FAIRCOMP 670 First Look with Marc Daniel Nelson

hi Mark Daniel Nelson here on behalf of audioscape I have a really special sneak peak I'd like to share with you today about three years ago Chris at audioscape and myself were talking about all sorts of old gear and how realistic it is to replicate and rebuild it with modern components or at least New Old Stock components to get them up to a standard that is equal to the or origal there's a lot of talk about all sorts of pieces of gear out there and they use new additional types of equipment they'll use a new modern circuit to get it to perform the way it used to sometimes it can work evenly and perfectly and sometimes in my opinion by doing that it just changes quite a bit of the way that the initial piece of gear operated which brings me up to the topic today which was at the time I said realistically can you make a fair child 670 or 660 with the same tubes with Transformers that are wound the same or New Old Stock tubes and Transformers that is Affordable obviously we're in a day and age where there is a lot of competiting compressors out there that is doing the 670 thing I'm not going to speak on behalf of any of those today other than the fact that I do know that the circuit is different they don't use the same tubes or they're not utilizing a tube power supply or stuff like that so as of today I'd like to welcome you the audio Escape Fair comp 670 this is still the Prototype but I wanted to give you guys a sneak peak it's pretty spectacular and in fact I had to read the list of all the stuff because it's got so much tubes and Transformers under the hood that I need to be completely thorough and hon of what we have here not only does this have the tube power supply which I believe anything under 15 grand doesn't have this has 6386 tubes eight of them which as anyone knows about Fairchild is the correct tube there's been a lot of uh swap of tubes to get certain things to replicate and work the same way but down to the ground this guy has found a way to build this thing in a form that utilizes the UTC Transformers that utilizes the 6386 tubes let me just read you a list of all the tubes and Transformers under the hood 863 86 tubes 46973 tubes 2 12 ax7 tubes no Old Stock 2 12 bh7 tubes New Old Stock 1 el34 power tube again this is a tube power supply which is a critical point in a 670 design of how it operates 16084 15 a are for rectifier 2 the Transformers in this there are eight Transformers two UTC 26 amp inputs 2 HS 52 signal amp outputs two control amp inputs and two control out UTS this guy has fantastic color and they've been taking so long to get everything right by the time it got up to here for me to kind of start taking a listen to it and start making my observations of what I would hear and what I think could add or whatever I didn't think it needed anything and um there's been a lot of added features as well on top of the Vintage specs features like side chain highpass filters which is here the DC threshold gain trims singular bypass and the mix knob which is right here this whole area is going to be kind of worked on still as you could see again this is the Prototype but in general I'll give you a quick peek of how it sounds with the music I'm mixing right now which is the band Caitlyn krisco and the broadcast are amazing East Coast band very viby very open sounding track so this give you a lot of idea of how the Box sounds first I'm going to take it off the threshold and I'm going to take it out and then we'll play it for a bit and then we'll put it back in and take a listen to how it sounds just as a line amplifier and then I'll engage the thread so you can hear how it's grabbing stuff maybe I'll play a little bit of the drums but for right now let's go for the [Music] mix the rain is falling on the window of my heart let's put it in as a lineup beginning just a lonely place to start I played it over a thousand times thinking what I could have done with every breath I had [Music] inside so what we're listening for as it's out now is how it's affecting the sound characteristic is it making the signal bigger sounding in the sense that it's adding a bottom octave or doing something [Music] pretty but just sending it through the whole chain it's already adjusting the character of it it's setting the drums back without compressing it it's dropping an octave just a little bit with the bass drum and it's kind of smoothing out the highs which is what in my opinion the magic of a line amplifier of a 670 compressor very mutee anything that's designed in this era you're following a v meter that is pretty unreliable so you have to be really cautious with how you're hearing the game reduction clamping down let's Peg it a little bit dri to the light I could always sh every scar across the endless sky but the truth is if I'm honest I never I'd had to say me this sounds really really really smooth super excited I cannot believe Chris has been able to him and James been able to create this circuit the correct way by keeping everything affordable which I think is huge model that audioscape always does is try to let everyone enjoy all the magical gear that's out there it's very expensive still but when you start adding up all the parts it's literally one of the only things out there that's followed exactly point to point all the way down using the same components that it's supposed to like the original the way it's been designed to operate it works really good let's listen to some drums and maybe her vocal and call it a day [Music] this is the preset one one and five are my favorite for drum [Music] bus the thing that fairw do really well with it's not only is it compressing the snare and stuff but it's literally bringing out everything I always call it the Ringo sound because of the way that the 660 used to clamp down on symbols and it's just a really beautiful magic away here [Music] five [Music] really [Music] cool let's hear it on vocals rain is window there's no beginning just a lonely place to start I played it over a thousand times thinking what I could have to say that the 670 had the line amplifier had this really magical insert quality even if you're barely touching it if you're just touching it barely just inserting it adds this kind of Sheen that does something really magical to vocals life as the years flow on by you drift into the hit it hard but the truth is if I'm honest I never thought I'd have to say goodbye what it's doing obviously when you're playing it through a mix or the drum or the vocal the thing about a berry muw that I always relate to is it seems to be able to pull stuff up and make it kind of lean forward so like inside a mix you're you're pulling the drums up you're pulling everything up and then kind of tucking the stuff that's poking out down a little bit in vocals it's pulling some of the lower level stuff and adding a little bit of a growl on drums depending on how hard you're hitting it's doing that Ringo effect again where it's bringing up the room the ride symbol and stuff starts sounding like giant 10 foot long symbols they're huge sounding because it's just becoming just pulverized through all the tubes and such this has been a long time making for audio escape and I give them a bazillion High FIV because it just sounds absolutely spectacular and I'm so excited that people are going to be able to use it and it's not going to be one of those things where it's just unattainable so on my behalf Mark Daniel Nelson here have a great time [Music] mixing you're the center of my life as the years flow on by you drift into the [Music] light

Channel: AudioScape Engineering Co.

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Id: LlH2nZnp46k

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024