When Jack Joseph Puig has only great things to say about a compressor, you know its good and if you don’t believe me, look at THIS picture… wait no not that pic, THIS one. Yeah, that’s what I thought. So if the legendary Jack Joseph Puig likes your product, you’re pretty much in. Its a pricey piece of kit, weighing in at $3330.00 but when you want legendary sound, you have to put some money into it. Plus this is based on the EMI RS124 so you can get that Abbey Road Sound.
Overview
The Lisson Grove R-124 is a variable mu vintage style compressor based on the classic British Studio compressor that was used intensively on all of the Beatles recordings.
However, the R-124 has some modifications. Some of which are in the circuit and some functional.
The quality of each component in the units is of the highest possible standard, and the unit is hand built from top to bottom.
The Lisson Grove R-124 has been built from a love of the sound of a bygone era. We hope you recognize that very familiar sound.
Features
Release: Is self explanatory but it is slightly quicker than the original.
Attack time: Also self explanatory
Threshold: This is a threshold control with a bit of a twist. Basically, the threshold is adjusted in the normal manner, i.e. the more the control is turned clockwise, the higher the ceiling or level at which compression occurs. This is quite common and fairly straightforward.
The interesting difference here is that our threshold adjustment uses the dynamically changing compressed signal as its point of reference rather than a fixed voltage. What this means is that if the control is turned more clockwise, the tone changes slightly adding a subtle sparkle. This seems to be a wonderful way to “tickle” the vocals or a mix.
The ‘Infinity’ control: In between each of the 6 recovery settings is the Infinity’ position which is, in effect, an extremely long recovery time. There are a variety of uses for this feature, a useful one being the ability to ‘prime’ the unit before a take. This is done by placing the compressor in a ‘Infinity’ position (one click up or down from the desired setting), having the artist play or sing a note before recording, then switching in the desired release time once things were under way. Yet another use of Infinity’ would be to prevent an increase in gain during silent passages. We have also added a quarter inch jack on the back, to enable a foot switch control, for hands free operation.
Balance: This provides an easy way to balance out the two sides of the gain reduction valve, thus minimizing distortion and feed-through thumps. When you press the push-button. It is then a simple matter for the engineer to adjust a small trim control until the pulsing sound is heard at its most thin or lowest level. This is a very practical ‘in situ’ method for balancing out the gain reduction valve.
