The Poor Man's LA2A - The DBX 163X & 163A
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- Опубликовано: 17 июн 2024
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I use a 32 channel analog Midas board with DBX 160, 160X’s and 163’s as well as 1176’s and an LA-2A clone wired to all the channel inserts. I buss out my mix across the board from my Mac, choosing channels specifically for which comp is on which channel. I then mix through this board with a dedicated custom made SSL style mix buss comp and eq I had made for me by Dustin at Regularjohnrecording to a converter and then recorded to another Mac. I have loved these DBX’s. They sound absolutely great in a mix. Totally underrated. They can make drums insanely punchy. Maybe even too punchy… The 160X’s were Dre’s secret for super forward pumping kicks and snares back in the day. I think these DBX comps are a great secret and are really overlooked in today’s flashy compressor market. If you want some phat hifi snap to your snare or a great smooth sounding guitar, there is no better cost to performance ratio to be had from any hardware gear than an old DBX 160X (just stay away from the later model 160A as is does not sound nearly as good). Or even the 163. Just realize that the original 160 is far more expensive when you find them and they are not as snappy, but is much better for vocals. 🎸
I basically have the same setup.
I got a pair of them about 10 years ago for just over $100. I track just about everything through them. Just crazy value!
OMG HER VOICE!!!!!!!!
Love my little 163x. Use it on bass quite a bit. May try it on vocals now, just to see what it sounds like.
Thanks for another cool video Ryan!!
First compressor I ever used. Still rocks. Kinda love a stereo pair in parallel on drums.
Thank you for the new Video Ryan 🙏🏼 what a Voice
I have the original 163 with the wooden sides and it’s great on bass. Great vid. Thanks
There was an old Pensado's Place episode with Peter Reardon from Shadow Hills and he plugged the DBX 163 for rock vocals. I went and got a 163X because they were mega cheap and I've been using it for vocal tracking ever since. I think the 160 and 163 don't always sound the best in isolation, but once the source is in a mix it just works.
I always dug my 163x's on kick and bass. Cool comps!
Super transparent! To be fair, the vocals already sound pretty balanced before compression.
Great review! it quite clean and natural sounding.
thanks for this, what a great voice for the test
Awesome vid Ryan. I have a pair that get used on drums and bass all the time and sometimes vocals. They’re an excellent underrated compressor as are some of the other dbx pieces.
Great to see someone repoing affordable gear.
the program dependency of the knee on the dbx is a rly cool feature on hardware. i feel like you can dial it in to sound the same as an la2a even if the broader range of settings is a different variety of flavors
Great review. The 163 sounds neutral and smooth with no discernible coloration. Whispers and hushed vocals sound rich.
Thank you! So very much!
I've used my 163x in front of my pedal board to great effect. It's like overdrive that's totally dependant on the volume knob on the guitar. Then you get some flattened signal going in to things like fuzz and stacked overdrives which adds some interesting character. I use it for mixing bass pretty much by default.
Looking forward to this
Why did it take me so long to find out that these 166, 266 and 163's are so damn awesome?
I still use DBX266 compressors and they do the job still well, they are nice work horses. Got them for cheap and use them on the inserts on drums on an analog desk. They have gates on them too but I never use those, I prefer the Drawmer gates above anything else.
I love dbx compression, - and this channel, - I'm particularly fond of the 166A myself. I have one early version, and one second generation. I'm into heavy Breakbeat, Dub, dark Electronica, etc, and it just does something I can't get from any other comp. I know some people think they're absolute garbage, but hey, if they were good enough for Jack Dangers in the past....
I guess I use them as transient shapers more than anything else, usually over the drum buss, but they also work well for staccato synthesizer sequences and arpeggios, I always follow a 166A with a Drawmer DL251, 241, or 441, just to add back the meat and weight the 166A eats up. I also have a couple of 118 boxes, which are sublime, and a couple of 1066 units, which can sound like the 166A, but they just take a little longer to set up because they are way too sensitive.
I fully understand why many dislike the 1066 too, but again, followed by a Drawmer comp to fatten the sound back up and BANG! I find the trick to getting the most out of a 1066 is to keep the ratio at 2:1 or below, it sounds way more than 2:1 anyway, and only aim for around 6db of compression max, usually I set up a 1066 with almost no gain reduction visible on the meters, but one can still clearly hear it processing the signal.
- As always, I ain't no professional, just another idiot with enough money to spend on toys that feed my autistic need for sonic manipulation. - That said, I've been experimenting since 1985, so I have a little experience, I guess.
It ain't what you use, it's the way that you use it.
- love to ALL
Sounds really similar to the art pro VLA II as well- another great price to performance comp
Great content! Thats a cool compressor. I use one on kick all the time and recording vocals serial with an 1176.
I've used a 160x on the "over easy" mode for tracking vocals and acoustic guitars for the last 2 years or so and had great results! I wish someone would make a plugin version of that over easy sound so I can slap it on more stuff in a mix.
Wow, nice little unit and the sound surprised me honestly! Great video!
