# Hardware Compressor for Sampled Drums?



## Prockamanisc (Mar 23, 2018)

I'm looking for something like an API 2500 to use as a drum bus for my sampled drums (Superior Drummer 3 and Addictive Drums). Can anyone verify the API 2500, or would anyone recommend anything else?


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## Nmargiotta (Mar 23, 2018)

API 2500 is fantastic, I also recommend the empirical labs Distressor. UA just did a fantastic plugin version that I was able to a/b wth the hardware and I could not pick the hardware over the software, it’s that good.


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## jmauz (Mar 23, 2018)

Fairchild 670 

Seriously, the API 2500 is definitely one of my favorites. A stereo pair of DBX 160's works great too...give those sterile drum samples some grit!


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## JohnG (Mar 23, 2018)

Waves is having an insane sale on their software version of this unit. It's so cheap I can't believe it. Bought it yesterday, coincidentally. USD$59


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## synthpunk (Mar 23, 2018)

My current drum buss...

Empirical Labs UBK Version Fatso
http://www.wavedistribution.com/ubk-fatso.html

Soundtoys Devil loc
http://www.soundtoys.com/product/devil-loc-deluxe/

UAD Studer
https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/special-processing/studer-a800-tape-recorder.html

Others to look into: 1176, 160, Distressor, API 2500, Neve 33609, Chander Zener, Manley Vari mu, SSL, Drawmer 1968, vintage ADC Compex.

Keep in mind the knowledge from Bruce Swedien who only uses compression when needed, over compression can take drama and transients out of the drums. Then you fall into the Trap of constantly chasing your tail.


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## Prockamanisc (Mar 23, 2018)

I'm glad there's a lot of love for the API. I'm specifically looking for hardware. I've got the UAD plugin, but it doesn't punch as much as I want it to. Maybe I just need to spend more time with it.

I was using the UAD Fatso Jr. for a while, but I think I lost the taste for it.

Bruce Swedien is the best, and he tracks the best players in the best rooms with the best equipment... Samples are a different ballgame.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 23, 2018)

Check out Overstayer. 

.


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## synthpunk (Mar 23, 2018)

I know a prominent engineer who thinks the API on drums always has too much of a snap/crack thing that's impossible to avoid. He much prefer a softer smooshy vibe of the 33609, 1176, Compex.


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## jmauz (Mar 23, 2018)

I also find the API to be too snappy sometimes. Depends on the track. My personal go-to compressor for my drum bus is the SSL G-series compressor but I'll change it out occasionally...most often with the dbx 160's. As I said before, it adds a nice grit to sterile drum samples.


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## LinusW (Mar 24, 2018)

I put Pulveriser (a Reason device) on my snares. Its compressor is modeled from Shure Level-loc. 
The Distressor and UA 1176 are also useful on drums.


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## RiffWraith (Mar 24, 2018)

Prockamanisc said:


> I'm looking for something like an API 2500 to use as a drum bus for my sampled drums (Superior Drummer 3 and Addictive Drums). Can anyone verify the API 2500, or would anyone recommend anything else?



Budget?


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## Prockamanisc (Mar 24, 2018)

My budget philosophy is "buy it once, buy it right".


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## synthpunk (Mar 24, 2018)

UAD platform.



Prockamanisc said:


> My budget philosophy is "buy it once, buy it right".


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## givemenoughrope (Mar 24, 2018)

Why not demo Acustica Pink 2?


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## germancomponist (Mar 24, 2018)

Klark DN 500


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## RiffWraith (Mar 24, 2018)

Prockamanisc said:


> My budget philosophy is "buy it once, buy it right".



Ok, smart guy  

Take a look at the Tegeler Crème.

https://www.tegeler-audio-manufaktur.de/creme_bus_kompressor_mastering_equalizer

(cant seem to properly insert a link?) I have one coming in a couple of weeks. It's also a passive EQ booster; take a look at both these vids:





For drums specifically, check out the Manley Vari-MU:



Listen what it does to those drums.... YUUUUUMEEEEE

Cheers.


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## KMA (Mar 24, 2018)

Prockamanisc said:


> I'm looking for something like an API 2500 to use as a drum bus for my sampled drums (Superior Drummer 3 and Addictive Drums). Can anyone verify the API 2500, or would anyone recommend anything else?



Well, it's more money, but I would love to get my hands on one of these:
https://rupertneve.com/products/master-buss-processor/


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## gsilbers (Mar 24, 2018)

Jack Weaver said:


> Check out Overstayer.
> 
> .



im thinkig of getting the stereo modular. quite an amazing looking channel strip for tracking and mixing and harmonic distortion enhancer.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 25, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> im thinkig of getting the stereo modular. quite an amazing looking channel strip for tracking and mixing and harmonic distortion enhancer.


