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[breathe]

I think it's supposed to sound like a DBX 165.

Nicholas

[bleen]

I think you're wrong.

[mixwell]

breathe wrote on Thu, 19 August 2010 13:35

I think it's supposed to sound like a DBX 165. Nicholas

It doesn't sound anything like a DBX anything - but the gain cell is VERY loosely based off the DBX Blackmer design.

However - its taken further than that - and is A CLEAN ROOM DESIGN. Not a clone, nor a copy of a DBX compressor.

The P3500 module [and the P3500S which uses true power summing between the channels] along with the P3S rack unit are of the "clean" ilk.

It is a soft knee design with a lot of variance in control and to the reaction of compression, but overall its very non-greasy and non-affect-y unless you desire that.

Roger is using THAT corp VCA's, and I believe there are four of them per-channel.

The module uses a very non-smearing audio path with no iron anywhere inside. I find these little buggers are really helpful for tracking and mixing.

And of course - the P3S is a dream buss compressor - and now Roger has made an even more character rich machine with the P4DMS.    

[ssltech]

mixwell wrote

but the gain cell is VERY loosely based off the DBX Blackmer design.

I believe that they ARE Blackmer cells... just engineered to a level off excellence, in a similar way that the wheels on the latest Lamborghini concept car are evolutions of caveman's stone wheel.

The crucial heart of the Blackmer VCA is a simple 4-transistor log/antilog cell, which THAT have developed to a wonderful degree.

Roger is a fantastic guy, who thinks about things a LOT, and steadily develops ideas with lots of detail.

It's almost like the precise opposite of a hypothetical person who... for example... posts oversimplified troll-bait, and often never revisits it to learn more.

Keith

[mixwell]

ssltech wrote on Fri, 20 August 2010 11:13

mixwell wrote  but the gain cell is VERY loosely based off the DBX Blackmer design. I believe that they ARE Blackmer cells... just engineered to a level off excellence, in a similar way that the wheels on the latest Lamborghini concept car are evolutions of caveman's stone wheel. The crucial heart of the Blackmer VCA is a simple 4-transistor log/antilog cell, which THAT have developed to a wonderful degree. Roger is a fantastic guy, who thinks about things a LOT, and steadily develops ideas with lots of detail. It's almost like the precise opposite of a hypothetical person who... for example... posts oversimplified troll-bait, and often never revisits it to learn more. Keith

You got me there Keith. Thanks for fact checking this. I also asked Roger to chime in for the other people who are interested and will revisit the thread for info.  

[ssltech]

Roger is one of those guys who I really admire.

I don't know that he deserves to be introduced to this thread though... it might give him a headache!  

I don't know if you know Wayne Kirkwood also, but he's another great fella for detailed research, and -last I heard- he now writes technical papers for THAT corp. He and Roger developed a number of ideas together; I think the true-power stereo detection might have been Wayne's baby. -The stereo detection is overlooked by a LOT of people; easily demonstrated by the TK-Audio SSL-type unit, which offers switchable detection mode, after I developed it some time ago.

Wayne was always pushing me to add a 'triple option'; -'Sum', 'individual' and 'true-power'.

Haven't heard one, but you can be assured that it's a well-thought out unit. -Roger doesn't build slop.

Keith

[R. Foote]

Hi all!

Keith is right, it is a Blackmer gain cell based VCA.
The difference between dbx and FCS designs are in the control section. We paid a lot of painstaking attention to the CV signal. In RMS mode, it has been demonstrated that the dbx boxes and the FCS compressors have the same envelope characteristics, but the sound is anything but the same.

Oh yeah, the P4DMS rackmount has 4 VCAs per channel. The P3500 and P3S have one per channel.

One of the design criteria that was utmost to me is to have flat frequency response down to as close to DC as possible. We succeeded on that. My test measurement setup is on a PC running RMAA using a full duplex AES PCI card with a TC Electronic AD/DA. That converter has a 3dB down point of 5Hz. The FCS compressors read the same indicating that they probably go at least that low.

The HF 3dB point was >150kHz. These measurements were verified on Hewlett Packard 400FL and Leader LMV185A meters.

This results in ruler flat response from 20Hz-20kHz.

Noise is at -102dB. THD is 0.007% in RMS mode with no compression. THD climbs in a tasty way in non RMS modes to .1% @ 20dB of compression.

Btw, Wayne Kirkwood did design the true power summing implementation used in all of the stereo units that FCS makes. He also designed a killer Mid-Side circuit that I have put into production recently.

The guy is a genius and a true veteran pro audio designer.

Best regards
Roger Foote
Foote Control Systems

[mixwell]

Thanks guys for fact checking my misinformation. Which is why I sent Roger this thread. I'm stupid and confused. It's time for a vacation. BREATH DEEP. I'm out -  

[R. Foote]

mixwell wrote on Fri, 20 August 2010 10:43

Thanks guys for fact checking my misinformation. Which is why I sent Roger this thread. I'm stupid and confused. It's time for a vacation. BREATH DEEP. I'm out -

Adam

You hit the important points.
You da man!

Rock on!
Roger

[ssltech]

mixwell wrote on Fri, 20 August 2010 13:43

Thanks guys for fact checking my misinformation. Which is why I sent Roger this thread. I'm stupid and confused. It's time for a vacation. BREATH DEEP. I'm out -

Absolutely not at all. -You got it all pretty right. -The only truly 'wrong' information in this thread is in the first post.

[breathe]

Keith, if you hate me so much then why do I write the most interesting threads on this forum?

Nicholas

ssltech wrote on Fri, 20 August 2010 11:31

mixwell wrote on Fri, 20 August 2010 13:43 Thanks guys for fact checking my misinformation. Which is why I sent Roger this thread. I'm stupid and confused. It's time for a vacation. BREATH DEEP. I'm out -   Absolutely not at all. -You got it all pretty right. -The only truly 'wrong' information in this thread is in the first post.

[ssltech]

breathe wrote on Fri, 20 August 2010 14:42

Keith, if you hate me so much then why do I write the most interesting threads on this forum?

That one sentence is  wonderful illustration.

You ASSUME that you understand WAY more than you do.

I don't hate you, and -since your question is predicated upon that condition, there can be no answer.

Also, I would consider the assumption that you write the most interesting threads in the forum to be an ill-considered insult to the many productive contributors.

Allow me to explain; I don't hate you, I'm merely irritated from time to time by the 'noise' mixing with the 'signal'.

There's more of it than there need be.

And you're still -not wishing to speak for the designer when he's perfectly capable of doing so- perfectly and entirely wrong in your one assertion in the initial post. -I believe that the designer himself just posted to say as much.

Keith

[R. Foote]

Guys

I am not down on dbx compressors, but I wanted something different. This for selfish reasons at first....

I have owned and test driven hoardes of dbx 16x compressors and being a bass player that wants to clearly hear the decay of my instruments, I started designing my own compressors.

I wanted something that had smooth compression even at high ratios with lots of GR happening, which the dbx boxes didn't do for me. After nearly 10 years of on and off work on this I finally got successful, a compressor that didn't dirty up my decaying notes.

Then Wayne suggested the TPS summing for stereo, which I tried.

It became obvious that the design would be good for bus duties as well as tracking...

It is basically a clean compressor, because of the headroom. But much color and MOJO can be had in the design as well according to our users. Especially the units with transformer coupling, like the P3S and P4DMS.

So, while the FCS units do not duplicate the dbx 160 et al, it does complement it, bringing something different to the party.

Roger

[mixwell]

TAPE OP REVIEW

 http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/new-product-alert  /184098d1279908473-fcs-p3s-stereo-rackmount-compressor-foote review.pdf