Manley Variable MU Stereo Limiter Compressor.
The Manley Vari-MU review
I have used the Manley for years and it basically is always across everything. In principle. Once you’ve got the machine working you can instantly hear the gloss. I use it as much for single instruments as on the master busses. It is a misconception that it is a mastering unit (this one I have is the non-mastering version). You can get the drums and vocals incredibly solid or nicely pumping – it’s your choice. Clearly you wont get this sound out of a Plug-In – I’ve tried many a times. Can someone prove me wrong?
“Kick it up to something obscene, like 15-20 dB, and it squeezes the track like a silk glove, getting the effect without any nasty artifacts. There is something to this unit that just glues everything together and makes the track sound, for want of another term, ‘better.’ You can’t really compare it to anything else because it is indeed unique, once you try one, you’ll be hooked forever,” concludes Owsinsky.
The Manley Variable-Mu was one of the units that most mastering engineers singled out as indispensable to their work, when asked by Bobby Owsinski during research. In his review for EQ magazine Owsinsky continues: “More than ever, I’ve been seeing the Vari-Mu (or Vari-Mu as it has fondly become known) show up not only in the racks of major studios, but in independent engineer’s racks as well. I can truly say that it makes a mix sound better. The Vari-Mu adds a certain ‘glue’ to a mix when used as a bus compressor that is difficult to get with all but a few other boxes.”
This is what Manley Labs say about the Vari-MU
The MANLEY VARIABLE MU® LIMITER COMPRESSOR has been our best selling product for many years. It is one of the very few compressors that has become a real standard in Mastering studios and contributed to most hit records over the last decade and probably the next. “Mu” is tube-speak for gain, and Variable Mu® is our registered trademark for this limiter compressor. It works by using the “remote cut-off” or re-biasing of a vacuum tube to achieve compression. The precious vintage Fairchild 670 also uses this technique and is one of few all-tube compressor to do so, that we know of. Even the side-chain has glowing rectifier bottles. How’s it work? The unique 5670 dual triode is at the center of the peak-reducing and compression action constantly being re-biased by the vacuum tube rectified side-chain control voltages which cause this tube to smoothly change its gain. Just like that.
The COMPRESS mode is soft-knee 1.5 to 1 ratio while the sharper knee LIMIT mode starts at 4 to 1 and moves to a more dramatic ratio of 20 to 1 when limiting over 12dB. Interestingly, the knee actually softens as more limiting is used. Distortion can be creatively used by turning up the Input and turning down the Output while using very little or no compression. See the gain reduction curves here!
You might notice that the Variable Mu® Limiter Compressor has a ganged input control, but do not jump to conclusions that it is mono-unfriendly. Track away! There are separate threshold and output controls to make compensations with plus you can always adjust your individual source levels elsewhere, right? The advantage of the stereo input control becomes dramatically clear when you switch to LINK mode, and that’s what our Variable Mu® Limiter Compressor does better than anything else: final mix, 2-track, or mastering limiting and compression. Like one reviewer put it: “It’s like pouring a bowl of sweet cream over the mix.” Mmmmmm. Yummy. Give your music a big hug.
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