Talking of DBX compressors I tried my MC6 on UDO Super 6 this evening. I think the MC6 is roughly based on the DBX 160 but in desktop format. I’ve never seen them go for too much money. There’s a grubby one up on ebay £90 n one went for £100 few months ago.

I’ve found with the Super 6 I’ve wanted a more lively response out the envelopes n I actually bought a Rupert Neve Designs 542 tape emulator (££££ I know) to see what that might do to the volume shaping. Turned out nowhere near enough without unpleasant distortion or conversely annoying low mid bump and flatness.

Inspired by that and this thread I hooked up the DBX MC6 but in the past with the DBX I’ve found it can rob a bit of top end. That’s without even much gain reduction/not dependent on gain reduction. So I used pre/post eq and also put a transformer DI (actually a reamp -> Hi-Z and then Hi-Z switched in on my desk) on the DBX’s output. Well it’s not exactly a side-chain but it does allow you to force the compressor n then make it up again after the broadband amplitude reduction. I used a greater Q going into the compressor than coming out of it (proportional Q on output as well but not on input which helped me dial in).

That lot got me the first decent even first acceptable sound I’ve had out the DBX. I’ve never really been happy with it before. I focused on reining in the squawky resonance (which was actually kind of the basis of the patch) on a fast swell Roland JX-ish pad n could shape the mid range.

Quite happy that I finally got a sound out the DBX. I was wondering whether I actually cared for VCA compression as I’ve not liked what’s come out of the SSL bus comp on my SiX either. Think that’s more due to the time constants though.

So I would say cheap compressors = can be improved with some auxiliary processing. I sent back the RND 500 series thingies n have two slots left, tempted to try something opto based n I see there’s an Alice (Joe Meek/Ted Fletcher) one that I might be willing to guinea pig on.

This little experiment also answers a question I had floating around my head as to how effective a single band, non sidechained compressor could be at shaping poly synth envelopes. Fairly successful is my answer though I definitely needed that pre/post eq.