Recording - December 2017 - 48

BAE 500C

FET Compressor

Something new and different from a
company famed for honoring classic designs
REVIEW BY PAUL VNUK JR.

alifornia's British Audio Engineering is best
known for its years of manufacturing spot-on
recreations of-as the name suggests-
famed British preamps, EQs, and compressors. However, in the past decade the company has branched
out to include a roster of original BAE designs as
well as "non-Neve-esque" yet classic wares.
This month, we take a look at the new 500C FET
Compressor. It is part of BAE's growing line of 500
Series modules and is a pure BAE design, but it
also borrows heavily from classic American FET
compressor designs.

Meet the new FET

The 500C is a single-slot 500 Series box in black
with an orange BAE logo and white nomenclature.
The chassis features a fully-wrapped metal enclosure
and is solid, heavy, and well-crafted.
Top to bottom on the front panel are five black
plastic-capped knobs, three buttons, and a 12-segment
LED meter. The first four knobs are continuous pots offering
a great resistance and smooth glide. These control
Input, Output, Attack and Release. Each of these are in
the "by ear" category; none of them are labeled with
anything other than eleven white dots. In other words,
"turn until you like it." The website and manual give no
indication of times, speeds, or decibel levels... although
Attack and Release are marked with an S and F on
each side to let you know where Slower and Faster are!
The bottom knob is a 6-position stepped pot and
controls the compression ratio. This is the only control
that is marked, offering ratio choices of 2:1, 4:1, 8:1,
12:1, 20:1 and ABI. ABI is short for "all buttons in,"
which simulates the famous practice of jamming all of the ratio buttons on the UREI
1176 compressor in at the same time.
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RECORDING December 2017

Gain Reduction is indicated, up to 20
dB, on the LED meter. This meter also
contains a red peak indicator at the top
to let you know when the unit is being
driven hard-not a bad thing at all,
mind you.
The 500c's three buttons are labeled
Bypass, HPF, and GR Off. Bypass completely removes the module from the audio
chain, and the 6 dB/octave @125 Hz
highpass filter allows the lows to travel
through the compression circuit without
clamping down. Gain Reduction Off is
not a bypass-this control disables the
gain reduction circuits, but still allows
you to send signal through the unit's
analog circuit path for added transformer
weight and warmth.

Op amps and transformers

To fit all of that FET goodness into a
single-space 500 Series enclosure, the
500C uses a trio of BAE-designed 2015
op amps in the API 2520 vein, as well as
a custom-wound output transformer.
Some specs: maximum input before
clipping +27 dBu, noise -82 dBA and
THD+N 0.15% (both at +4 dBu input,
1 kHz, with GR off), and frequency response of 10 Hz to 22 kHz (+0.3/-0 dB).

In use

The first thing to get out of the way is
that despite being very much in the vein
of a classic American FET compressor,
most notably a UREI 1176, the 500C
does not try too hard to be a strict
clone, especially in a sonic sense. However, as mentioned above, all of the
controls found on the 500C are pretty
much those found on an 1176-including
the All Buttons In mode, the slow-to-fast
Attack and Release controls, and even
the practice of using the unit as a transformer tone box sans compression. It
also functionally differs from the classic
1176 by adding an additional gentle
2:1 compression ratio to the 1176's
traditional offerings, not to mention the
sidechain highpass filter.
Side-by-side with my 15-year-old Universal Audio 1176LN reissue, the 500C
is a touch rounder, cleaner, and "hi-fi"
in character when compared to the
UA's gritty aggression and more open
top end. The 500C can be fast and
aggressive, but it retains a solid treble

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2017