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Post by copperx on Dec 1, 2023 0:45:02 GMT -6
It seems like Empirical Audio released the Distressor Jr PUMP, but now it is back-ordered everywhere.
There's one YouTuber that got ahold of a unit. It seems like it sounds cleaner than the Distressor. As per Dave Derr, they replaced the FET with a VCA, but it has the same behavior. It's exactly what I have wanted for a long time.
Many people got their Distressors modded to improve the sound. It seems that might not be needed anymore (?)
It's amazing how thin the board is. I'm pretty sure they made sure to etch away all the chip names, as they did with the Distressor.
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Post by robo on Dec 1, 2023 11:39:58 GMT -6
I thought the Distressor was always a VCA comp that imitated a fet?
Regardless, this seems cooler than a Distressor to me, as the “attack mod” seems like a really useful feature. If I had the 500 rack space I’d get a pair of these or Kush Tweezers.
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Post by copperx on Dec 1, 2023 13:04:58 GMT -6
I thought the Distressor was always a VCA comp that imitated a fet? Regardless, this seems cooler than a Distressor to me, as the “attack mod” seems like a really useful feature. If I had the 500 rack space I’d get a pair of these or Kush Tweezers.
Me too; I remember that teardowns of the Distressor at GroupDIY showed it was VCA compressor. However, Dave Derr in an interview said that the difference was that the Distressor was FET based and the PUMP was a VCA. But Empirical has a history of trying to hide how the circuit works. Interestingly, on the PUMP, all the ICs have their identifiers untouched, it seems.
However, if the PUMP proves to be cleaner that the Distressor, that's a dream come true.
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Post by notneeson on Dec 1, 2023 13:47:41 GMT -6
I thought the Distressor was always a VCA comp that imitated a fet? Regardless, this seems cooler than a Distressor to me, as the “attack mod” seems like a really useful feature. If I had the 500 rack space I’d get a pair of these or Kush Tweezers.
Me too; I remember that teardowns of the Distressor at GroupDIY showed it was VCA compressor. However, Dave Derr in an interview said that the difference was that the Distressor was FET based and the PUMP was a VCA. But Empirical has a history of trying to hide how the circuit works. Interestingly, on the PUMP, all the ICs have their identifiers untouched, it seems.
However, if the PUMP proves to be cleaner that the Distressor, that's a dream come true.
So maybe the difference is that Pump uses an off the shelf VCA and the Distressor uses something custom? Pure speculation on my part. |
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Post by copperx on Dec 1, 2023 13:50:33 GMT -6
Me too; I remember that teardowns of the Distressor at GroupDIY showed it was VCA compressor. However, Dave Derr in an interview said that the difference was that the Distressor was FET based and the PUMP was a VCA. But Empirical has a history of trying to hide how the circuit works. Interestingly, on the PUMP, all the ICs have their identifiers untouched, it seems.
However, if the PUMP proves to be cleaner that the Distressor, that's a dream come true.
So maybe the difference is that Pump uses an off the shelf VCA and the Distressor uses something custom? Pure speculation on my part. Could be! Maybe they got the distortion down? In the video above it does sound cleaner that the Distressor for a little bit, before he presses the Sat button.
EDIT: The guy never presses the Sat button, I hallucinated that.
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Post by jacobamerritt on Dec 1, 2023 15:17:54 GMT -6
I thought the Distressor was always a VCA comp that imitated a fet? Regardless, this seems cooler than a Distressor to me, as the “attack mod” seems like a really useful feature. If I had the 500 rack space I’d get a pair of these or Kush Tweezers. I've had a pair of Tweezers for about a year now (Black Friday sale going right now is amazing BTW). Love them! Is there a similarity to a Distressor? I've only used a Distressor a few times. |
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Post by sirthought on Dec 1, 2023 15:33:57 GMT -6
The Distressor manual describes the circuit using a VCA. But it's always been a bit of a mystery the way they wrote it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 1, 2023 16:24:55 GMT -6
The Distressor is a JFET compressor that tries for more distortion rather than cancelling most of it out like a Daking FET.
