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themaddog « Quantity, not quality »
Published on 06/06/11 at 19:06Need a cheap, rackmountable compressor with 4 channels? Then you've come to the right place. The Behringer MDX 4600 can take 1/4" or XLR inputs and outputs and can switch from -10 to +4.
The MDX 4600 has the standard settings found on a compressor: set the input, the ratio, output, and limiter and whether each channel is going to compress, gate, or expand. There are two settings for the speed of the dynamics processing, which can not be manually set, as well a setting for limiting interference from the bass frequencies in triggering the processing. There is also an "exciter" setting for each channel. Each channel can be used independently, or channels 2 and 4 can be daisy-chained with the previous channel for stereo processing.
UTILIZATION
Just plug it an and you're ready to go, the manual is there for someone who doesn't know a lot about dynamics processing.
SOUND QUALITY
The sound quality is OK, provided you don't push the compressors too hard. Once you start to dial in pretty harsh ratios, things can get a little funky and jumpy due to the lack of being unable to manually dial in a speed for the processing. That being said, so long as you aren't trying to overcompress, things will usually turn out OK, as the unit is relatively quiet and does a decent job -- just don't expect it to work miracles and you'll be satisfied. It's not really a transparent compressor.
OVERALL OPINION
It's good for the money, but because it's Behringer don't expect it to hold up forever. I have two of these units in my studio, but they'll be replaced with far superior (and far more expensive) dbx compressors soon. Because these aren't very transparent, and during tracking it's easy to miss some of the small details, I would avoid using this compressor while recording and save it only for mix-down. You don't want to get caught up in a situation where this compressor did too much, or dialed in too late, and screwed up your recording.
The MDX 4600 has the standard settings found on a compressor: set the input, the ratio, output, and limiter and whether each channel is going to compress, gate, or expand. There are two settings for the speed of the dynamics processing, which can not be manually set, as well a setting for limiting interference from the bass frequencies in triggering the processing. There is also an "exciter" setting for each channel. Each channel can be used independently, or channels 2 and 4 can be daisy-chained with the previous channel for stereo processing.
UTILIZATION
Just plug it an and you're ready to go, the manual is there for someone who doesn't know a lot about dynamics processing.
SOUND QUALITY
The sound quality is OK, provided you don't push the compressors too hard. Once you start to dial in pretty harsh ratios, things can get a little funky and jumpy due to the lack of being unable to manually dial in a speed for the processing. That being said, so long as you aren't trying to overcompress, things will usually turn out OK, as the unit is relatively quiet and does a decent job -- just don't expect it to work miracles and you'll be satisfied. It's not really a transparent compressor.
OVERALL OPINION
It's good for the money, but because it's Behringer don't expect it to hold up forever. I have two of these units in my studio, but they'll be replaced with far superior (and far more expensive) dbx compressors soon. Because these aren't very transparent, and during tracking it's easy to miss some of the small details, I would avoid using this compressor while recording and save it only for mix-down. You don't want to get caught up in a situation where this compressor did too much, or dialed in too late, and screwed up your recording.