digital limiter you either arent listening hard enough or your monitoring should come into some question as those three boxes are about as different from each other as they can be, sonically speaking.

The way to use any piece of gear, regardless of what it is, is turn the knob until it sounds good to you. Any advice you get beyond that is fairly worthless from an engineering standpoint as any decision you make with a limiter *always* is dependant upon the material you are feeding it, how that interacts with the limiter and of course what your expectations are and what you are trying to achieve. you could put one of 15 different limiters on your mix buss and none is more right than the next, it comes down to what you are trying to do as an engineer and what the song will allow happen. Use your ears is the best advice you'll get on the subject since ultimately, its personally subjective.

If your mix sounds better with the buss limiter and another limiter in series, thats what you should do, you are the engineer, its your call. When you say "final master" exactly what do you mean? If you are comparing your results on your console to any commercially available music mixed on the same desk, do take into consideration that regardless of how that mix was handled coming out of the console, it still went to a mastering engineer who in this day and age, probably compressed it a touch and definitely limited it, so all the commercial stuff you hear that was done on a SSL has plenty of additional compression happening in mastering.

A good setting to also consider on the SSL limiter is the "off" setting. The biggest mistake I have seen people do is turn on all those channel limiters just because they were there, be selective about what you compress. Some songs that buss limiter might be awesome on, others it might not be the best thing in the world, dont feel obligated to have it on just because its there. the songs usually will tell you what they want if you pause to listen to what they are telling you.

hopefully this is helpful, Im not trying to be a smart ass.

dave
 
all respect to the above, but we still don't know why Bob wants to have a reducing gain make-up :roll:

My only assumption is that he want to feed to unbalanced gear without having to go tru other stuff first?
Or to match (or having a way to "underdrive") his tape 2-tracks more easely maybe?
 
I´m not Bob just Bo, but one idea about reducing the area to +/- 5 db
(or 10) is when you "take" the Quad comp out of the summing area
and put it on another stereo object. I´ts more of getting the right level
out of the unit. Or..
You maybe want to feed another delicate device after the
compr. Lets saya NTP 140 limiter,that you cant hit to hard at the input.
Cheers Bo
 

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