Hardware Comp, help me choose

[EOC]

Dudes, i need some help choosing a hardware compressor.

I already have a 1176 and la2a clones, really nice on vocals, bass, drum buss, but im looking for something for kick and snare. I feel that the 1176 is too fast and would like a slower attack to let the transient through and get some nice smack gratification on snare drum.

Im gasing hard for a distressor, but im looking for something 1000us tops, and would be awesome if it can be for the 500 series since i have an empty slot.

There are really a lot of options here, but since i live in argentina, testing one of these is impossible so it is a blind purchase.

So my optiones are:
Valley people Dynamite
SSL 611dynamic module
Tonelux TX5C
Api 527
great river pwm 501
and the one im feeling the most: xpressor 500 wich is stereo.

no FETs in here obviously becouse they are too fast, looking for VCA style.
The tonelux, xpressor and also the great river offer a lot of nice features (side chain, blend knob, ff/fb selector, and some other goodies)

If anyone can chime in i would love to hear your opinions
Thanks!

 

[amarshism]

you can get a distressor for 1000 all day any day, otherwise id say it sounds like you need a 160vu

 

[egan.]

you can get a distressor for 1000 all day any day, otherwise id say it sounds like you need a 160vu

+1

 

[EOC]

you can get a distressor for 1000 all day any day, otherwise id say it sounds like you need a 160vu

Yeah, but since i live in south america, not everybody will ship the distressor to my country, and in case it arribes broken by any chance, i dont have many options here for repair. Payment would be an issue too since some credit card restriction in paypal that apply in my country

the Dbx160 i found a couple but over the price and im looking for something a tad more versatile.

Either way thanks for the input guys!

on other note: yesterday i did an in depth comparison of snare smack inducers plugin comrpessors haha
I tested
Elysias m and alpha pressors
Tubetech CBL1
softube dynamite
URS comps
Klangheim comp
Waves SSL channel
Reacomp
DMG Compassion
(of course i do not own all of these)

Results:
Reacomp kicked some mayor ass! i could dial allmost any type of sound.
Tubetech CBL1 had an amazing sweet spot for snare smack
Dynamite had this extreme gritty gain reduction that was harder to replicate with reacomp wich of course was cleaner even emulating dynamic behaivour of the dynamete. I found that the dynamite in extreme settings blended with the natural snare gave me exactly the sound i was looking for, so the 500 series dynamite is begining to scale up in the charts.
Non the less, i was so happy with reacomp that i really thought for a moment: Fuck it, stop wasting many, just grab reacomp, equilibrium and you are good to go.

 

[crillemannen]

I actually love my SSL HW clone on snare. Makes it pop like crazy. I had a dbx 160VU and i didn't like it. It was like a limiter/compressor going all buttons in limiting it to hell even on the modest settings haha.

 

[EOC]

I actually love my SSL HW clone on snare. Makes it pop like crazy. I had a dbx 160VU and i didn't like it. It was like a limiter/compressor going all buttons in limiting it to hell even on the modest settings haha.

The bus one? Yeah it works on snare pretty good, any good cloner for a reasonable price?

 

[crillemannen]

The bus one? Yeah it works on snare pretty good, any good cloner for a reasonable price?

I have a prime clone. But probably to expensive to you if you're gonna ship it etc. A DIY build should suite you just fine, if you can't solder maybe you can find someone in your area that can.


And if you get a stereo SSL unit (which they almost alway are) you can use it on both kick and snare

 

[EOC]

I have a prime clone. But probably to expensive to you if you're gonna ship it etc. A DIY build should suite you just fine, if you can't solder maybe you can find someone in your area that can.


And if you get a stereo SSL unit (which they almost alway are) you can use it on both kick and snare

i know someone that could solder it. When i made my cables, it was the worst day of my life.....

 

[ArthurD]

Distressor