Showing posts with label compressors. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 27, 2026

A compressor from Ogden, Utah that sounds like Memphis

Spectra Sonics was founded in Ogden, Utah in 1964 by William G. Dilley. It’s not where you’d guess a Memphis soul sound came from, but Spectra’s 101 preamps get described as exactly that: the sound of Stax Records. Spectra consoles also ended up at Ardent in Memphis, the Record Plant in New York, and much later at Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound in Nashville.

The 610 Complimiter came out in 1969. It pairs a compressor/limiter module with 101-style make-up gain, and it’s fast. The published attack time runs from 100 nanoseconds to 2 microseconds, which is quicker than almost anything else you’re likely to plug in.

That kind of speed can be ugly in the wrong place and great in the right one. Dave Cobb has been loud about liking them. Vintage King quotes him: “I used the hell out of them on the new Jason Isbell record.” Vance Powell and Tchad Blake are fans too.

Where it works

Drum rooms, mostly. Something that grabs that quickly turns a room mic into a wall. It’s also good on bass when you want every note to sit exactly where it is.

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posted by mixalot at 9:41 PM Email Post
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Thursday, October 22, 2026

The RS124, an Altec that EMI took apart

In 1959 EMI bought a batch of Altec 436B compressors for Abbey Road. By 1960 three of its engineers, Bill Livy, Len Page and Mike Batchelor, had reworked them enough to give them a new name: the RS124. It’s a variable-mu tube design. Slow, smooth, and more about tone than catching peaks.

According to Recording The Beatles by Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, an RS124 may have been used on every Beatles album from Please Please Me to Abbey Road. The Shadows and The Zombies went through them too, and they did duty on the mix bus and in the cutting rooms. From Revolver on, Geoff Emerick also leaned hard on a Fairchild.

Chandler Limited, in Shell Rock, Iowa, is the one company licensed to make official EMI and Abbey Road gear. Their RS124 recreation was modeled on three surviving originals, which matters, since no two vintage units sound quite the same.

How we’d use one

Bass and vocals. Two or three dB of gain reduction, slow release. It isn’t going to flatten anything. It makes things sound settled, which is a different job.

Watch and read

posted by mixalot at 11:36 PM Email Post
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Tuesday, October 13, 2026

A newer one: the Highland Dynamics BG2

Highland Dynamics is Bryce Gonzales in Los Angeles. Before this he built the Lisson Grove AR-1. The BG2 is a mono, all-tube variable-mu compressor, transformer-balanced and wired point to point.

It has two feedback modes. “British” is the cleaner one and “American” adds more harmonics. There’s also a line-amp mode for when you just want to run something through the tubes and transformers without compressing it.

Sound On Sound’s review called it astoundingly good on vocals. John Vanderslice, who runs Tiny Telephone in the Bay Area, told Vintage King they keep a BG1 and a BG2 in both rooms. That’s a decent endorsement from a place that has tracked a lot of indie records.

On a vocal

Set it so the loudest lines get three or four dB of reduction and then leave it alone. Variable-mu compression gets gentler as the signal drops, so the quiet lines barely get touched. Try both modes on the same take before you decide.

Watch and read

posted by mixalot at 8:45 PM Email Post
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