Fredenstein Artistic Compressor Plus 500 Series Module

The Fredenstein Artistic Compressor is a single channel FET compressor with multi-channel link capability in the 500 series form factor.

Familiar controls include; rotary controls for Input Gain, Release Time, Compression Ratio, Make-up Gain and Wet-Dry Mixing (parallel compression). Like many vintage compressors there is no Threshold control. Instead, one uses the Input Gain knob to increase the gain until the appropriate amount of compression is achieved. This tends to feel more natural and musical, but perhaps less nerdy and precise. The Attack Time can be set in three steps with a toggle switch, and the side-chain low cut filter offers 2 frequencies. There is also one toggle switch for Bypass and another for Link. The LED bar-graph meter indicates the gain reduction in the range of 1 dB to 16 dB.

It's punchy and detailed sound is generated by three major components:

• Fredenstein's proprietary Reverse-Mancini FET architecture
• Advanced OPA2 discrete Audio Operational Amplifier
• The American made vintage style steel core output transformer

The Artistic Compressor shares some of the well understood sonic characteristics of famous FET compressors but brings some extra refinements, such as, virtually no interaction between the Attack, Release and Threshold controls. The Mix knob also brings some extra versatility to the FET compressor architecture and gives the option of keeping some transients while lifting up the quiet bits.

The Artistic Compressor can be an aggressive brick wall, become bouncy for dance tracks, or just enhance sweetly, smoothly and subtly, depending on how you want to set it. This is a rather versatile dynamics processor, built with surprisingly high quality parts for the price.