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Dec 1, 2023 16:58:37 GMT -6
Wonder if this was an early production/ prototype and that’s why everything still has makings? Or they are using a contract manufacturer, or they left the markings because it cost to much to remove them.
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Post by copperx on Dec 1, 2023 17:11:39 GMT -6
Wonder if this was an early production/ prototype and that’s why everything still has makings? Or they are using a contract manufacturer, or they left the markings because it cost to much to remove them.
He said he bought it from Sweetwater, and the Sweetwater page looks like they had some but they're now out of stock. So maybe he's telling the truth? I'm not sure.
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Post by notneeson on Dec 1, 2023 18:15:22 GMT -6
Tattoo and music studio! One biz to make money, and another to lose it.
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Post by robo on Dec 1, 2023 20:28:21 GMT -6
I thought the Distressor was always a VCA comp that imitated a fet? Regardless, this seems cooler than a Distressor to me, as the “attack mod” seems like a really useful feature. If I had the 500 rack space I’d get a pair of these or Kush Tweezers. I've had a pair of Tweezers for about a year now (Black Friday sale going right now is amazing BTW). Love them! Is there a similarity to a Distressor? I've only used a Distressor a few times. There’s a similarity in that they are both flexible VCA (I think) comps. I’ve never used a Tweaker/Tweezer, just heard/seen them online. I’ve never loved the tone of Distressors, but they offer lots of different styles of squeeze. Any specific instruments you dig the Tweezers on? |
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Post by jacobamerritt on Dec 2, 2023 1:38:50 GMT -6
There’s a similarity in that they are both flexible VCA (I think) comps. I’ve never used a Tweaker/Tweezer, just heard/seen them online. I’ve never loved the tone of Distressors, but they offer lots of different styles of squeeze. Any specific instruments you dig the Tweezers on? Honestly... Everything? Very flexible. Can be pretty clean, or really saturated. I've even just run stuff through them with no compression happening- you can dial in the saturation to taste. Desert island compressor for me. On sale for $399 instead of $549 right now. I just used them on kick drum and snare this week |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2023 10:30:47 GMT -6
Me too; I remember that teardowns of the Distressor at GroupDIY showed it was VCA compressor. However, Dave Derr in an interview said that the difference was that the Distressor was FET based and the PUMP was a VCA. But Empirical has a history of trying to hide how the circuit works. Interestingly, on the PUMP, all the ICs have their identifiers untouched, it seems.
However, if the PUMP proves to be cleaner that the Distressor, that's a dream come true.
So maybe the difference is that Pump uses an off the shelf VCA and the Distressor uses something custom? Pure speculation on my part. el might be using a vca in the pump to imitate the transfer curve of a distressor’s jfet but with lower noise, distortion, cooler operation, more consistent gain reduction behavior, and often cheaper to implement because no binning needed. Daking did that for the Comp 500 and then a modified version of the Comp 500 design replaced the rackmount FET comps. |
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Dec 2, 2023 13:05:06 GMT -6
So maybe the difference is that Pump uses an off the shelf VCA and the Distressor uses something custom? Pure speculation on my part. el might be using a vca in the pump to imitate the transfer curve of a distressor’s jfet but with lower noise, distortion, cooler operation, more consistent gain reduction behavior, and often cheaper to implement because no binning needed. Daking did that for the Comp 500 and then a modified version of the Comp 500 design replaced the rackmount FET comps. Plus it all fits in a 500 series and streets for $699. |
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Post by notneeson on Dec 2, 2023 14:17:29 GMT -6
There’s a similarity in that they are both flexible VCA (I think) comps. I’ve never used a Tweaker/Tweezer, just heard/seen them online. I’ve never loved the tone of Distressors, but they offer lots of different styles of squeeze. Any specific instruments you dig the Tweezers on? Honestly... Everything? Very flexible. Can be pretty clean, or really saturated. I've even just run stuff through them with no compression happening- you can dial in the saturation to taste. Desert island compressor for me. On sale for $399 instead of $549 right now. I just used them on kick drum and snare this week I don’t often love Distressors on bass or vox. But they work. They can def help nail the kick and snare if you are going for almost sample like consistency across hits while sounding somewhat realistic at the same time. |
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Post by bgrotto on Dec 2, 2023 21:06:51 GMT -6
Distressor on kick and snare is the sound of modern commercial rock and metal, love it or hate it.
