Next
on the list for the blog review is my JoeMeek SC2.2 stereo bus
compressor, probably the most used dynamics processor at Groove Echo,
and definitely the brightest thing in the racks....
Joe
Meek is probably known best for his production exploits and the strange
circumstances that his life ended in, and not so much for studio gear.
But despite Joe's infamy, it was another studio engineer – and I use
this really in the true sense of the word – Ted Fletcher, that was
responsible for building a lot of the custom gear that really defined
the sound of that era.
Continuing
on the legacy, Ted Fletcher started the JoeMeek brand around 1993,
focussing on high quality processing, but as time passed and
subsequently price wars triumphed over audio quality, the brand was
bought by a company to be mass produced and marketed, and Ted started
his own company, producing high quality, studio gear TF-PRO (www.tfpro.com), which is getting a lot of use in mastering studios worldwide right now.
I have to fully recommend this guy, he quite rightly has a no-compromise attitude to the products he makes, in terms of him not sacrificing quality in favour of mass marketing a product. He seems to be a thoroughly decent bloke too. I had a small issue with the SC2.2, searching about I found his website and forum. Here he still supports the old JoeMeek gear he was responsible for making, and you can get in direct contact with him. Now to me this kind of service is really unique and probably the reason he has such a solid business, even though the market for this kind of gear is relatively small. To be able to speak to the person who actually understands the gear inside out when you have a problem is amazingly useful.
But anyway, enough about the guy who makes it and on to the compressor itself!
The old JoeMeek gear is certainly one of the more instantly recognisable brands in studio racks, being bright green in colour, with big chunky knobs and a big VU meter in the middle, it looks like a proper bit of gear.
On the back the connections are pretty simple – XLR & Jack I/O, no Sidechain inputs.
In terms of the controls, from left to right, things start off, not surprisingly with the input gain – which goes to 11!
Sitting next to this is a button labelled “Dark Mode” which I'll get into later.
I have to fully recommend this guy, he quite rightly has a no-compromise attitude to the products he makes, in terms of him not sacrificing quality in favour of mass marketing a product. He seems to be a thoroughly decent bloke too. I had a small issue with the SC2.2, searching about I found his website and forum. Here he still supports the old JoeMeek gear he was responsible for making, and you can get in direct contact with him. Now to me this kind of service is really unique and probably the reason he has such a solid business, even though the market for this kind of gear is relatively small. To be able to speak to the person who actually understands the gear inside out when you have a problem is amazingly useful.
But anyway, enough about the guy who makes it and on to the compressor itself!
The old JoeMeek gear is certainly one of the more instantly recognisable brands in studio racks, being bright green in colour, with big chunky knobs and a big VU meter in the middle, it looks like a proper bit of gear.
On the back the connections are pretty simple – XLR & Jack I/O, no Sidechain inputs.
In terms of the controls, from left to right, things start off, not surprisingly with the input gain – which goes to 11!
Sitting next to this is a button labelled “Dark Mode” which I'll get into later.
To
the right of this, is a “slope” switch, this is the first control which
might not be familiar to compressor users, put simply this can be seen
as the ratio control. But only in so far as 1 gives mild compression and
5 is pretty much limiting – all modes exhibit different sonic
characteristics onto the signal besides the compression itself, so it's
not really right to label it simply “ratio”.
Next up is the VU meter – switchable between amount of compression and the audio level before the output gain.
The “compression” pot is the next control we come to, again this is slightly different to the recognisable “threshold” control, but in essence has the same function – increasing the compression has a similar effect to reducing the threshold, in that it lowers the position of the “knee”, increasing the amount of compression applied to the signal.
Then the bypass switch, which is a true, hard bypass, meaning the signal in bypass runs directly from the input to the output connections without going through any of the device's circuitry – I've noticed this a few times by accident, when I've left the unit patched in but switched off, the source of much head scratching when arriving to the studio bleary eyed after a long session the night before. When the unit is bypassed the signal runs through the insert no problem, but when the compressor is engaged, the signal is cut of. Which of course makes perfect sense, but demonstrates that a true hard bypass is in effect here.
Last are the familiar attack/release controls, followed by the output gain. The attack and release are simply labelled “fast” & “slow”. The attack provides a range from just under 1 millisecond to around 15 milliseconds, with the release ranging from just less than 200 milliseconds to a massive 5 seconds. The way the release works, or the curve of the release, depends on the “Dark Mode” switch. When “out”, the curve of the release is fairly linear, and when “in” the release is fairly gentle until the point near to where the gain is reaching normal, where it will release quickly. Because the release control is one of the most important and noticeable controls on the compressor, this naturally creates a noticeable sonic difference in the compression effect. The sound of the “Dark Mode” is the type of sound that Joe Meek was notorious for producing through his use of compression, referred to by some as his “dark” sound, hence the name.
