Granted, I put on my panties (OUT OF NECESSITY!) when it was time to learn Cubase SX3 and read the entire Getting Started manual. (Some things in life are so powerful that you do actually have to sit down and read the instructions to harness the beast. [lie]I had to do the same thing when I learned how to fly an Apache helicopter.[/lie]. It's odd how I'm all about reading (I try to read a book a week...on a good week.) but if it's in the form of instructions I just zone out and think about horsepower, breasts, or pizza. I don't get it.

Well, it turns out that I've found a new item to add to my list of powerhouses that require reading. In addition to Cubase and Apache Helicopters, I now formally induct the Distressor EL-8X compressor to the Read The Damn Instructions Club.

I've had the stupid thing for about a year and a half. I did the usual. I bought it. I tossed the manual in the box (to protect it from harm, of course). I hooked it up. I started pushing buttons and twisting knobs. It occurred to me in a recent session that I really had no idea what all various modes do, how they are supposed to sound, etc. I found that many of my weekend warrior bands who someday dream of having laces on their shoes aren't overly willing to pay me to play with my compressor as much as I'd like.

It's not that I haven't experimented with the thing. I've used it day in and day out for 500 days. The problem is the Distressor has about a billion possible combinations. As you'll see later on, different ratios cause the attack and release functions to vary and those cause the detector circuits to vary. This doesn't even factor in the harmonic content this bad boy is so famous for. So it's not like I'm a retard and let the thing collect dust in my closet. I've used the crap out of it. I just lost respect for how insanely versatile the Distressor is.

So, I called myself Brandy for a few minutes and fired up the manual for the Distressor EL-8X.
I considered putting on lip stick, too, but I couldn't a color that matched my dress.

Epiphany Time
I was tracking vocals last night for the Toontrack Mixing Wars: Country contest. I had a situation to play with my new found knowledge. I was DEVESTATED by all the power in this unit I've been missing. Simply put, all that sibilant crap I've been fighting on mixes lately could have been avoided entirely if I would have just opened up the manual.

The function I'm talking about is the Detector circuit. Basically, the Detector works much like a sidechain. Inside the Distressor the signal is split. One side is the audio side. The other is the detector side. We can manipulate the detector side to control how the audio side gets hammered with compression. (If you need help with this one, just post on the audio recording forum and we'll explain it in greater detail)

There are two included detector modes in the Distressor. One is the low cut. This knocks down the low end being fed to our detector and therefor means the low end stuff won't have much effect on how the signal as a whole is squashed. An 808 kick drum bass drum thing isn't as likely to cause the entire mix to clamp down and pump.

To quote the Distressor Manual:

Low cut keeps the low "sum & difference" frequencies from pumping the upper frequencies of source material.

In English, that means that low end won't screw up your mid and top end. The Distressor is not listening to the low end to decide how it is going to compress the audio signal.

The function that I DRAMATICALLY underestimated was the other detector mode. It boosts the crap out of the upper midrange on the detector. This means the Distressor is going to be more aggressive towards fighting upper midrange frequencies.

In Use
I normally like to start with relatively conservative settings (much like recommended in the manual) with attack and release on 5. I've been having fun with the 6:1 ratio lately and trying to set the Distressor so it's hitting 1dB of reduction most of the time and taming the super loud peaks. This is a good overall setting for compression if there aren't any other pressing issues. It's just a nice little “evener”.

However, when ol' Slasher Sibilance arrives, we've got a new problem. We have “essess” leaping out and we have to do something about it. My self study in audio engineering (the thing I'm paying attention to in recordings this month) is the lack of ANY sibilance in 99.9% of all big boy recordings. So the goal for this one was to need no de-essing on the lead vocal.

I must admit that I've played with the upper mid boost detector button before. In fact, I ruined a recording of a vocal about a year ago because I had the detector button on but squashed the living hell out of rest of the track. (I saw Michael Wagener commonly use 18dB of reduction with his Distressor on vocals at his work shop and was curious. I clearly wasn't doing it right!) So I've been careful with that mid boost detector. Overall, I've considered it to be a fairly subtle effect....until last night.

Our sibilance wasn't world ending, but it was not the zero sibilance sound I'm looking for with the Distressor in “normal” setting. Pressing the mid boost detector button didn't do much at first because my attack was a little slow. I have no idea how fast “5” is on a Distressor but it will definitely let sibilance through. However, by pushing the attack down to 1 or .5 something magical happened. The Distressor said “Goodbye sibilance!”. The vocal wasn't remotely dull. It didn't get that fake sounding lisp thing you often get with de-essers. It just sounded like the damn thing is supposed to. Impressive! I came extremely close to the zero-sibilance sound I was after. I'll take it!