My guess is that we're the only two on this thread who know about Overstayer - or they'd be all over it. Possibly the most exciting dynamics processing gear in years, especially for drum work. 

The modular channel and the Imperial channel have recently gone direct-only. The other, more established products like the FET, VCA and saturator are still available via dealers, i.e, Vintage King and others.

.


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## synthpunk (Mar 25, 2018)

Quite full of yourself are you ?

I remember Overstayer when they first started and you could not get ahold of anyone, and they went dark, big turn-off and probably will never look at them again no matter how good there new salon stuff is. We have all seen these small boutique companies come and go over the years and nearly none of that gear is ever considered essential.



Jack Weaver said:


> My guess is that we're the only two on this thread who know about Overstayer - or they'd be all over it. Possibly the most exciting dynamics processing gear in years, especially for drum work.
> 
> The modular channel and the Imperial channel have recently gone direct-only. The other, more established products like the FET, VCA and saturator are still available via dealers, i.e, Vintage King and others.
> 
> .


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 25, 2018)

synthpunk said:


> Quite full of yourself are you ?
> 
> I remember Overstayer when they first started and you could not get ahold of anyone, and they went dark, big turn-off and probably will never look at them again no matter how good there new salon stuff is. We have all seen these small boutique companies come and go over the years and nearly none of that gear is ever considered essential.


Sorry about your experiences. I can understand your reticence. 

I'm sure of what I speak regarding Overstayer. It's not to be overlooked. I would think that it well could perfectly fit the purposes of the OP. 

.


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## gsilbers (Mar 26, 2018)

Jack Weaver said:


> My guess is that we're the only two on this thread who know about Overstayer - or they'd be all over it. Possibly the most exciting dynamics processing gear in years, especially for drum work.
> 
> The modular channel and the Imperial channel have recently gone direct-only. The other, more established products like the FET, VCA and saturator are still available via dealers, i.e, Vintage King and others.
> 
> .



yeah it got me by surprise how under the radar the modular is. or maybe its a perfect fit for me 
i was looking for distortion units and people comenting about how good the overtayer saturator vs the culture vulture i and when i checked it out i saw that the modular on their site which also has the same/similar distortion AND also had the eq and compressor. i was looking for a one stereo channel strip to rule them all which normally is impossible for a consensus at GS and my closest bet was the avalon 737x2 (huge in post and rap). or start compiling several warm/stam audio and mix and match but i rather use the space for synths 
there are a ton of choices but the modular has onboard distortion/harmonic enhancer which imo is one of the main reasons to get hardware nowadays since many plugins do such a nice job and getting hardware to be better i think you have to go upwards $2k per unit. even then you see the comparisoins between manley varimu vs the uad versions and its close, not the same but also not a $3k price difference. of course this is highly subjective but having seen tons of A/b comparisons between compressor units vs cheaper versions vs plugins its very hard to justify buying hardware at those crazy prices for the ROI they give vs plugins. obviously, ill get crucified if i said something like this at GS. The modular is indeed a little pricey but it turns out that pricing it per module would be about $300 and the way it works interacting with different modules is soemthing that got my attention. micheal from ninja tracks was kind enough to make me a video showcasing the unit. but other than that its extrmely hard to find any info, demos etc etc on this units. its kinda just bleieve some comments and thats it. so not the most well concieved biz plan. i mean, if they really tried they could be as famouse as empirical labs , maney etc.


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## gsilbers (Mar 26, 2018)

synthpunk said:


> Quite full of yourself are you ?
> 
> I remember Overstayer when they first started and you could not get ahold of anyone, and they went dark, big turn-off and probably will never look at them again no matter how good there new salon stuff is. We have all seen these small boutique companies come and go over the years and nearly none of that gear is ever considered essential.



interesting , i havent heard this before. but they seem to be not very interested in the business side. hardley any demos, videos or ads. its that secret store speakeasy that only some know about it. 
it took about a week to get an email answer from them about the modular since there is no price info. 

the good thing its that its hardware and seem to be well built so ifthey go under then its still hardware so no biggie. not like software w hardware integration like my virus ti. or sofware which can go under and apple will keep IOsifying the mac and making stuff obsoloete very fast.


