Extensive compressor reviews and FAQ

FMR RNC: The "Really Nice Compressor" is a 1/3rd rack space stereo unit that runs at line level only. It's very popular, lots of reviews say it is one of the best compressors available at the price point. That may possibly be true for stereo mixes, but I really found it lacking for bass. It has some good points: the lows and highs are not notably rolled off, and there is almost no noise at all. But it distorts far too easily, and not in a good-sounding way. FMR makes it very clear on their website that the RNC is capable of unusually fast release times, which will cause distortion on low-frequency material. Fair enough, but I tried slow settings, as well as just about every other possible setting, and got distortion with most of them. Especially when I had it set up as a limiter, there was unpleasant glitching whenever the signal hit the threshold. I fully understand that FMR intentionally designed this unit with a much wider range of release times than most other comps in order to provide the most creative freedom to users; however the unfortunate result is that the majority of possible settings for this unit are not usable with bass. I also found that the good settings, when I eventually found them, were very finicky- when I changed instruments, or changed playing styles, I had to spend another age trying to dial in another usable setting, which got tiresome. I ran some stereo music through it at light/moderate settings, and the results were very clean and nice; but it took so much effort and compromise to find good settings for bass guitar that I can't recommend it at all for that purpose.
 

 
 
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