In my continuing quest for outboard gear I came across this piece and I have to say its quite a confusing piece of gear. On one hand it is used as a dynamics processor but on the other it doesn’t act like any of the other pieces in the same group. All I know is if Nir Z (a very very very high demand studio drummer) uses this, you know its gotta be good. NOTE: I do not own this piece of gear (yet) so this is not a review but simply an extended overview of the product, this making its way on the Friday Gear Feast.
Basically this dynamics shaping tool treats signal at any volume the same way and uses minimal controls to partially to the job of a compressor and gate all without needing to really know anything about threshold and ratios. You can basically turn the knobs until you hear what you want to hear. The Differential Envelope Technology takes care of all of the technical work, giving you more time to create music. There are two versions of this processor, a 2 channel and a 4 channel and I speculate pretty soon there will be a 500 series model as well. Because of how this processor handles audio, it is ideal for drums and bass tracks but can be used for a vast array of tracks. Basically, anything you think of that would benefit from having the dynamics tweaked will sound awesome through this piece of gear. This is an engineer’s dream with the kick drum being that its one of the hardest drums to tame. Also it can adjust the decay on a track and take out or add any room sound from the tracks. Simply turn the threshold back and any unwanted overtones are gone.
Price on the TD2 averages around $699 and the TD4 $1479
