FMR Audio RNLA 7239

I'm somewhat puzzled, because for the past four hours, I have been feeding this beast almost everything from solo bass to electro leads and full mixes and it just turns everything into smooth evenly leveled audio.

I bought this unit to chop and crush the live mix from my live gear, but I was not prepared for the creamy character that it adds to the sound, especially with the Logarithmic Release - it is really pleasant to the ears.

I'm not an audio professional, so take my words with a grain of salt, but I have the DBX 266XL as a comparison device as well as a plethora of software compressors and none of them sound as smooth and as glued as this thing.

I'm actually considering buying another one for my streaming setup ...

This little compressor is simply wonderful!
I'm using it as a bus compressor for my MPC One which serves as a drum machine. I got it because I'm not satisfied with compressor plugins in MPC and I didn't know what to expect.
It turned out to be a great purchase. It glues drums in a very 'organic', 'natural' way. I like to push GR hard (4 to 10dB) with fast/medium speeds of attack and release and it smashes the drum in a way that plugins can't.
RNLA helps to blend originally digital drums with other analogue synths and drum machines.
Log Release is great and gives more life to heavily compressed drums.

Worth to note that I'm using it all the time with a pedal in the sidechain to attenuate the low end. I'm using a cheap Artec SE-EQ8 pedal with a low-shelf set to the minimum - typical set-and-forget setting as it sits hidden behind RNLA.

So I bought it quite blindly because I couldn't find examples of electronic drums processed with RNLA on the internet and I'm not disappointed. The price is shockingly low for a such device.
Gooey, gluey, warm and saturated - are the words that I can describe its sound with.

This compressor sounds great and has features you would not find in other compressors of its price class. It lets you adjust all common parameters such as attack, release, threshold, and also provides a sidechannel send/return which can be used to e.g. change the frequency response of the compressor or to send in an external signal (such as a bass drum track).

I really like the sturdy box, the above features, as well as the humorous and honest manual (download only).

Unfortunately, this compressor was not a good choice for my instrument, the Chapman Stick. While the compressor works on a stereo signal, it does not have separate controls for each channel. For the Stick this means that the bass strings are heavily compressed while the melody strings aren't. It was hard to figure out a good balance. Using an equalizer on the sidechannel signal may have been an option, but I eventually gave up.

I would recommend this compressor for mastering.

I use the RNLA manily on drums, bass and synths during mixing. It has a warm and punchy sound and adds clarity to the source with a nice "thick and gooey" character as many say.

When used on bass it gives a round, fat and warm sound you only find on higher priced compressors. On drums it sounds very punchy and clean, it's especially good on programmed drums, they almost come alive when processed with the RNLA. When used on synths I get a character I really like, it sounds thick and sort of more pronounced.

The build quality is very good, the knobs feel sturdy and turn very smooth, metering is accurate and easy to read. Besides standard features it also has a logarithmic release mode which is very useful on percussive materials to achieve a more transparent compression.

Things I miss are a switchable sidechain and balanced inputs but at this price you really can't complain. If you're after something affordable with character, this is a great choice!