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 26, 2018)

Hi Guillermo,

Yeah, just a few units of high quality outboard can go a long ways in a mix. Overstayer is one of those types of things. Given how many processors we need in a modern mix and the kind of money we're generally getting for work these days getting good coverage with select plugins is key.

The multiple high quality processing features of the Overstayer Modular and Imperial Channel help to allay the cost/performance ratio.

The nice thing about plugins is recallability. It's good to see products like Wes Audio, Bettermaker and a few others doing that. I saw one Overstayer product a couple years ago that had a CV input. Not sure what happened with that but since you can cobble together CV output from a DAW and there is software to control that (Expert Sleepers Silent Way, NI Reaktor 6 Blocks and others) it would be a great control point for hardware.

Not wanting to get too far OT, maybe one of the Overstayer Stereo Field Effects (the FET compressor) or the Stereo Voltage Control (the VCA compressor) would be handy, less expensive options for the OP to handle his drum busses.

Crap, I sound like a product shill. I'm not. I just like their stuff (along we a lot of other people).

.


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## gsilbers (Mar 26, 2018)

Jack Weaver said:


> Hi Guillermo,
> 
> Yeah, just a few units of high quality outboard can go a long ways in a mix. Overstayer is one of those types of things. Given how many processors we need in a modern mix and the kind of money we're generally getting for work these days getting good coverage with select plugins is key.
> 
> ...



oh i thought you worked for them hahaha . nah just kidding. 

i am looking for compressor as well. and there are some interesting new contenders inthe low end market which sound very close to the original costing tons of more money. one of them is warm audio and stam audio but another one.. which one you know who is behind them makes sense but its the https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1176KT--klark-teknik-1176-kt-classic-fet-style-compressor
and they recently released the la2a as well. 

i think the patents expired for those 1176 and la2a, pultec etc so more lcones are being made. since i havent seen a clone of the api 2500 which would be nice to see. or at least the stereo 500 series version of the 2500api.


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## Patrick de Caumette (Mar 26, 2018)

If you already own a UAD card, try out the Distressor!


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## Jack Weaver (Mar 26, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> oh i thought you worked for them hahaha . nah just kidding.
> 
> i am looking for compressor as well. and there are some interesting new contenders inthe low end market which sound very close to the original costing tons of more money. one of them is warm audio and stam audio but another one.. which one you know who is behind them makes sense but its the https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/1176KT--klark-teknik-1176-kt-classic-fet-style-compressor
> and they recently released the la2a as well.
> ...


Yeah, Behringer has seriously upped its game the past few years. It’s miniMoog clone is pretty impressive - among other sophisticated clones. They have an aggressive marketing plan and impressive engineering skills. 

.


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## chimuelo (Mar 26, 2018)

Overstayer looks impressive, must continue reading about its many uses.

I hate sampled drums, all of them suck because all of them are compressed.
I still to this day drag out an ancient Gagistudio DAW with LSAD and run it through a DBX Comp and a Symetrix Gate. Sounds 10 times better than Superior, Ocean, Scabbey Drums Slate EX.
Would love to check it out on Outlayer.

Already have ES SW2 and the ADAT Module.

Glad I read these threads on occasion.


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## gsilbers (Mar 26, 2018)

chimuelo said:


> Overstayer looks impressive, must continue reading about its many uses.
> 
> I hate sampled drums, all of them suck because all of them are compressed.
> I still to this day drag out an ancient Gagistudio DAW with LSAD and run it through a DBX Comp and a Symetrix Gate. Sounds 10 times better than Superior, Ocean, Scabbey Drums Slate EX.
> ...



which dbx comp are using?


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## chimuelo (Mar 27, 2018)

1046, standard kit really, but the Symetrix Gate is needed because DBX fizzles on the decay somtimes when you’re using to much Tube Pre Amp signal. But Symetrix acts more like a Transient inducer + Gate.
All the gear I used on our PA and didn’t need ant EQ because we used a Toft 24.
Automatic vocal effects too.
But it still sounds good for recording.
Usually the 500 doallr gear isn’t the first choice but the combination of these units cover all frequencies and offer warm full sounding dynamics.
But FET is way more flexible. Been thinking for a few years about more studio orientated gear,


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## synthpunk (Mar 28, 2018)

It's more the engineering team they inherited when they purchased Midas, T.C., and Klark Technik. One could also argue though that their talents are being wasted by cloning gear but that's what Behringer does.



Jack Weaver said:


> Yeah, Behringer has seriously upped its game the past few years. It’s miniMoog clone is pretty impressive - among other sophisticated clones. They have an aggressive marketing plan and impressive engineering skills.
> 
> .


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