Industrial Music forum » Music tech forum

Alesis 3630 Compressor?

(18 posts)

  1. virul3nt

    offline
    Member

    A friend is selling one of these units. Anyone used one / got any thoughts on it?

    There's a fair bit of hype about it, and I'm wondering if it's justified. That it's used on all the french electro-house records and nails the side-chaining effect.
    I have the side-chaining effect covered with software, so I don't need more of that, but would this compressor add something significant that software can't? Would it be worth grabbing just so I can run layers through it?

    Any idea of a rough price this should fetch too?

    Thanks all :)

    Posted 1 year ago #

  2. YADE

    offline
    Member

    know it only as live comp in several locations I did soundengineer....imho it is ok for a live setup....but imho also does not add special value to a signal, that you could not achieve with any other hard- or software....and if you do not need the sidechaining (what imho is THE argument for buying this one if you don't want to spend much money) I'd say rather get you a good plugin....

    for the price..I'd say depending on condition and studio-/live use etc...it will be around 90-120$ I'd say

    Posted 1 year ago #

  3. Modulate

    offline
    Member

    I've got one. It's ok. Tbh not something I've really used much recently since I went mostly hardware, but as a compressor, it's not got that classic expensive sound some have, but I can see it working well for that French side-chained sound. Might have to hook it up and see!

    It's certainly got a character to it, seems to 'suck' the sound somehow. And from what I gather, the cheaper/crappier compressors are the ones to use. Iirc Benny Benassi used a Behringer for Satisfaction.

    [+] Embed the videoGet the Flash Videos

    Posted 1 year ago #

  4. eddiethreat

    offline
    Member

    i use a DBX Project 1 right now, i had a DBX 266 and a 3630. i wish i had the 3630 right now. its not anything special, but it does the job live, and its durable/

    Posted 1 year ago #

  5. virul3nt

    offline
    Member

    Hmm. I might see if I can borrow it from my friend for a while and see what I think of it. If it really is a $100USD pick-up, and does give a certain sound it might be worth grabbing. Although I did pay more than that just for my sidechaining plugin, so if that's all it gives me then I'll probably pass it by.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  6. Ornox

    offline
    Cowardly Dog

    if its good for sidechaining, does that mean it has a really good attack setting? I've mainly used crappy plug ins where the compressor lets way too much of the attack through, but that's probably more of a testiment to the fact I'm not very good at compression.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  7. YADE

    offline
    Member

    well honestly I would say I can make the same sound as in the video with just my Ableton compressor...it is all about how you set the attack of the compressor and the input Level for the sidechain....if you then also play around with the EQ for the sidechaining options you can pretty easily achieve such a result..

    Posted 1 year ago #

  8. Ornox

    offline
    Cowardly Dog

    the ableton synth has a slow attack I find. or at least two slow for hardcore sidechaining. the release too. when I've tried to do a pumping sidechain it sounds pained like its struggling to do everything in time.

    or maybe its just psychological.

    anyway, sidechaining sounds nice on basslines, but i hate when its done heavily on treble parts. That sounds so unproffesional to me. (Or at least the very specific example I'm thinking of).

    Posted 1 year ago #

  9. YADE

    offline
    Member

    @Ornox: well then welcome to the world of House and electrohouse...sidechaining a bass is outdated as hell (though very actual in the Industrial scene for it usually is behind 5-8 years to the "normal" styles)...in House styles you do a lot of sidechaining on pads and and noises...

    hard sidechaining with the ableton compressor is easy...just put the ratio and threshold to appropriate values and you almost get a gate effect..

    another thing I see often with industrial producers....they perform a sidechain on a already rhytmic bass...this can produce nice attack-effects...yes...but the way 90% of all other technoid styles us it, is to have a pad or bass sound which is held...and brining in the rhythm with the sidechain.....a nice feature a lot of people also do not use is the ability of a lot of software compressors and also some uprange to hi-end hardware compressors to first EQ the sidechain signal....with this and a bit of clever programming you can easily adjust and vary the sidechaining effect without changing the basic parameters....

    Posted 1 year ago #

  10. Ornox

    offline
    Cowardly Dog

    sidechaining should be done relative to the frequency of the instrument i believe. have the bass pumping, the mids midway, and the treble just a bit. Maybe there is a compressor that does that for you...?

    oh well, whatever. I'll just use it sparingly to give a bit of clarity to my beats.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  11. virul3nt

    offline
    Member

    I agree the bass should be sidechained independently to the highs. The sidechainer I use does this.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  12. Ornox

    offline
    Cowardly Dog

    which reminds me of a theory I had for a pop mastering effect that divides the master into many frequency bands and compresses each frequency band independantly and strongly for a truly ridiculous compression.

    but they probably already have that.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  13. YADE

    offline
    Member

    @Ornox: I don't know how you do it, but I usually use for the frequency ranges you describe around 5-20 tracks....which I do sidechain independently...the EQ is more that if you for instance want to duck an instrumental with for instance a vocal-line and want to emphasise a certain high part of the vocals you tune away the rest with the EQ and only let the high part trigger the sidechain...etc..

    but I think this is personal preference...

    Posted 1 year ago #

  14. virul3nt

    offline
    Member

    Surely you're just talking about multiband compression? If so yes this has been around for some time :) Most big DAWs have a native one, and there are great ones like Ozone on the market.

    Posted 1 year ago #

  15. Ornox

    offline
    Cowardly Dog

    ahhhhhh! all this hyper facist mastering is far too scary for me. I feel bad for using one compressor over the master.

    are you going to buy the 3630 by the way?

    Posted 1 year ago #

  16. mordezlet

    offline
    Member

    For cheap nothing beats the FMR RNC. For drums? Run it in parallel. Crush the shit out of one signal and blend in the original. You will be happy ; )

    Posted 1 year ago #

  17. SVII-5AM

    offline
    Member

    $100 for a 3630 seems like a good deal, good for drums/sidechain, quick and punchy but not something you'd use over entire mix, IMO. it really depends what sound u are going for. I kinda go for a "vinyl" sound.
    I actually use very light compression over a few buses, as i like the percussion to "blend" with teh rhythm loops and stuff and that's it. Most of the converters and saturation and resampling/sculpting already 'press everything enough...
    Some people like the kick and snare to stand out over the mix, but it just don't work with my palette/production, unless everything else is pressed, too, which personally i avoid cause the Loudness Wars continue, despite the worn-thin perception that "if it's louder, it must be pro".

    Posted 1 year ago #

  18. aimonia

    offline
    Member

    $100 is a good price. i've had one for years. good for squashing the shit out of anything, sidechain is solid and it sounds great on guitar, too. i've been using mine just as a limiter for backing tracks to keep from blasting the sound man with transients.

    Posted 1 year ago #

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.