Your favorite cheapass hardware compressors

[Sloan]

List your favorite cheap (Like $100-200) compressors, and why they are your faves.

I have a dbx project 166xl or something that fucking sucks. I use it as a gate for live sound, but it imparts some funky harmonic shit on the signal. Looking for stuff to use when tracking drums/bass etc...

 

[Donovan S.]

I think you can find a used DBX 160 for just a little bit more cash. Those are supposedly great for drums, but I've never used one.

 

[acappa]

RNC is a good one.

 

[Terminus]

I've had a little alesis nanocomp for 15 years that got used twice for bass live.

 

[Trevoire520]

I've got a couple of DBX 163X's that I got for £75 each. Apparently in the states you can find them a bit cheaper.
Love them on drums. They're pretty cool on bass too but you'll probably need to follow it with a limiter as it doesn't quite catch all the fast peaks.

Got a 160X aswell but I've not actually had chance to try that out on anything properly yet.

 

[Joshua Wickman]

Loving my dbx 163's as well. I got 2 and might snag a few more because i like them that much.

I find my self using them on drums, bass and vocals the most.

I think i paid like 100.00 for the pair shipped.

 

[Gnash]

RNC for sure!

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I think you can find a used DBX 160 for just a little bit more cash. Those are supposedly great for drums, but I've never used one.

The VU version is crazy pricey, the X version isn't bad, and the A version isn't to bad either.

The stupid VU version is quite a bit of cash if you can find one.

 

[Skinny Viking]

I've had a little alesis nanocomp for 15 years that got used twice for bass live.

same here!

except I've used it for emergency vocal overdubs in my apartment and most of my bass tracking

 

[aortizjr]

Hmm... in that price range...

On the border of the price range I like the FMR RNLA. Gives sort of a gooey sound, I really like it on acoustic guitar and for smoothing out bass.

FMR RNC is super clean, good for when you need clean compression.

Those are definitely gems in their price range. Outside of that, the DBX 266xl gets the job done. I also have used some Behringer. I have an old Composer with upgraded OpAmps that does pretty well on the drum bus or master bus for headphone mixes. I will also use it for compressing vocals on the way out for monitoring. Live I use a multi-com that definitely gets the job done. The older ones have DBX chips, the newer ones have THAT chips, and the designs are... solid

 

[Straight Shooter]

Aphex 651. Transparent. Good for bass guitar.

 

[heshian46]

Love me some RNC. Good clean compression. And the units are cheap enough to get a couple of them w/out breaking the bank.

 

[PhilTheBeard]

Loving my dbx 163's as well. I got 2 and might snag a few more because i like them that much.

I find my self using them on drums, bass and vocals the most.

I think i paid like 100.00 for the pair shipped.

YOU FAGGOT! guess you finally got the 163's and found out their magic first hand.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Would love a pair of RNCs actually.

 

[Sloan]

I am enjoying this 'discussion'. I've definitely been keeping an eye on the DBX and related stuff, but it seems people have finally caught up to the hype. It seems all the used gear stores I ever go to, they have tons of rack mount stuff, but never really any compressors! Frustrating indeed.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I have a 3630 I use with my bass preamp on a regular bassis. Cheap as FUCK compressor, but works well for what I'm using it on.

I have no idea how well it works on other shit. But I got it for $25.

 

[xTomx]

Surprised nobody has mentioned this guy yet:

 

[Trevoire520]

I've not read all that much about them yet. Any good?

 

[RedDog]

Found a DBX 266xl for like 70 USD, of course I'm going to use it for trashy shit. Better than a Behringer, I think. I'd most likely use it on bass, Into channel 1 and out to channel 2 for some staging compression. And again with that technique on room tracks.

 

[amarshism]

Dbx 163 was on randy blythes vocal apparently.