UBK Fatso

[u b k]

BE WARNED: the text you are about to read is a transparent attempt to get you utterly psyched to crave, seek out, and ultimately spend your hard earned money on a compressor that i have 50% vested financial interest in. if you find yourself easily offended by my uber-hyperbolic style of prose wielded in service of anything that remotely whiffs of marketing, i beg you please to close this tab in your browser now and read no further. i am absolutely blown away by the sounds that come out of this box and i will spare no adverb or image in the cause of convincing you of its glorious glory.

with that COMPLETELY STRAIGHTFORWARD AND UPFRONT DISCLAIMER submitted for your consideration, this is it folks: the culmination of about 9 months of sweating details, turning knobs a millimeter at a time, soldering hundreds of resistors into the same tiny holes over and over, sitting in 5 different rooms and recording dozens of sounds ranging from the ordinary to the esoteric, and sitting for hours on end compressing each instrument in every manner to every possible extreme that my manic brain could conceive.

in the end, thanks to the unbelievably generous help from dave derr, the genius behind all of empirical labs' alchemical tools, i massaged the voltages flowing thru his Fatso and created 21 new fixed setting compressors, every one of which had some kind of serious mojo. i then tested each of these compressors one at a time using all the sounds i'd recorded, and slowly filtered down the comps until i was left with 5 that kicked total @ss and which absolutely refused to sound bad no matter what i fed it and no matter how soft or hard i hit it. i took these 5 comps back out into the field where i ran them thru the paces with 2 other engineers whose ears i believe to be at least as good as mine (and in many ways better) and we all agreed that of the 5 comps i had chosen, 3 were just plain magical, and better still, each one was very very different from the others.

i stuck a new faceplate on it, and the result is what i have cleverly named the UBK Fatso. this is the first product from KuSh Audio, the inevitable partnership between me and Gil Griffith from Wave Distribution. you can get this creature as a new unit direct from us and thru a select group of retailers in the states and europe, or you can have your Classic Fatso modded to become a 100% UBK Fatso. same warmth, same harmonic saturation and tapey thickness as the original, but with radically different compression styles and aesthetics.

so in the vid below i run a bunch of sounds/mixes thru 2 UBK Fatso's in parallel to give you an sense of how badass this box can get. i tend to start each demo off with a very 'nice' amount of compression, but i quickly move on towards the boundaries of good sense and taste to show you what i mean when i say that you can slam this thing to the gills and it simply will not fold. i am in no way advocating this much compression, but neither am i ruling it out. in the end, whether you're a '2db on the peaks' gentleman or a 'perpetual sea of 15-20db' animal, i fully believe this compressor has a lot of new tricks for you to drop into your secret box of magic.

with that, i shut up and bid you happy smashing.

the hi-res vid can be downloaded here: UBK Fatso demo

youtube below. enjoy!




gregory scott - ubk
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[MDSleep]

i have already decided to snag one of these bad boys, but this is great to see.

[h4nc0]

Wow, Congrats!

[bcgood]

I just downloaded and watched the higher quality video. Great demo UBK, the unit sounds great especially at the end of the demo with the bass, drums and guitar.

Nice work, I think you've got a potential hit on your hands.

[audiomichael]

Bro! Where's the hat!?! I thought that was an integral part of the UBK Fatso presentation.



Well, regardless, you're UBK Fatso sounds crazy good! Can't wait to get my hands on one. Nice demo music too, love your drum sounds.

[radiospace]

Nice job on the demo video.

[gainreduction]

Great job UBK ! One more thing on my never ending shopping list.

[raal]

curse you red baron! great color on the faceplate. how much?

[Everlast]

very nice presentation! great compressor! I especially liked that ending tune with drums/bass/wah guitar

[ejsongs]

i want the plugin!!!!! lol

sounds really good dude seriously...how much???

ej

[Mad John]

SWEET!

How much?

[lambro]

really cool, nice work

how much to mod existing units?

[Micfallon]

I've already ordered mine !

[GilWave]

$2800 MSRP

$2400 street

Mods to existing Fatso's $300.

More details at KuSh Audio - Products

[R3altruth]

UBK... You're a cool ass dude.... partly because every post I see from you has the word "esoteric" in it... and mostly because you really do appreciate quality audio....
Good shit

[strewnshank]

You'll be getting mine shortly for mod!
Can't wait, looks awesome.

[R3altruth]

Don't you wanna work on the EL-8 now... for me???!?!?!?

[rarseman]

me want one for my birthday in two weeks

[Wiggum, Ralph]

UBK,

Congrats and Great Vid!!! You will definitely have me as a customer. This is my next compressor purchase(and first for hardware compression).

BTW, I wish more companies would do videos like this. I know having a piece of gear is truly the best way to know if something is going to work on your music, but with this video I believe I understand the essence of the comp.

[raal]

Originally Posted by GilWave

Mods to existing Fatso's $300.

More details at KuSh Audio - Products

just checked out your website. cool.

one question:
with the mod, can you still go as subtle as a stock Fatso if need be? i was very impressed by the video but wouldn't want to loose the nice subtlety of my Fatso.

i hope i was clear in asking the question. thank you for your time.

[BLueROom]

Great job man... it's officially on the list.

E.

[Watersound]

UBK, you nailed it brother! Those comps sound so sweet, I'm gonna have to buy this thing now...

[Brad McGowan]

Mine should be arriving on my doorstep any day now. Can't wait.

Expect a full report with sound clips from me in the near future.

Brad

[trustyjim]

What's with the A2D in the video? Where's the Burl B2?

[geareyes]

Sounds very promising

Mike

[u b k]

Originally Posted by trustyjim

Where's the Burl B2?

it's on loan to eddie kramer, who's using 8 channels (6 of which are borrowed!) to do the capture and surround mixes for the long lost woodstock footage.

i miss it, but the a2d has its own kinda magic, and it's very nice having 2 sweet flavors of a/d. or rather, it will be when the burl gets back!


gregory scott - ubk
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[Tone Laborer]

Really sounds nice. A word on the Toasty and Comfy leds?

[u b k]

but of course!

comfy means you're coming in at 0vu, just starting to engage the saturation and harmonic distortion generators.

toasty has been relabeled 'roast' on the production faceplates, and is exactly what it sounds like: you're digging into the red, driving the thd circuit hard, lots of musical soft clipping and transient rounding.


gregory scott - ubk
.

[u b k]

Originally Posted by raal

one question: with the mod, can you still go as subtle as a stock Fatso if need be?

indeed, with some comps moreso than others.

splat kicks in pretty fast, smooth is typical fatso range, glue is easy on the uptake (this one kills on the 2mix) and squish also has a wider sweet spot in the low range. and you've still got the option of running no comps, just the warmth/sat/tranny. imo, with the exception of splat, it's actually easier to go subtle with the UBK Fatso.


gregory scott - ubk
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[raal]

Originally Posted by u b k

indeed, with some comps moreso than others.

splat kicks in pretty fast, smooth is typical fatso range, glue is easy on the uptake (this one kills on the 2mix) and squish also has a wider sweet spot in the low range.


gregory scott - ubk
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thanks ubk! now let me figure out what i have to do to get the thing to the US and back without getting reamed by customs.

congrats on the new product sir. the new color rocks too. if the box sounds the way it looks...