The secret was the detector, the fast attack, fairly aggressive ratio (6:1), and only hitting the signal hard enough to catch these sibilant peaks. If I would have hit the vocal with 18dB of compression, I'm positive that I would have killed much of the good stuff in the upper range of the vocal. (Which is what I did in the ruined vocal tale above.) If I would have slowed the attack down the sibilance would have snuck right through. Who knows what would have happened with a different ratio!...or British mode!....or the Distortion modes!

As you can see there are a billion settings that are interdependent on the Distressor.

Conclusion
This wasn't meant to be a full blown review of the Distressor EL-8x. I just wanted to highlight what an awesome tool the Distressor is for knocking sibilance off vocals. I'll be using it for this feature from here on out. Impressive! Maybe when I have about 10 or 15 of these mega tricks figured out I can actually do a full blown review of it.

For a rundown on all the features and a healthy dose of the usual propaganda, head here.

In Use
When I first got a hold of the PreSonus Studio Channel my rack was full. I had 4 pieces of gear in it and a combined price tag of over $10,000. I've always come from the school that the high end gear is a nice little luxury, but in the real world recording land, there are way too many other flaws to overcome for the gear to be as strong of impact as maybe be implied by a $1,000+ volume knob. So keep in mind that my review of the PreSonus Studio Channel was done when in the midst of some big time players. I think it held up pretty well! Better than it's price tag would indicate.a

My hope was the PreSonus Studio Channel preamps would not only blow away the stock preamps in my audio interface or M-Audio Octane, but also be able to run head to head with the big boys like the Great River MEQ-1NV, PreSonus ADL600, or the Manley TNT.

I can say without hesitation that the preamps in the Studio Channel are better on all sources than the stock preamp in my PreSonus Firestudio, but certainly aren't going to be putting the Money-Is-No-Object companies out of business. Then again, most members here at RecordingReview happen to be in the Money-Doesn't-Grow-On-Trees side of the fence.

The PreSonus Studio Channel was a step up in clarity, excitement, and low end tightness from the PreSonus Firestudio preamp, but I can't ever imagine myself choosing this preamp when a preamp from the A-list is available. There were certain specific shootouts where the PreSonus Studio Channel certainly snuck into high end preamp land and I mistook it for a preamp costing exponentially more. So there are some very desirable uses for the PreSonus Studio Channel.

I think it's safe to say the PreSonus Studio Channel preamps outperform the price tag and would be a welcome home in any budget oriented home recording studio. You certainly gain a point by upgrading from a stock audio interface preamp to the Studio Channel. Moving up to $2k preamps will give you another point. You figure out how much a point is worth to you. (We are talking NBA points here, not hockey or that dumb thing everyone in the world plays with their feet.)

As is illustrated in the upcoming shootouts for Killer Home Recording, the PreSonus Studio Channel has this way of being a little extra forward in the 1Khz region. This could be excellent for helping vocals cut through a dense mix. I'm not sure if I would want it on everything, but I definitely wouldn't mind having that feature around.

The Tube Drive Thing
I played with the tube drive thing considerably. It does add some gain and it does add some harmonics. I could be useful for some things. I have to admit that I never get too wound up about these sorts of things. It's never a life changing thing. I can't think of one source where maybe the sound wasn't quite right with the Tube Drive on 0, but changing it to 10 parted the Red Sea or whatever. However, the tube drive thing didn't hurt anything. I'm sure there are sources where I would say “Oh hell with it!” and crank it all the way up. In fact, on real sessions that's probably were I'd start.

I prefer knobs / processors that go overboard when I turn them all the way up. The ability to break is the ability to fix said Socrates. Okay, maybe he didn't, but somebody somewhere said something remotely close. If not, put Brandon Drury down in the book right next to Richard Lewis and “the blank from hell” (Curb Your Enthusiasm inside joke). The tube drive feature did not give me the ability to break. If I can't turn it up to “disgusting” and then slowly pull it back to reality, I have a hard time. So take that for what it's worth. Good big or go home, as they say.

More Headroom Please
On several occasions I had attempted to reamp a signal back through the PreSonus Studio Channel. In practically every situation I overloaded the unit. It's safe to say that the headroom on the Studio Channel is not near as high as other compressors I had used during the shootout (Distressor EL-8X and Spectrasonic Complimiter). This wasn't the end of the world, but it was certainly a pain in the neck. This hampered me from slamming the compressor as much as I would have preferred.

I like to use hardware compressors to add tonal color. Smashing a signal can bring it right to the front of a mega dense mix and can even add perceived excitement to a track. These things I like. Even with the threshold on the compressor of the Studio Channel set for maximum death, I never really felt like I could get this compressor to pump and slam. At least not to the extent I was used to.

