[weiss]

I would be interested to hear your techniques of using the 33609 compressor from neve or similar clones.
Because of the combination of limiting / compression and the different time constants i find it it not as straight forward compared to my other compressors. Is there a special approach you follow? What material do you use it on? Do you omit one of the sections? Just looking for some ideas.
Thank you 

[kambo]

my Igor staff are back home... but i use to get dc voltage from the power supply's adjustment/calibration out! and feed that to where ur control voltage going in... works really good, especially if u have a quiet part in the song, and kicking back in loud... so that DC voltage is setting an external threshold! measure and apply so ur compress,/limit thinks song is only dropped a bit!
Igor was so crazy surprised with it 


edit: and if your diodes and transistors in specific section ( i forgot now) are not closely matched, dont even bother  building them, Igor told me!

[weiss]

my Igor staff are back home... but i use to get dc voltage from the power supply's adjustment/calibration out! and feed that to where ur control voltage going in... works really good, especially if u have a quiet part in the song, and kicking back in loud... so that DC voltage is setting an external threshold! measure and apply so ur compress,/limit thinks song is only dropped a bit!
Igor was so crazy surprised with it 


edit: and if your diodes and transistors in specific section ( i forgot now) are not closely matched, dont even bother  building them, Igor told me!

Interesting trick. What does it do exactly to the signal? I was more asking about the general settings and the type of music or tracks you're using it on. My unit sounds fine as it is now..

[ruairioflaherty]

My Igor kit sits unbuilt, maybe someday.  But I used to rent a stunning original for mix work when I first moved to L.A.  I never got anything good out of the limiter section, but I have seen friends use it on drums with good results.

On the comp I found it excelled on the mids.  If a sound needed to be snappy, modern or had fast lows it didn't work.  But on mids like acoustic guitar, vocal etc it was glorious.

[weiss]

My Igor kit sits unbuilt, maybe someday.  But I used to rent a stunning original for mix work when I first moved to L.A.  I never got anything good out of the limiter section, but I have seen friends use it on drums with good results.

On the comp I found it excelled on the mids.  If a sound needed to be snappy, modern or had fast lows it didn't work.  But on mids like acoustic guitar, vocal etc it was glorious.

Nice! I made similar experiences. I'm not sure about the limiter section either. Still trying to figure out how it interacts with the comp section threshold-wise.

[Rob Flinn]

To understand the 33609 it is useful to examine the circuit diagram.    I think that the limiter takes it's sidechain from a different point than the compressor.    The limit s/c is fed from a point just before the output transformer obviously so that it is capable of preventing an overloaded signal being passed on to the next piece of gear.    The compressor s/c is taken from a point just before the BA640.  Since the gain make up seems to be done by changing resistors on the BA640 one can conclude that the gain make up won't affect the compressor but it will affect the limit. i.e the compressor takes it's sidechain BEFORE the make up amp & the limiter takes it's sidechain AFTER the make up amp.  This makes sense because the limiter is there to stop overloading the next unit down the chain, whereas the compressor is there to reduce the dynamic range or increase the average signal level.   Or at least that's what the unit is designed for rather than pummelling the living daylights out of a drum signal.

The limiter is actually really good at holding things at a level.  If you scope it on the bench & you have the unit calibrated properly you can see that if you have the thresh set at +4dB & you wind a massive signal into it (maybe +30dB) it will hold it at +4dB perfectly.     If you want to get the limiter pumping you need to crank up the make up gain and it then starts to sound funky.   Personally I don't use Neve compressors for this function because things like the TG limiter I find have a preferential sound  in this capacity.

I quite like using the compressor to even the signal level out a bit & use the limiter to keep transients in check.    This is particularly useful if you use a bit of compression when tracking like I sometimes do.

[Whoops]

I would be interested to hear your techniques of using the 33609 compressor from neve or similar clones.

That's a quite good question, also relevant to myself.

I have had some 33609 in different studios over the years and was never able to make it work for myself.
Unlike other compressors with this one I always prefer the bypass signal than with the 33609 on, being it on a mix or individual instruments I was never able to make it work for myself.

There are some high mids that pronounced with this unit that I never enjoyed or never really fit the program I was working on at the time.

[weiss]

That's a quite good question, also relevant to myself.

I have had some 33609 in different studios over the years and was never able to make it work for myself.
Unlike other compressors with this one I always prefer the bypass signal than with the 33609 on, being it on a mix or individual instruments I was never able to make it work for myself.

There are some high mids that pronounced with this unit that I never enjoyed or never really fit the program I was working on at the time.

Interesting, which style/instruments did you try it on? I find myself tweaking a lot as well.
Sounds rather discouraging for such a well-known piece of equipment.

[Whoops]

Interesting, which style/instruments did you try it on? I find myself tweaking a lot as well.
Sounds rather discouraging for such a well-known piece of equipment.

from what I can remember...

Mixes: pop, rock, acoustic

instruments: Drums, Piano, vocals, Stereo Backing Vocals

never worked for me and other compressors always work, but maybe it's my problem

[dmp]

I built Igor's 33609 and it is a really nice sounding piece. I agree it's great on acoustic guitar.  I just use the compressor - haven't used the limited much on anything.
I have been thinking of adding a HPF to the sidechain signal, for using on a drum bus.
I've been doing heavy compression in parallel on stuff -using compressors as effects more than mixing.

[fazer]

There are some high mids that pronounced with this unit that I never enjoyed or never really fit the program I was working on at the time.

.

Is that in real Neve 33609s?  I used one on a NPR music show for 6 years.  Mostly acoustic instruments and the real neve had a great glue as well as a sheen up high.   The real transformers are beautiful sounding to me.   I wanted to clone but got cold feet about how well it would match up.   I never did the parallel compressor on drums back then but I know engineers that would patch them into the effects send and return and put that on snare and kick and vocals like adding reverb.   I would love a clone if it sounded like the original.  Mostly for lightly touching the main mix with that sheen. 

[C_F_H_13]

I know this post is super old, but thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

 33609s are really cool compressors, but I've found one singular use I like them for: Drum Bus or Drum Parallel

Settings I use:

Limit Section Bypassed / Not Engaged

Compressor

- Threshold : usually full blast
- Recovery : by tempo 100ms for fast stuff, 400ms for most stuff
- Gain : just enough to compensate for reduction
- Ratio : 2:1 or 1.5:1
- Attack : fast generally, slow sometimes.

 For parallel I'll do fast attack and then get 8-12 db of reduction
 For main drum bus I'll do 1-3db of reduction on the snare hits.

 I know some people who use it on their master bus, but I never got it to work how I wanted.

pic of inside a Neve 33609 C Stereo compressor / limiter

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