Recording - October 2014 - 70

B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

Dangerous Music Dangerous Compressor
Dangerous Music was founded in 2001
by Chris Muth and Bob Muller with the
motto, "Sonic Integrity Is Non-Negotiable."
Since its first product, the Dangerous 2-Bus
analog summing device, the company has
been at the forefront of both analog summing and the hybrid analog/digital studio
paradigm.
In addition to a long list of summing and
monitoring devices such as the 2-Bus and
the Dangerous Source (reviewed February
2014), in recent years Dangerous has
started offering studio audio processors.
First there was the Bax EQ, reviewed by
yours truly back in our October 2012
issue, and now it's time for us to check out
some Dangerous compression!
The Dangerous Compressor
The Dangerous Compressor is is a 2U
19" rackmount unit with two matching
channels of ultra-transparent VCA-based
compression. Unlike the many vintageflavored compressors on the market with
a minimum of controls, the Dangerous
Compressor offers a host of control and
tweaking choices.
Buildwise, as with all Dangerous gear,
this compressor is top-drawer in every
way. Its thick front faceplate is dressed in
a classy brushed black finish and
adorned with the familiar "Dangerous
style" knobs, done in black with easy-tosee orange accents and silky-smooth to
the touch. This is, to my personal taste, a

RECORDING October 2014

Dynamics control without compromise or coloration
big improvement over the feel of the Bax
EQ's knobs, which operate smoothly but
whose surface texture is rough to the
touch. As with other Dangerous rack
products, the Dangerous Compressor's
buttons are backlit in a variety of bright
colors and you can hear the relays clicking in and out as you engage and disengage them. The center of the unit is dominated by two large bright VU meters that
can show input, output or gain reduction.
Around the back are XLR inputs and
outputs for each channel, as well as additional XLR I/O for the unit's external
sidechain capability. There are also a
pair of small recessed set screws for
adjusting the VU meters.
Functions explained
Moving left to right, it all starts with a
group of pushbutton controls that affect
both channels of the unit simultaneously.
The first and largest button is labeled
Engage; this is a hard bypass that allows
signal to flow freely through the
Compressor for true A/B comparisons.
The next four buttons comprise the
sidechain section, with two internal
sidechain controls and two external.
The first, labeled Bass Cut, is similar to
how most modern compressors handle
sidechaining; it engages a 6 dB/octave
filter, 3 dB down at 60 Hz, that allows

low frequencies to pass through the unit
without the detector clamping down. This
prevents low-end information (e.g. kick
drums or even vocal plosives) from causing heavy-handed unnatural compression
and sudden drops in the signal.
Next is a button labeled Sibilance
Boost. This engages a Baxandall shelving
EQ that boosts 2 dB at 5 kHz and up into
the detection circuitry, so the compressor
grabs a little more at stuff on the high
end, like vocal sibilance. This feature is
one of my favorites on the unit; it's especially nice on acoustic guitar, and on
cymbals when used on the drum bus.
The final two controls in the sidechain
section are for external sidechain functions. Here, you can use an external
equalizer to focus in on certain audio
bands for frequency-specific compression.
One control activates the external ins and
outs while the other, labeled Sidechain
Monitor, lets you listen to just the external
EQ band for fine tuning, and to the internal Bass Cut and Sibilance Boost (the signal sent to the detection circuitry).
Next we have the Contour section. The
first button, Smart Dynamics, engages a
pair of independent slopes in the detection
circuit. According to the manual: "One
section of the detector controls the average
level. The other handles only rapid transients... This results in a higher average

Recording - October 2014

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