EQ Magazine - December 2008 - (Page 62)

GEAR HEAD “LUNCHBOX” 500 SERIES COMPRESSOR ROUNDUP SQUEEZE YOUR SOUND BY SQUEEZING THESE INTO YOUR LUNCHBOX by Garrett Haines As Jay Matheson noted in his 500 Series Pre Amp Roundup on page 54, there are a variety of advantages with the “API Lunchbox” format— and this format’s popularity among engineers is rising. Consequently, we’ve seen a swell of offerings in the 500 series compressor field. We were fortunate enough to obtain almost every available model for our roundup, and even more fortunately, the gang at Mercenary Audio loaned us a six-space API model to house them. Later, Purple Audio let us enjoy one of their Sweet Ten rack units. For more information about these boxes (as well as some other options), see the sidebar on page 64; note that all prices given are list prices. SQUASHING 1-2-3-500 In addition to the other engineers at Treelady Studios, I enlisted the help of Herman “Soy Sos” Pear, from Tuff Sound Studio. Soy normally focuses on electronic, urban, and world music, and he brought an extensive collection of modular synthesizer sounds that ranged from spacey to phat to downright bizarre. We also used guitar, piano, bass, and drum source and submix tracks from country singer Christian Trich, progressive rockers Undermine the Common, and rapper E Rock. This provided us with a wide range of instruments, vocal styles, and production aesthetics for our tests. PURPLE AUDIO ACTION PRICE: $675 STRENGTHS: All-button in “Nuke” Setting. Tri-color LED metering. Everyday workhorse compressor performs well on most sources. LIMITATIONS: Extreme settings can cause distortion. Ratio knobs can be difficult to move. Dialing up good sounds on some sources requires patience. CONTACT: www.purpleaudio.com While most of the other units gave us immediate gratification, we had to work with the Action. This is not bad; some of my favorite gear required time to get used to the control interactions. Soy Sos found Action outstanding for tracking samples and fast transient synth materials, but he had difficulty dialing in vocal settings quickly. Purple states that the Action is reminiscent of their MC77 (a respected recreation of the Urei 1176; Purple was the world’s only source of this particular compressor sound for several years). I can see the relation, but at the same time, this is not an MC77 packed into a 500 series rack. For one thing, the attack and release times are much broader than the MC77, which can cause distortion if you’re not careful. We wanted to like the Action on bass, but our results were average. However, on synth samples, kick drum, and snare, the Action came alive, adding pop, snap, and presence to sources. The more we used this box, the more we liked it. 62 EQ DECEMBER 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.purpleaudio.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - December 2008

EQ Magazine - December 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In My Morning Jacket Guitar Trax Bass Management Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Cakewalk Sonar 8 Propellerhead Reason 4 Indie 500: Lunchbox Pres and Compressors 500 Series Preamps 500 Series Compressors Gadgets and Goodies Sounds Room with a Vu

EQ Magazine - December 2008

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