Outboard Gear/Signal Flow.

[Vanity]

Hey, i'm planning on getting a couple of bits off outboard gear next week, a compressor and digital sampler.

My questions are, will the Akai/E-mu sampler connect to my interface (Should be a Motu 828 soon) via 1/4 jack cable? And will the signal flow look like this: Output off Interface>Sampler/Sampler Output>Input off Interface>Monitors? Would say a dBx compressor be exactly the same?

Cheers in advance!

[fragments]

Almost all gear I've run into is quarter inch plugs or XLR. From what I've seen of samplers it'll probably be 1/4 inch.

As for your monitors there will be "Main Outs" on the 828 for your monitors.

With the sampler are you trying to sample something from your computer into the sampler then back into the computer? If so, then yea, that signal flow will sort you. And yea, a compressor would be the same. You'll have to setup input/output channels in your DAW as well.

Which dBX compressor out of curiosity? If you are looking for a first hardware compressor I'd highly recommend the FMR Really Nice Compressor over any of the lower end dBXs. You'll get a lot more mileage out of it I think. Don't let it's half-rack design throw you off. the FMR RNC even works well for catching peaks on the master when you are finalizing your mix.

It also has two compression modes. The regular one, which can impart a bit of character if you really smash the shit out of things and the "Super Nice" mode which lets you crush things w/o artifacts--SOS did a nice article on this unit and it explains how the Super Nice mode works.

Also, it has sidechain ;p

FWIW, after about a month of fucking around with an E-MU sampler I took it out of my rack and it now lives in the basement. It was a massive pain in the ass to use and didn't give me enough character to make it worth it.

[Vanity]

Cheers for the advice mate.

I'm looking for a 'cheap' compressor to start me off, i know with compressors its you get what you pay for. I've got a liquid mix currently that i do all off my compression through but i wanted an outboard one to play about with. Buy cheap i mean like 100-200 haha, i've spent a lot of money on other bits off gear for my studio so there's not a huge budget left. I'll look into the FMR just had a quick look on eBay and theres one on there.

Don't you rate the E-Mu's? A lot off D&B heads swear by them, its about the filters though.

Any other fairly cheap but good compressor you know off? I've found one of these going cheap Behringer T1952 tube compressor, i know its Behringer, but there gear has never let me down, yet

[fragments]

I don't have one with those z-plane filters, but it's a lower bit rate.

As for compressors in that price range, I got my RNC for 125USDs. You might pull off a Joe Meek optical compressor (like an MC2) or an ART VLA for 200. Then there is that cheap dBX that maybe Justice and Daft Punk made famous...it's either one of the 166s or 160s...forget which. Didn't know Berhinger had a tube compressor, I don't know a damn thing about it.

I see over a dozen auctions for FMR Really Nice, but I'm looking at your location and guessing your not in the states. Maybe that's why : )

[Vanity]

Yeah i'm in the UK bro

That's the Alesis 3060 isn't it? The one that Daft Punk use.

I didn't know Behringer had either till just now, looks really nice though. You got any knowledge on the TL Audio Ivory compressors?

[fragments]

Ok. Yea. Daft Punk used the Alesis for sure...there is a pretty famous dBX for crushing the drum bus I think...saw Sharm and some others post about it a while back. Damn my shitty memory...

[SunkLo]

The 160 I believe. NI has a software emulation of it now.

[paradigm_x]

do not under any circumstance, IMHO, buy a dbx 266xl they are just complete shit. complete waste of money.

3630s arent much better, but at least a bit of dirt can be had.

Focusrite do nice low end comps, and the FMR stuf is meant to be nice too.

[wub]

I love my 3630 for exactly that reason

[AxeD]

Old dbx gear is pretty damn good for the money.

[Sharmaji]

dbx 163 or 163x (half-rack) are great. the 160 series is generally the good stuff from DBX, either actually hi-fi (160a, etc) or funky-- the rest is prosumer junk.

[Vanity]

Cheers for responses guys. Reckon i'll look at getting a 3060 just for the dirtiness/tone of it. I'll save up some cash and buy a decent one in the future, just wanted something cheap to start with.