Chameleon Labs 7720 Compressor: Mix Buss Clips Inside

[warhead]

I have been testing the new Chameleon Labs 7720 Stereo Compressor, solely testing mix buss use which is what the compressor is designed for. The chain is as follows:

Original File: 44.1 / 24
Nuendo 4 / PC
Converters: Solid State Logic Alpha Link AX w/ Mixpander5 PCI Card
Final Export: 320k mp3 for upload

The link is here:

Warren Dent - N o W h e r e R a d i o . c o m

There are notes showing attack & release times used, average gain reduction, indicating if hi-pass filter (always set to 90hZ for this song) was used on the sidechain, and if AUTO release was used. I tried to use different settings that (A) complimented the song in different ways and (B) pushed the compressor a bit to show what happens in more extreme cases. The first file is bypassed so you hear the conversion the same, also the files will line up bit for bit in your DAW.

I suggest loading them up into your DAW and listening on proper monitors.

The band is "Damn. The Sun" from Columbia, SC. The song is called "Something Loud" and is pre-master. This is part of an upcoming release recorded and mixed by me.

I'd love to know what you think, this took a long time to put together!

Your friend in gear: War

[Bounce]

Hey, War, thanks for taking all the time it took to do this! I'm sure many will appreciate it a great deal (as I do)!
After a brief listen and jumping around a bit within the files, I've come to the conclusion that I'd have to hear it for myself on my own stuff HAHA! Imagine that

Since some the individual tracks seem to have a good bit of compression already, it's kinda of hard to read what this thing would do when "mixed into" or on material mixed with this comp on the 2 bus in mind. You can hear a bit of it's "thing" on these samples however. On my quick listen, I believe the 1.5 ratio may be the plan for mixbus here (as on on some other comps). Maybe I'll pick one up and see what I think. I was literally about to pick up a Smart C1 or Neve Portico comp for the 2 bus tomorrow for some mixes I'm doing. Maybe I'll grab one of these as well and keep one or the other. I do like the SSL kinda sound on a lot of things but this thing seems to be a good bit different (cleaner maybe?). Worth hearing.

Thanks again, man.

[warhead]

I am glad you enjoy the files, they do typify the sound of this unit.

I did not mix into the compressor all the way through, no mix buss compressor was used on that track in particular before hand though.

War

[lpkyer]

Thanks for the mp3s ! This unit sounds great, what a bargain.
Also the SSL Converters sound very good!

[Ben J]

Thanks for this!

[roxy]

War: thanks for your time, what´s your very personal opinion about the chamaleon 7720 compressor so far ?

[warhead]

It's clean. Did you listen to the clips? It certainly does what it says it will do, and delivers WAY more than you pay for! Not a character piece, but listen to the way it glues a mix. It brings those stray elements into one clear "picture" if you will.

I was hoping these clips would help establish that, but yeah those are my thoughts on it. Even the 10:1 clip you can hear that it essentially stays clean, although I find it more useful in a pumping sort of fashion rather than the average reduction that can be done at 1.5:1.

One interesting thing you guys can do with these clips:

You can phase reverse the BYPASS file, then play it against a compressed file and hear the differences (play them at the same time, 2 files, one phase reversed). You'll notice for example the 1.5:1 clip is more of an average reduction vs the 10:1 clip which has a fairly dramatic pump to it. The files are not exactly level matched as they are all processed differently, so you can increase the null by playing with the volume a bit, but experiment with this and you can hear the WORK being performed by the 7720.

War

[roxy]

Thanks a lot !!

[beechstudio]

Wow.........thanks War!