It retains the character of the original while solving most of the problems.The acclaimed audio brand Sennheiser waited decades to launch its first home soundbar. However, we’d recommend the updated 3632, released at the beginning of this year. You should have no problem picking one up for £50. The good news is that if you’re considering buying one, they’re very very cheap. But the 3630 is an interesting little footnote in the history of dance music – and a worthwhile reminder that it doesn’t take expensive gear to make great records. Will it make your tracks sound as good? We doubt it. For all its failings, this is the compressor which Daft Punk claim defined the sound of Homework and Discovery and which Stardust used to make ‘Music Sounds Better With You’. Since a handful of stars revealed their surprising love for the 3630, it’s been something of a cult classic. So why does it make the list? Because it basically defined the pumping sidechain compression sound which became a trademark of French house in the late 90s and conquered the world shortly afterwards. The channels are often badly matched, rendering them useless for stereo applications. It has a nasty habit of making everything sound dull and lifeless.
#All stereo master models ever made plus#
Most popular? No chance!Īlthough it offers both flexibility (dual channel VCA-based peak/RMS compression plus two independent noise gates) and an entry-level price point, the 3630 has been the bane of many producers’ lives since its introduction two decades ago. This innocent enough looking box – famously named after the street number of Alesis’s headquarters – is, according to Alesis anyway, “the most popular dynamics processor ever made”.īest selling? We can believe that.
We begin our countdown with an unlikely house classic… We’re taking a broad approach to compression here: compressors, limiters, levelling amps – all are fair game. Here we run down our selection of the best dynamics tools ever made. If you like the sound of one of them, chances are you can go out and buy a plugin which will sound almost identical to the real thing.
#All stereo master models ever made software#
Likewise, almost all compressor plugins take direct inspiration from the sound and features of hardware from the 60s and 70s.Įven more importantly, with just a couple of exceptions, most of the compressors on our list have been modelled and emulated by software developers over recent years. Plenty of budget options are available which offer watered down versions of the classics. OK, so the chances of most of us rushing out to drop a small fortune on a Fairchild are pretty slim, but even the most exotic, overpriced vintage classics have a direct influence on the tools we all use to make music. They’re expensive, tricky to use and less convenient than software, right? That might sometimes be true, but we still think there are very good reasons to know about the classics in our list (and, for the record, not all of our choices are actually that expensive). You could be forgiven for assuming that high-end hardware compressors aren’t really relevant to the majority of dance music producers. In this definitive run down of the world’s top hardware compressors both ancient and modern, a superlative-drained David Felton rolls out the adjectives to identify the 20 best compressors ever constructed.
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