Hi,

I have two alesis 3630 compressors. I bought them because they were cheap at
the time. Later realizing that, not many people do like them because of
their noise and output quality, are they salvagable or worth to modify by
replacing capacitors and resistors? I found a link online and was wondering
if anyone had tried modding theirs to make them sound better? Is it worth it
or should I just selling these puppies. I hardly use them but if I can do
anything to them to make them sound better, I would use them. Thanks.

This is the link to the mod.

http://www.recording.org/e-mag/article_81.shtml

MagPi wrote:
I have two alesis 3630 compressors. I bought them because they were cheap at
the time. Later realizing that, not many people do like them because of
their noise and output quality, are they salvagable or worth to modify by
replacing capacitors and resistors? I found a link online and was wondering
if anyone had tried modding theirs to make them sound better? Is it worth it
or should I just selling these puppies. I hardly use them but if I can do
anything to them to make them sound better, I would use them. Thanks.

They really aren't salvageable. I have looked around inside them, and
while they use some pretty good gain control devices, the number of
problems was just too great to make for a usable upgrade kit.

The good news is that I have occasionally seen the things selling on Ebay
for nearly as much as they sold for new.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

MagPi wrote:

I have two alesis 3630 compressors. I bought them because they were cheap at
the time. Later realizing that, not many people do like them because of
their noise and output quality, are they salvagable or worth to modify by
replacing capacitors and resistors? I found a link online and was wondering
if anyone had tried modding theirs to make them sound better?

As a result of sort of a challange on this forum, someone who didn't
have the time/interest to do the work himself sent me a 3630 and the
Black Lion Audio modificaiotn kit so that I could evaluate how
difficult the job was (rumors were that it was pretty involved) and
whether the results were as good as the reports.

I did the modification. It was indeed quite extensive, and took me
about a full day. One of the difficulties is that, while the
instructions are very clear, most of the components are installed on
the board so as to cover or nearly cover their reference designations.
If it says to replace R34, you'll have a hard time finding R34. A
drawing of the circuit board with either callouts for all the
components that need to be changed or of a board without the components
so you can read all the reference designations would have been helpful.
When I mentioned this to Matt (Black Lion) he e-mailed me a photo of
most of the board with the components removed, but it was still a bit
difficult to read.

Anyway, after replacing all the parts from the kit, I powered it up,
ran a tone through it, and was pleased to see that all the controls
worked and that the gain reduction meters showed that it was doing what
it was supposed to do. So I put some music through it and after a
little listening, thought "Hey, this really sounds transparent. It's
like it isn't there at all." Well, in fact, it really wasn't doing any
dynamic gain reduction. The signal passed through, the meters looked
like it was working, but it wasn't compressing. I plotted a set of
curves to verify this.

After several e-mail exchanges with Matt, and confirming that I didn't
make any mistakes in the conversion, I sent it to him for an autopsy.
He had it for a few months and eventually wrote back that he had it
just about figured out. Appparently this was a slightly different
version than others that he had modified and he needed to change some
component values to change some time constants.

He was about to return it to me when his shop burned down (and he got
married) and he lost all of his compressors. He promised to make good
on it and that when he found some more compressors, he would modifiy
them and return all that were owed. We e-mail every couple of months
and he asks for my address, but I've yet to see the mofified
compressor.

Matt seems to be a nice enough guy and he seems to understand this
compressor very well. I doubt that this is typical of what most people
who get this kit experience. But I still haven't heard what it sounds
like after the modification, and the guy who owns the compressor still
doesn't have it back. Good thing he got an RNC.

On 10 Dec 2005 07:08:21 -0800, "Mike Rivers"
wrote:

He was about to return it to me when his shop burned down (and he got
married) and he lost all of his compressors. He promised to make good
on it and that when he found some more compressors, he would modifiy
them and return all that were owed. We e-mail every couple of months
and he asks for my address, but I've yet to see the mofified
compressor.

God is trying to tell you something.