In article znr1067472205k@trad, Mike Rivers wrote:
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.

A great idea, but the BA-6A is a feedback style limiter, which means
that the output stage's plate voltages are compared to a reference
voltage with some diodes to form the gain reduction signal that's fed
back to the input stage. These output stage plate voltages are sort
of high, so it isn't really practical without adding a lot of extra
circuitry to stuff some signal other than the actual output voltage
into the detector.

One other possibility would be to run two passes through the BA-6A but
use a sum and difference matrix. In this scheme, you'd prepare a L+R
signal and limit that, and then prepare an L-R signal and limit that.
Dematrix it and you get left and right channels limited just as they
would have been limited by a vertical / lateral disk cutting limiter.

The center of the stereo image won't wander with this sort of limiter,
but the stereo width will change along with the program. This sort of
arrangement was pretty common a long time ago for disk cutting, so
it's probably a desireable sound anyway.


Have fun,

Monte McGuire