I was also looking for adding harmonic content by reducing the release down to zero. While I was led to believe that all hardware compressors were supposed to distort any signal with a wavelength longer than the release time, I stand corrected. I just couldn't get any distortion out of this thing.

I've been through the recording forum war long enough to know that a bunch of you reading this aren't looking to distort the signal. However, when you take away the ability of the engineer to color the signal (particularly vocals) with compressors, you essentially cut off one his fingers....if not his whole arm. (Then again, how badly could that REALLY effect an engineer. So much for the ability to do keyboard shortcuts AND mouse clicks simultaneously! Big deal!)

I did find that the compressor was able to nicely control peaks. This certainly has it's place and I did find it useful in those situations. Of course, plugin compressors like the Waves C1, Waves Rcomp, or even the stock Cubase compressors perform in a similar fashion. There are certainly times where maybe my Distressor EL-8X is a little bit too loud at parties and I have to find ways to get him to quiet down without hurting his feelings. I'd never take my Distressor to a library and he really has to bite his tongue in funerals. He's always trying to scream “See you in hell, mother f*cker!”. The Complimiter 610 had a tendency to invite the other kids out to country roads to smash mail boxes. I didn't have any of those problems with the compressor in the PreSonus Studio Channel. It's a much more behaved compressor. So this compressor choice really depends heavily on whether you need Dr. Spock or Vince Neil. Both have their strengths. Personally, I'm looking for a compressor that resells hard drugs and kicks up the tribute to the producer. Let me know if you come across that one.

Of course, either the Distressor EL-8x of the Complimiter 610 cost the price of 5 PreSonus Studio channels and they don't do anything but compress. So I may be comparing an apple to a Ferrari. Regardless, a minivan is badass when the Swedish Bikini Team bus breaks down. You get the idea.

EQ
In a world where EQ plugins capable of robo surgery, turbo tone control, and everything in between are running rampant it does seem a bit odd to switch to an analog EQ with a high shelf, a low shelf, and one parametric band of EQ. You aren't going to save the world with this EQ. I guess a person could argue that you can do less damage on the way in with this EQ as well. That could be a plus for many of us.

I do have to say that there were specific situations where it certainly came in handy for solving slight problems. Adding a little bottom and top to a kick drum is pretty much a no brainer and it functioned perfectly for that. On vocals that had a bit too much 400Hz and 2k, I had to choose which problem I wanted to solve because this EQ couldn't do both. This isn't a big deal in modern computer land, but it's worth noting.

On The Way In
The more I've used the hardware gear, I've found that the benefits of getting the sound right from the very beginning are worth the occasional (and regular!) times I screw up a track with over compression or whatever. I do feel there is some merit to getting tracks closest to their final state as early on in the process as possible. As I said above, maybe we can't solve a 400Hz and a 2K problem with this EQ, but we can certainly solve the 2k issue. This is worth something. It's worth a lot! Every problem during a mix (or even tracking) uses a bit of RAM in your brain that could have been better used for cranking the Ass Kicking Gears (yes, this warrants proper noun grammar treatment). So depending on your style of working, you may reap big rewards for this alone.

Conclusion
The preamp on this booger is an improvement of preamps found in stock audio interfaces. The compressor and EQ are not life changing, but they certainly ain't bad. I didn't get my first hardware compressor until I had been recording for 7 years and I still don't own a hardware EQ. So I'm not exactly going to tell you that hardware is absolutely required in these situations. However, as I've documented above, having these gadgets around is pretty much always beneficial.

At $300 (street), the PreSonus Studio Channel is a nice, well laid out channel strip that will definitely serve it's purpose to anyone in the market for a $300 channel strip. I'd expect it to very competitive and I think it's an excellent purchase for the home recording market.

To hear how this thing competes with the gear costing exponentially more and drastically less, make sure to check out the Killer Home Recording shootouts today.

Anyway, it's day #1 and you are pulling all of the gear out of the box. You don't know what half of it is and you aren't really for sure if you bought the right gear. You spend all day tearing your hair out because this whole recording thing is a little more complex than you had originally bargained for. (Don't worry, we are here to help. Post on the recording forum http://forum.recordingreview.com if you are having trouble. )

After you go through the depths of hell, you finally get everything working. Then you start trying to figure out how to use the recording software and actually get something that sounds good. You were told by some idiot that you MUST have a hardware compressor, so you purchased a cheap one. (Relatively cheap, that is).

You may be asking “How in the HELL do I work this thing?”.

Unfortunately, using a compressor is a lot like riding a bike or maybe a better analogy is the first flight of a baby bird. The only way to learn how to use a compressor is to crash and burn repeated times. In fact, this is how you set a compressor EVERY time. Let me explain.