Next up is the VU meter – switchable between amount of compression and the audio level before the output gain.
The “compression” pot is the next control we come to, again this is slightly different to the recognisable “threshold” control, but in essence has the same function – increasing the compression has a similar effect to reducing the threshold, in that it lowers the position of the “knee”, increasing the amount of compression applied to the signal.
Then the bypass switch, which is a true, hard bypass, meaning the signal in bypass runs directly from the input to the output connections without going through any of the device's circuitry – I've noticed this a few times by accident, when I've left the unit patched in but switched off, the source of much head scratching when arriving to the studio bleary eyed after a long session the night before. When the unit is bypassed the signal runs through the insert no problem, but when the compressor is engaged, the signal is cut of. Which of course makes perfect sense, but demonstrates that a true hard bypass is in effect here.
Last are the familiar attack/release controls, followed by the output gain. The attack and release are simply labelled “fast” & “slow”. The attack provides a range from just under 1 millisecond to around 15 milliseconds, with the release ranging from just less than 200 milliseconds to a massive 5 seconds. The way the release works, or the curve of the release, depends on the “Dark Mode” switch. When “out”, the curve of the release is fairly linear, and when “in” the release is fairly gentle until the point near to where the gain is reaching normal, where it will release quickly. Because the release control is one of the most important and noticeable controls on the compressor, this naturally creates a noticeable sonic difference in the compression effect. The sound of the “Dark Mode” is the type of sound that Joe Meek was notorious for producing through his use of compression, referred to by some as his “dark” sound, hence the name.
The
compressor itself is an opto compressor. Sound-wise this means it's
action is far more forgiving than a VCA compressor, which to my ears
make it far more musical in use. It works using a MS matrix, so it
converts the L & R signals into Mid and Side signals, adding the
required compression and then converting back to L & R. This means
the centre image is more stable and less susceptible to stereo drift,
making it the perfect bus compressor.
Using the compressor is great fun, it's a real sound shaper, and using a combination of different slopes and compression amounts it's really easy to get very different dynamics out of the same signal, all of which produce a (subjectively) positive effect, giving the engineer lots of sonic options to choose from. It's at home applying gentle compression to pull a full mix together subtly, or slamming a drum group and making it pump. I use it quite a bit on instrumental tracks and with proper adjustment of the attack and release times it's possible to inject real dynamics back into something that's just lacking a bit of drive and groove. I haven't really used it a lot on individual tracks, mainly because I tend to have it on the master bus most of the time, but I have used it on vocal groups in the past when mixing stems and found it to be very transparent even when applying pretty heavy compression.
Now of course this is entirely my own opinion, and I'm sure there will be more that disagree than agree with me; but I've used this and the SSL4000 bus compressor quite extensively over the last few years, and I have to say I much prefer the sound and use of the JoeMeek. The different colours and textures available far surpass anything I've been able to get out of the SSL, not to say the SSL isn't a great compressor, just that it has one sound and to me, doesn't allow for as much sound shaping, perhaps because of the limited options in terms of control. Combining this with the excellent service when I start to think about upgrading I'll be looking closely at one of Mr Fletcher's TFPro P38 compressors (the vastly upgraded version loosely based on the SC2.2).
Using the compressor is great fun, it's a real sound shaper, and using a combination of different slopes and compression amounts it's really easy to get very different dynamics out of the same signal, all of which produce a (subjectively) positive effect, giving the engineer lots of sonic options to choose from. It's at home applying gentle compression to pull a full mix together subtly, or slamming a drum group and making it pump. I use it quite a bit on instrumental tracks and with proper adjustment of the attack and release times it's possible to inject real dynamics back into something that's just lacking a bit of drive and groove. I haven't really used it a lot on individual tracks, mainly because I tend to have it on the master bus most of the time, but I have used it on vocal groups in the past when mixing stems and found it to be very transparent even when applying pretty heavy compression.
Now of course this is entirely my own opinion, and I'm sure there will be more that disagree than agree with me; but I've used this and the SSL4000 bus compressor quite extensively over the last few years, and I have to say I much prefer the sound and use of the JoeMeek. The different colours and textures available far surpass anything I've been able to get out of the SSL, not to say the SSL isn't a great compressor, just that it has one sound and to me, doesn't allow for as much sound shaping, perhaps because of the limited options in terms of control. Combining this with the excellent service when I start to think about upgrading I'll be looking closely at one of Mr Fletcher's TFPro P38 compressors (the vastly upgraded version loosely based on the SC2.2).
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