I had a pair of Tweakers for a while. They were quite good, but took considerable effort to dial in most effectively, unlike a Distressor which I can set in a few seconds. That took the Tweakers out of the running as tracking units, which made them of limited use for me. I sold them.
Oh, also, a Distressor crushing in parallel on a vocal can be really great.
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Post by the other mark williams on Dec 2, 2023 21:21:08 GMT -6
Distressor on kick and snare is the sound of modern commercial rock and metal, love it or hate it. I had a pair of Tweakers for a while. They were quite good, but took considerable effort to dial in most effectively, unlike a Distressor which I can set in a few seconds. That took the Tweakers out of the running as tracking units, which made them of limited use for me. I sold them. Oh, also, a Distressor crushing in parallel on a vocal can be really great. I've had times where the "LA-2A" setting on a Distressor just sat in a mix better than an actual LA-2A on lead vocal, for whatever reason.
ragan - didn't you used to use a Distressor in "Opto" mode for your vocal?? |
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Post by ragan on Dec 2, 2023 22:02:35 GMT -6
Distressor on kick and snare is the sound of modern commercial rock and metal, love it or hate it. I had a pair of Tweakers for a while. They were quite good, but took considerable effort to dial in most effectively, unlike a Distressor which I can set in a few seconds. That took the Tweakers out of the running as tracking units, which made them of limited use for me. I sold them. Oh, also, a Distressor crushing in parallel on a vocal can be really great. I've had times where the "LA-2A" setting on a Distressor just sat in a mix better than an actual LA-2A on lead vocal, for whatever reason.
ragan - didn't you used to use a Distressor in "Opto" mode for your vocal?? I did yeah. I actually did a blind shootout of a bunch of compressors on my voice here on RGO, quite a long time ago. And the Distressor was what most people picked. I have (especially in years past, I’m a little better about controlling it now) a kind of annoyingly dynamic voice and the Distressor nailed it in place nicely. As for the Pump thing, like others have said, I would be excited to try a cleaner Distressor. |
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Post by vvvooojjj on Dec 3, 2023 7:16:37 GMT -6
As for the Pump thing, like others have said, I would be excited to try a cleaner Distressor. Me too. |
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Post by copperx on Dec 5, 2023 21:37:16 GMT -6
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Post by Ward on Dec 7, 2023 7:34:28 GMT -6
The amount of auto-tuning in those vocals was very distressing to me.
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Post by copperx on Dec 7, 2023 11:16:33 GMT -6
The amount of auto-tuning in those vocals was very distressing to me.
That YouTuber couldn't have picked a worse vocal track if he tried.
That's why we need more seawell videos. Not only is he thorough and knows how the equipment works, but he uses really nice tracks, which makes the entire thing incredibly enjoyable. |
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Post by lowlou on Dec 7, 2023 11:55:30 GMT -6
I've read on Gearspace that the Great River PWM rack500 compressor sounds like a clean Distressor. It might be of interest to some !
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Post by notneeson on Dec 7, 2023 11:56:00 GMT -6
The amount of auto-tuning in those vocals was very distressing to me.
That YouTuber couldn't have picked a worse vocal track if he tried.
That's why we need more seawell videos. Not only is he thorough and knows how the equipment works, but he uses really nice tracks, which makes the entire thing incredibly enjoyable. |
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