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Originally Posted by audiomichael  I am so ready to hear some clips!  |
Well here you go.. I got mine today. Thank you Greg for the quick turnaround and sexy box. Man this thing looks good : ) For some reason the new color makes all the labeling easy to read and i feel like it was well thought out. The unit came with a new serial over the existing serial with the original reprinted. There was also a very nice QC card with a bunch of checks performed before it left Kush audio. I only wanted to mention all that because before I got it back i was thinking very small operation just new starting up, hopefully the quality and QC and professionalism are there. Getting the package set my mind at ease in that way. Greg you're off to a great start design some more products.
Onto the acutal unit. I made a BUNCH of test files on some drums tonight, thats all i had time for. I tried as best i could to level match but it was just by ear and its not my strongest point. I did several tests for each compression as well as a no compression through fatso and a ITB mix so you could get the impression of the sound of the basic unit then a bunch of the compression settings.. Why be so nice to all you guys? Well when i get a new device i put it through some basic tests and i thought why not share them more often from now on if i think its a great device.
I'd had the original fatso for about 6 months and was very used to it. The new unit will take a bit of getting used to, but first and foremost all the compression is now very useful and sweet sounding. It will take some time to find "sweet spots" on the different compressors, but for me personally i couldn't use any of the compressors other than "buss" before and even that wasn't a great setting for my tastes. My personal tastes are for compression to provide a "vibe" or a "coloration" moreso than to control a player and make them sound tighter. In other words if I like the sounds i'm getting with no compression, i'll just automate or level ride the performance for gain control, but if i'm looking for a tonal change, i'll use a compressor. That seems like exactly what Greg was going for with these new settings as they have some great effects on the tones.
Now I had noticed in this thread perhaps or somewhere else that Greg had mentioned the smooth setting wasn't great with "transient" instrument sounds, drums would be one of those and thats the only test i did here. I'm holding my opinion on smooth in check until I hear it on some other source. On drums it still does something nice when you hit it really softly. I think i would be comfortable tracking through it with the right drum tone hitting it very softly and it would sort of squish everything down subtly and help at mix time. However smooth really clamps down hard if you push it a bit harder. I like all the settings, so now i'll place some samples here.. Here's the low down:
a dry file ITB, and a dry rough mix ITB, and a no compression through fatso file. 3 settings on splat, 3 on smooth, 3 on glue. I used Warmth 2 on ALL material. For me with my old fatso i always use SOME warmth, and W2 was the setting i used as default. If i wanted more i turned it up, but W2 makes the mix sit together better without you hearing a perceptable difference track to track. To give you and idea on W2 you will hardly ever see one light come on on the warmth meter at the top of the unit. I used the daw output gain where possible, and i used the input knob on the following settings, and OP to level match as well as i could. I did not turn on the trafo. For THD i was finding that mostly the levels were hitting "comfy" on the new unit on transient hits which is equivalent to 0db on the old unit.
the numbers on each file name denote the lower and upper approx bounds on the gain reduction i was seeing:
splat 0-7 IP4
splat 5-12 IP4
splat 9-17 IP6
smooth 0-6 IP4
smooth 7-10 IP4
smooth 10-15 IP5.5
Glue 3-7 IP4
Glue 5-10 IP5
Glue 10-20 IP6.5
I use apogee ad and da16x converters through the symphony card into my mac pro. Original tracks were recorded straight through pre's no compression. I believe it was germaniums on overheads and TG channel on kick/snare and room mics.
Also.. all files are 320kbps mp3's at 48k
Curious to know what ppl think of this unit. i'll be trying it a lot more soon but the initial signs are that it took my original fatso to a new level by slapping a great quality comp into it for not a lot more money than the original unit.
Russell