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Skjold « Great budget compressor »
Published on 08/12/12 at 08:16The Alesis 3630 sports a stereo/dual mono compressor with gates on a budget. I might have an earlier version of the unit, as mine does not have XLR connections, but only 1/4" jacks. As mentioned, you also get a gate, with fixed attack, hold and release but adjustable threshold.
The compressor is switchable between RMS and Peak mode, as well as switchable between hard-knee and soft-knee compression.
UTILIZATION
You get a basic and pretty much standard set of controls on the 3630 Compressor. So in case you have any previous experience with compressors, you should not have any problems figuring out how to operate this one.
The compressor section on each side, has controls for threshold, ratio, attack, release and output. Remember to set the sensitivity according to either your DAW or mixer. There are small slides on the back of the unit for this, which switches each channel between +4dBu or -10dBv (the later being called instrument level).
I've not had the need to look in the manual, but should you find the need for that, it can be found on the web.
SOUND QUALITY
This is were I've had some issues with the compressor. For some reason, the output is extremely low, even after finding a unity between input and output. This however has been on drums, so the unit might not be so useful for that particular instrument. I've not had any issues on the vocals.
I find it pretty amazing, that the sound of the unit on vocals is as transparent as it is (relatively). It's not the most transparent, but it doesn't color the sound that much either.
The gates are decent. You don't have any chance of changing attack, hold and release. It's find, if you just need to clean up a signal - i.e a distortion guitar with a lot of hiss, when not played.
OVERALL OPINION
This is not a high-end compressor, so if you own a home studio and are on a budget, this cheap compressor might be something for you. The quality is way better then Behringer, but below DBX.
The 3630 runs on a 9V power supply, and this might be the fall for this, in other ways, fine compressor.
The compressor is switchable between RMS and Peak mode, as well as switchable between hard-knee and soft-knee compression.
UTILIZATION
You get a basic and pretty much standard set of controls on the 3630 Compressor. So in case you have any previous experience with compressors, you should not have any problems figuring out how to operate this one.
The compressor section on each side, has controls for threshold, ratio, attack, release and output. Remember to set the sensitivity according to either your DAW or mixer. There are small slides on the back of the unit for this, which switches each channel between +4dBu or -10dBv (the later being called instrument level).
I've not had the need to look in the manual, but should you find the need for that, it can be found on the web.
SOUND QUALITY
This is were I've had some issues with the compressor. For some reason, the output is extremely low, even after finding a unity between input and output. This however has been on drums, so the unit might not be so useful for that particular instrument. I've not had any issues on the vocals.
I find it pretty amazing, that the sound of the unit on vocals is as transparent as it is (relatively). It's not the most transparent, but it doesn't color the sound that much either.
The gates are decent. You don't have any chance of changing attack, hold and release. It's find, if you just need to clean up a signal - i.e a distortion guitar with a lot of hiss, when not played.
OVERALL OPINION
This is not a high-end compressor, so if you own a home studio and are on a budget, this cheap compressor might be something for you. The quality is way better then Behringer, but below DBX.
The 3630 runs on a 9V power supply, and this might be the fall for this, in other ways, fine compressor.