Extensive compressor reviews and FAQ

Alesis 3630: This rackmount two-channel unit is popular because it offers a lot of features for a very low price. I picked this one up for about $40 used. It is nicknamed the "dirty six dirty" because it is so prone to distortion, especially on bass frequencies. I'd say it earned that name, because indeed it puts out a glitchy clipping sound whenever the threshold is crossed. It is possible to find settings where it will not distort like that, but (as far as I can tell) those cleaner-sounding settings are not actually doing any useful compression or limiting. It also features a noise gate, which is like most cheap gates- useful if your signal is desperately noisy, but terrible otherwise. I would not engage the gate unless I absolutely had to.
 
The frequency range of this unit is pretty good, with no notable loss of lows, and only a bit of rolloff of the highs. But the tone is sterile and weak. Many people have modded the guts of their 3630, and claim to have gotten much better tone and performance from it. But even so, I would only bother with that if you already have a 3630 and want to monkey with it. If you just want to save money, get a used Behringer MDX instead. The construction quality is about what you'd expect for the price.
 

 
 
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