Source Audio Atlas Compressor pedal (stereo + so much under the hood)

Hmmm, there seems to be some low pass filtering or high shelf reduction when pedal is engaged.
Going to play around and see if its specific to certain compression modes.
Starts around 13khz

Parametric EQ only goes up to 6khz, and graphic to 8khz, so can’t be corrected with EQ. :thinking:

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audio:

compressor module and both EQ modules OFF in the editor.

4 bars disengaged pedal
4 bars engaged
4 bars disengaged
4 bars engaged

Sadly, this could be a dealbreaker. I have reached out to Source Audio to see if they’re aware, and if it’s normal, or needs a tweak.

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Great! I thought a visual feedback was lacking too.

Hope that shelving is not baked in…

yea, we’ll see.

If it is, that’s a dealbreaker.

Otherwise, very solid design, good editor with great features, and lots of things big and small to tweak.

Since I’m running it into OT, messing with OT DJ EQ, it can easily be corrected. But I’d rather not use an FX slot for EQ correction of a compressor pedal.

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Oof yeah that’s weird.

That rolloff is surprising, but I imagine is in the coding versus the hardware… so easily fixable?

Hope so! Could be hard dithering for conversion purposes, but a few possible solutions… I’d be happy if the parametric EQ just went up to around 14khz

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Could the EQ sections be pre and post simultaneously (even though the app makes you select one or the other)?

its either or for each EQ module. There are only two stereo EQ modules and you get one instance of each.
You can choose one to be pre and the other to be post (i.e. graphic pre, parametric post)

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Yeah and you said both sections were switched to off… just wondering if there was some UI weirdness happening.

nah, i checked that by using extreme settings before switching them off

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Interesting to hear these sound comparison examples. Besides the slight top end rolloff, it also sounds like the pedal is making the stereo width a bit smaller too. I’ve gotta say I prefer the Syntakt without the pedal engaged personally, it just sounds bigger and more life-like. To me, the compression isn’t really adding much.

Tough to tell, as most of the stereo width is in the frequencies being cut.

Isn’t that low roll off a feature of the originals?

Original what?

1176 and LA-2A had a roll off I think.

Well, I feel inadequate. I can’t tell the difference between engaged and disengaged in either sample above. Not sure if my inexpensive headphones or my aged ears are rolling off faster.

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Not this drastic.

And besides, it exists regardless of compressor model, (or if compressor module is even engaged) and there are several more besides the LA2A and 1176.

Definitely an issue.

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Yea after playing with it some more, I’m inclined to agree.

I use the Syntakt’s fx block VCA inverted EG as a ducker and that gives me the sound I want to a great degree. another 1dB to 1.5dB of gain reduction is all I’m after. Atlas gives that, and the side chain filter is handy, but it comes at great cost of clarity.

Possible this is just a pedal more tuned for guitar processing.

I’ve tweaked every setting possible. So unless my unit is faulty, or SA can add some things in an update, this will get returned, sadly.

Compared to my Alesis MicroLimiter, it does not sound good.

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My MicroLimiter died a while ago and I miss it. Used to run everything through that thing. Literally. It sat on top of my interface and I just patched into it.

Sorry the pedal didn’t end up being what you hoped! I’m still looking for that magic stereo compressor pedal too…right now using a Strymon OB-1, that even though it’s mono, sounds really good.

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