Thursday November 12, 2009

Mark Cousins reviews the P501

The first review of the new P501 has been published in the latest edition of MusicTech magazine. The reviewer is Mark Cousins, a successful composer, programmer, engineer and writer.

Mark has had his works performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the East of England Orchestra, City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and the Brighton Festival Chorus, and is currently senior reviewer at MusicTech.

Mark writes about the P501, ‘The quality of the compression itself is remarkably effective, both in its ability to provide a more even set of dynamics while recording to a DAW and its ability to lock a part into the mix without it sounding overly squashed … more

Having fun at Factory Street

It’s not every day most of us get the opportunity to have a play with the classic 1176 compressor so we jumped at the chance to compare the 1176 with our very own Dynamics Toolbox at the Factory Street studios in the UK, recently opened by none other than Feargal Sharkey.

Studio owner Alex Eden has been getting to know the Dynamics Toolbox recently installed at Factory Street where its been put to work in a variety of tracking and mixdown sessions with the bands recorded by Alex and co.

But back to the 1176. It’s kind of daunting, unpacking such a classic compressor for the first time. First impressions are puzzling. Very plain looking, ‘dial’ knobs but not many of them and a huge VU meter, a lot of real estate for a single channel compressor. Anyway we hooked up the 1176 alongside the Toolbox and started to do some A/B comparisons. The Toolbox is always incredibly smooth and will never distort; by comparison the 1176 … more