I found a mid-90’s Alesis Stereo NanoCompressor in a box of old misc. cables recently and decided to hook it up with my BeatBuddy to learn more about how compression affects a full drum kit.
I have the Premium Content Library and understand that it was created with gentle to more extreme compression depending on the kit, but wanted to test it out anyway…
I experimented with the attack and release times along with the compression ratio and found I generally liked the added compressed drum sound more.
Specifically, it extended the impact of the snare and bass drum hits to make it super-fat sounding.
My mixer (Allen & Heath ZEDi-10FX) also has built-in effects and I dialed in various amounts of spacial effects thru the FX Send. I really liked giving the drums a sense of space, rather than feeling so dry.
That particular mixer also has GATED REVERB effects that are a blast to play around with. It makes any drum kit sound a little more, or a lot more like the Phil Collins 80’s drum kit.
It also has a ton of delays, chorus/doublers, phase/flange and reverbs. It’s also a 4 IN / 4 OUT 24-bit/96kHz USB Audio Interface. It’s around $250. The NanoCompressor goes for under $90 used.
I’m only in the proof of concept phase right now, but this seems like a great way to tweak the BB’s content in a more exaggerated, creative direction…
Is anyone else using the BB in this way?
Here are the links to what I am using:
Thanks,
James