The whole idea behind a compressor is limit the dynamic range. In English, this means we want to knock the peaks of the loud stuff down. Of course, this is tremendously oversimplified, but it's the general concept. No one can tell exactly what settings on a compressor are going to work because it's highly dependent on a million factors. You have to sit there and tweak the compressor to get it right. So what's the big deal?

The Problem With Hardware Compressors In The Digital Age
#1 Can You Even Use A Hardware Compressor With Your Audio Interface?
In a typical home recording setup, you will run a budget microphone to an audio interface which will have a preamp. From there the signal is wired directly into the computer So, there is no way to get to the signal directly after the preamp (gain knob thingy). Your options? If you audio interface doesn't have some sort of “insert” on it (most do not) you'll have to buy an external preamp to even use your compressor. This preamp probably will be of similar quality to the preamp in your audio interface unless you spend some big bucks, but if you are beginner you won't even hear a difference with the big bucks preamps either.

#2 How Can You Actually Hear The Compressor?
We'll assume that you have an external preamp or your audio interface has inserts so that you can actually use the compressor. How will you hear it? In other words how are you going to listen to make the changes to the settings on the compressor (especially if you are brand new to recording and do not know what to listen for)? The singer must continue to sing while you play with the compressor (if you are recording vocals). If they are in the same room as you are, you may have trouble using your studio monitors for this. You may also be effecting their vocal performance, so while you take the time to figure out what a compressor actually does, you are going to be screwing with the singers mix and they will have problems and maybe even stop because they can't hear themselves.

While an experienced recording engineer could probably set this up without too much trouble, this is NOT the place to learn what a compressor actually does.

#3 What Will You Do When You Overcompress A Good Take?
So your rig is hooked up to properly use a compressor and you've figured out a way to hear what is going on. You are still learning how to use the thing. What will you do when you overcompress the signal on a good take? Once again, do you really think it's a good idea to practice while tracking? I don't.

#4 What If Your Singer Needs Aggressive Compression Only In The Headphones?
What if your singer is VERY dynamic and needs to be crushed pretty hard in the headphones? This is fairly common. What if the headphone mix requires an amount of compression that you really aren't comfortable using on the real track? If you have a mixer of some type, you can pull off, but if you require different compression in the headphones and on the recording, you will need two compressors to pull this off.

Why I Recommend Compressor Plugins For All Beginners

#1 The time to practice using compressors is 2am when no one else is around. You can REALLY experiment with a compressor during mixing. You can really learn what the attack and release times do. You can get a feel for how much gain reduction is needed.

#2 In my opinion, compressor plugins are really good! (See Compressors: Shooting Down The Anti-Plugin Mentality http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/compressors-shooting-down-the-anti-plugin-mentality/) I've heard many very expensive compressors. While I've never heard a plugin that could compete with the outstanding, bold character of a $4,000 EMI compressor at Michael Wagener's studio, I think compressor plugins do the job fine. Until you get to a point where the biggest problem in your mixes is compression character, I wouldn't worry about it. You've got a while!

Brandon

I went to a St. Louis Blues hockey game last night. I wondered how much their sticks or skates cost. It occurred to me that their sticks and skates may be $400 each. It also occurred to me that I would be equally useless with a $400 hockey stick as I would with a $4 hockey stick.

So even if compressor plugins aren't 100% equal to the best hardware compressors, there are some serious advantages to using plugins. Price, quantity, and sound all come to mind.

Price – Hardware compressors range from $100 up to $4,000 (and probably higher than that). It's rare to see a compressor plugin that costs more than $1,000. There are some great free compressors plugins out there.

Quantity – I can't afford to buy 20 $1,000 compressors. However, if a mix calls for me using 20 compressors, I can use the same compressor plugin 20 times.

Sound – Have you ever stopped to wonder why there are SOOOOO many compressor models? The answer is simple. They sound different! Some work better for different things. Of course, the opposite is true. Some sound worse on different things. Typically, hardware compressors are going to have a specific character to them. In many cases this character will be a positive thing, but there are always times when it will be a bad thing. So, what happens if you save your pennies to buy a high end hardware compressor and then find out that you aren't thrilled with what it is doing to the signal.

While not a high end compressor, I tried out a Presonus ACP 88 a while back. I must say that I was WAYYY happier with my Waves Rcomp for vocal compression.

So, I think a person can not expect one compressor to be perfect all the time. Plus, I think if you are on a budget a software compressor may even sound better than a hardware compressor.

Last, but not least, don't forget that it is very simple in a program like Cubase to use a compressor plugin only on the monitoring end while tracking. In other words, you can put a compressor on a singer while they are tracking and then turn it off, remove it, or use a different compressor later. This is all done without the need for a mixer.

Conclusion
Unless you are a badass at recording, you don't have any need for a hardware compressor. The big boys use plugin compressors all the time even if they sometimes prefer a high end hardware compressor for this or that.

Brandon