I'm curious if you guys have any atypical uses for vari-mu compressors. Generally when I think of Vari-Mu I think of throwing it on the mix bus, drum & vocal bus, or on the 2 bus for cohesion & glue.

Are there any ways you personally like to use Vari-Mu compressors that I haven't listed? I have a bunch of different ones available to me, 175B/176, Manley Variable Mu, Royal Compressor, VCL-864U, Wunderlich & so on. I love the sound of tubes & have a lot of these on hand so I'm trying to experiment with them more & would love to use Vari-Mu comps exclusively for a whole album (if that's not a fool's errand)

I love how these compressors can grab the source material like a warm hug & even add some dimension & groove. I don't know how else to put it really. I've been enjoying using two Vari-Mus in series, or running an opto into one, but I doubt these are atypical uses. They're my preferred end of chain comps & limiters, so it's feeling like I'm using them as typically as it gets.

Not a professional here just a hobbyist. I'd appreciate any insight. I'm open to any suggestions or ideas. Maybe you just have some uses that I didn't list, either way I'm listening. Cheers.

 

Wunderlich if driven in the right way and with the right music material can do serious damage as "vintage-izer". Put it on a certain bus, drive/distort it, and send in there all the sounds you wanna make "from the 70s". Works even in parallel, with a different flavour obviously.