I originally posted this in 'so much gear...' but recieved very little feedback so I thought that i'd try you lo-end slutz...

I have recently been using the Drawmer LX20 and found it to be a fairly decent compressor for such a budget unit. I have used it to good effect on drums, bass and even vocals.

I am curious to hear what others have to say about this compressor and how it compares to other Drawmer compressors in the DL and MX range.

Also, were there any other compressors in the LX series?

I picked one up for 50 euro. It needed some contact spray and now works like a charm. I used very subtle (about 2 dB of gain reduction) during tracking vocals and guitar. It made the vocals thicker and sound more present in the mix without nasty side effects.

they're cool. this is the compressor that behringer originally cloned with their first blackface composer.

I've used it on vocals, bass and guitar and it's sounded nice on all of them.

Is this so? How do you know of this?

How does the LX20 compare to some of the other Drawmer compressors. May grab myself another Drawmer at some point.

I always figured that the dl241 is like the lx 20 except for the soft knee part. But I could be wrong. Heck, I'm probably wrong since this is just an asumption.

Actually I think it was the Drawmer DL241XLR that was cloned in the early days, along with a Aphex Exciter. The DL241 is the later version of the LX20. The 241 is still a big seller for us here in the states. Its a very nice dynamic control device with settings that are accurate and a good sound-much better than the 3630! Used some clever design tricks to not get so dark on heavier compression, its thru hole contructed by hand so they are reliable. Has the usual downward expander, compressor (auto or manual) plus a simple full band "peak stop" type limiter. Can be dual mono or stereo.

Brad

I love my 241. Use it on drum bus mostly.

The DL241 may be a later version of the LX20 but they do seem be quite different...

The LX20's fastest attack time is .1ms where the DL241 has a slighlty slower time of .5ms
The LX20's quickest release time is .1ms where the DL241 is 0.5
The DL241 has seperate controls for threshold and ratio where on the LX20 these are combined to a single 'compress' control.

In addition to this, the DL241 has both an optional 'auto' mode for attack and release settings and a peak limiter unlike the LX20.

Seems like the later DL241 is more versatile and offers more control but surely their differences must result in a slightly different sound. Anyone directly compared the 2 units before?

Bump because I'd like to hear about that too!

I think it sounds great for a picked guitar part that you want to get a bit gritty,not so great on bass though....

It's difficult to make the LX-20 sound bad. Even when smashing the signal by several dB's, it still sounds damn smooth.
I often use it live on vocals or just about anything if needed, it works fine.
I could use a little more flexibility on attack and release controls, but nonetheless I think it's a nice unit.

I do not know anyone who has compared them in the US. I know Ivor Drawmer always felt the 241 was a big step up from the LX20 in terms of design, features and sound. Course that does not mean that the LX20 doesn't do a few unique things that cannot be duplicated. Maybe Kieron from Drawmer can chime in but the LX20 is rather dated now-1980 or before?? The era of dbx 163 .......
Brad