Hey! Doing a fun little mixing challenge where I'm using stuff only made in the 80's. I was hoping to find a nice compressor to use but, to be honest, I don't like the sound of VCA compressors, and they were very dominant during this time period. Were there any notable Non-VCA comps popular in the 80's?

 

LA-2A (OPTO), LA-3A (OPTO), LA-4 (OPTO), Fairchild 670 (TUBE), UREI 1178 (FET), NEVE 2254 (DIODE-BRIDGE), NEVE 33609 (DIODE-BRIDGE). Not all of this compressors was created in the 80s, but it was widely used during that decade.

 

Last edited: Jul 7, 2023

The Yamaha GC2020 MkI from 1985, standard midrange compressor, do well compression dutys and simple of use and cheap.

 

That's a VCA compressor

 

How about the ADR Compex 760x-rs? It is a FET with some popularity in the 80s. The Compex 2 re-issue of it (https://www.q2audio.com/compex-f760x-rs) seems to be a VCA, but the original one was not. There is a emulation/model in this bundle: https://www.bozdigitallabs.com/product/10db-bundle/

https://www.q2audio.com/compex-f760x-rs

Maybe it depends how much you are a stickler for the guidelines, but they have definitely become expensive.

 

In the 80s there were no dx/vst/au/clap plugins.

 

Maybe the Meek VC1 if it could catch the tail end of the 80's. It is an opto but part of a channel strip and I believe that the comp could be used alone or in series. I had a VC2 in the 90's which would bring up a vocal to the front and center.

 

Technically, you can get away with using pre 80s tech too. They did...

 

That's what I'm leaning towards.

 

Oups

 

The VC1 seems to be the "solid state" version of the VC2, which seemingly came out well into the 90's. It's cool to see a "90's" perspective on old tube gear http://www.joemeek.com/pdf/jm_vc2.pdf

 

I thought that it might have skimmed the very late 80's being born on December 31st at 23:59
I had the VC2 and paired it with the original RÔDE Classic for vocals or anything that would be the focus of a track. The combo was so amazing that it literally scared me because it was almost too incredible and I hardly ever recorded myself with tht combo, instead preferring an AKG B-ULS that I still cry about having to sell because of a health issue back then. I know that I'm weird.

 

This model sounds great, and the emulation by Boz Digital Labs seems pretty accurate. It's still puzzling to me just how FET gives that distinct sound at fast attack/release times. Try almost any other feedback compressor with the same attack/release and they sound remarkably different to that FET sound. At slower attack speeds, FET honestly doesn't sound too different than feedback VCA comps like the 2500 API. Regarding the release date, I've seen dates ranging from the 60's to 70's, but at this point that doesn't really matter to me. From what I've seen, by the time the 80's rolled around there were already fairly established compressors that they used for character and just used VCA for cleaner compression.

That being said, I am interested in finding some "dirtier" sounding VCA compressors (since to me most sound boringly clean)
Alesis compressors date to 1989 and sound like they have a mind of their own. Also, I haven't even seen a digital compressor for this time except for that one Amek compressor brainworx did.