dbx 119

What a great little beast for smashing things
and not so bad at subtle.
though guitars and drums are a favorite through this try everything it has that sticky clicky tape like bounce to it at reasonable levels at low ratios subtle and pleasing enrichment, at slam settings hold on to you hat the drums go thwaaaaccckkkkk poooowwwww !!!
These are at least 30 years old and usually need the power supply replaced
even if they work, the will sound better with this done.I upgraded the opamp to something modern and cleaner.
The real meat here are the VCA's they are the same as the venerable 160.
And while you don't have a ton of control like attack or rel settings this thing smashes with the best of them really.
And it just sounds wonderful when used moderately as well.
The tone of it is quite simialr to a 160 minus the transformers and extra control.
there are 2 detection modes linear and a voltage based threshold mode.
I use the latter to set the onset of compression it has very low ration settings that 1.2-1.4 etc that increase to infinity hard limit.

No makeup gain and really its a wonderful one trick pony but what it does and for the cash ... priceless

If you do get one dont pay too much let your value on it include a tech replacing the power supply and put in the latest compatable opamp , I tried it both ways and found the newer opamp didn't change the tone much just cleaned up the image and lowered some uncool distortions.
The vca's in here are where the mojo is at.

Its a stereo unit but of course can be run mono, but not dual mono.

Great little beast smash something put it in your daw compare it to ANY plug -in and realize the power of electricity pulsing through this little wooden box !!!hahahaha