Do you still have your 903 in a dual card rack? I am about to get a bunch of them in a lot i spotted with some para eqs,gates and desser. I would live to see you drive the 903
Been wanting the 163s for yearssss, though I'm also happy with my 160A and the old 166
The UREI was hitting too hard, by about 4-5 dB, for a direct comparo. Other than that, the similarity is pretty amazing. I remember these 160-series dbx compressors, using them sorta carelessly in live broadcast mixes in the late 70s. The 2a has a knee you can hear while the dbx don’t have a knee. Rather than onset of compression, they’re 5-10dB down with a very graceful release. A lot of work went into designing those transfer curves. The vca itself is the 202 module with admirably low distortion. A fantastic piece of design from Dave Blackmer.
I paid about 80 bux for my racked 163x. Got it for bass, and it's absolutely awesome.
just amazing！
I've got a lot of outboard gear, like a lot. And everyone wonders what is the combination I'm using to make my MPC drums sound so amazing. What I use is a USB class compliant audio interface with eight outputs coming from my MPC going into an eight channel Rupert neve DI, then into my preamps, then four channels go into four 500 series SSL six channel modules, and the other four channels go into 4 500 series 73 jr modules. From there all eight channels go into 163X units. Occasionally, I may use a little bit of EQ, or even compression on the SSL modules, that usually makes work easier for the 163X's. Then from there into my RME interface to be tracked into my daw. I know it sounds like a lot, but if you hear the difference, you will completely understand.
Bob Horn uses one on vocals too I’m pretty sure. Cool vid
I have a 163X and love it on bass guitar. I’ll need to try it on just about everything after seeing this video!
I thought the LA2A plugin made the vocal sound tubby. I like how it adds some “warmth” on a mix bus, but it definitely has a transformer low mids bump, and the dbx seems to just be nicer imo.
I hope this doesn’t get popular now! I was about to pick up a couple more…
I have a 163x that I purchased back in late 80's or early 90's. Also have a 463x that can be "stereo strapped" to the 163x for stereo compression.
Great on bass guitar.
I literally just bought a 163A after watching this video. Prices are more like around $110 after shipping. Still feels like a bargain for something that can do 15+ db of compression smoothly.
Thanks for showing this very smooth afordable compressor. Ryan you mention it is unbalanced and introduces noise. It would be great if you could do a video on some noise reducing plugins (some are free) like ReaFir - subtractive EQ in Reaper (On every track I loop a small section with no vocals or instruments to build the noise profile) it can remove all the unwanted noise. This has really helped me as I can now use all my old noisy mics, mixing boards and processors.
È quello che penso sul behringer 369! A proposito, farai un video sul Behringer 1273?
your channel is the reason I have two DBX 163x paired up in stereo! Thank you for all you do!
Smashing stuff with 20db of compression certainly makess the compression in the demos blatantly obvious and i suppose be audible to even people who don't understand compression but doesn't seem very real world if you want things to actually sound good.
Might be ok if one is doing parallel compression but other than that trick multiple compressors at much lower amounts of gain reduction is a much better way to go.
Uad La2A 2:51 dbx163A 5:56
I have a 163X, it's great I use it on everything
The UA LA-3A is a nice alternative to the LA-2A. Solid State as well.
I have a couple 163's and like them a lot for when I just need so comp something and don't want to fuss around with a bunch of controls, but I definitely wouldn't compare it to a real LA2A. The makeup gain amplifiers in a LA2A is here all the magic happens and the DBX just isn't there. Usually I'll use the DBX while tracking just to give some compression to cans, but I don't print it and almost never use them in a mix unless I can use them in parallel cause they get ugly when they bite down. I remember years of having racks of these doing sound in crappy bars though. Cool comp for sure. Smack Labs has a (free?) 163 plugin that is convincing.
Cool video; strongly prefer the UAD plugin
I had two. They sounded horrible to me..or maybe it was my music that sounded horrible...maybe both. Who knows.
stereo 166 or a pair of 163 for tracking vocals?
Do you have a link to all of your music?
❤
cool
Pop
I'm not sure Iike the sound of the DBX 163A on Vocals. To my ears, as you add compression, it seems to bring out this low mid range "honkyness" to the signal.
Maybe try this on snare instead. I can see it working well!
Having said that, it works great in electric guitar to bring out the attack in the strings! I wouldn't hesitate using this compressor in a dense mix.
That's just her voice. It sets my misophonia off bad.
Please send it to me. I need it
Sounds completely different than a la2a, it's a dbx.....
nice- i have a dbx 1060 quad and i absolutely hate it- if anyone wants to trade one of these and is in mass let me know!! hahaha
Man i wish youtubers would stop doing reviews on gear thats cheap and then hyping them in the title, watch these double in value over night
Its almost like you wanna sell them so you do a video on them hyping them up then list them on reverb
I understand you have to do clickbait videos
But people love taking advantage of offers and use youtubers to value their products now
FYI These sound nothing like an la2a, not that everyone needs an la2a.
Comparing to a plugin is also just a weird review when the plugin sounds nothing like the hardware. (Yeah fight me plugin kings, never said plugins dont sound good, they just dont sound like hardware)
Great now these are gonna go from 70 bucks to 500 thanks