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Stereo Compression with a single BA6A?...
In article writes:
I love the sound of a BA6A on a single channel of stereo buss
material, but I only have one unit...
What are the issues involoved with running the left channel through
the unit and straight back to digital tape (DA38's), and then running
the other channel through the same unit and back to tape, creating
(theoretically) a stereo 2-buss mix though a pair of BA6A's?
I can't see any syching issues, but how about phasing issues?
First off, there's a chance that you could send the phantom center of
your stereo image wandering all over the place. When using a "stereo"
compressor, gain reduction of both channels is controlled by the same
thing - one channel, the sum of the two channels, or whichever channel
happens to be the loudest. However the control source is derived, it's
applied to both channels, assuring that whatever's in the center will
stay in the center. By comprssing each channel separately, you lose
this.
If you don't mind digging into the compressor, you might be able to
feed it a gain reduction signal from the outside world rather than let
it get it from the input (or output) of the compressor. If that's
possible (well, everything's possible - if that's feisable) you could
make a mono mix on a spare track of your multitrack recorder, then use
this (in both passes) to control the gain reduction.
As far as phasing issues, this is a function of how well your recorder
stays in sync with itself. You can run a quick test without the
compressor. Record the same thing on both channels, then record the
playback of one channel in one pass, the playback of the second
channel in a second pass, and listen to the two re-recorded channels
in mono to see if it's solid. If it is, you shouldn't have a phasing
problem with this two-pass approach. If it isn't, they you'll have a
problem.
--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
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