Antelope Audio has added six new compressors to its library of FPGA vintage hardware-based effects. The VCA160, Tube176, X903, Gyraf Gyratec X, Stay-Levin and ALT-436C are for use with the company’s Thunderbolt and HDX audio interfaces.
‘Our real-time FPGA modelling capability is unique in the market and represents an exponential value add for our customers,’ says Antelope Audio CEO, Igor Levin. ‘With this launch, we are giving customers access to authentic digital emulations of vintage hardware that would otherwise be inaccessible. This puts an entirely new sonic palette at the user’s fingertips, with all the analogue richness and real-time response of the original hardware.’
VCA160 is a dynamics processor equally suited to ‘brick wall’ and subtle peak taming. It can be used to control vocals, bass guitar or individual drums. When working with transient-heavy material, such as kick drums or bass, its rapid response time can create a classic sound that is instantly recognisable from its punchy pedigree.
Tube176 is modelled on one of the most desirable compressors ever produced. The original hardware unit owes its sound to a long-since-out-of-production variable-mu dual-triode tube, but its characteristics have been brought back to life in the FPGA realm. Thanks to its straightforward input and output gain control-led interface, Tube176 can smooth sounds or completely flatten them.
X903 is based on a cult compressor famed for its unique compression characteristics. Complete with smart RMS detection and straightforward controls, conventional compression that is intuitive and musical is easily achieved easy with X903 in its conventional mode, while negative ratio settings allow for dynamic inversions.
Antelope Audio is the first company to model Danish developer Gyraf Audio’s hand-built hardware with Gyraf Gyratec X.
Speed is a determining factor in the original unit’s appeal, as is its highly-musical Vari-Mu compression technology, itself inspired by early limiter designs. Gyraf Gyratec X performs well on mixes across a wide range of genres – moderate compression settings are subtle enough to process jazz and acoustic guitars, while dialling up the compression conjures up the Gyratec X’s signature with analogue thickness and character. Compression that preserves low-end integrity is also possible, thanks to smooth high- pass filtering.
Stay-Levin captures the spirit of the historic hardware namesake that shaped the sound of a slew of Sixties Stateside classics. Character and colouration abound as Stay-Levin lends a analogue edge to contemporary productions. Controls include large level (input and output) knobs, a three-way Recovery Time knob, and two self-explanatory switches. It can produce compression styles suited to vocals, acoustic guitars and synth leads, while drums and bass benefit from treatment to sound both bigger and more aggressive.
ALT-436C is a single-channel, variable-mu tube compressor with fixed attack attributes. Modelled after the third revision of an iconic compressor series, ALT-436C includes the Release Time and Threshold controls that endeared it to producers in the Beatles era (extremely useful when working with bass guitars, vocals, and string instruments) as an initially inexpensive unit that played its part in making music sound not so cold and sterile back in the day.
Antelope Audio’s has also extended its EQ with the VEQ-55b. Based on hardware famed for production popularity throughout the Sixties and Seventies, VEQ-55b features four disparate bands with bell curve or shelving switching and up to 12dB of cut or boost with proportional Q ranging between gently sloping at more subtle levels and a more aggressive shape at higher levels.
Antelope Audio’s audio interfaces can now support up to 32 instances of vintage compressors and 40 EQs. The VCA160, Tube176, X903 and Gyraf Gyratec X are available for Antelope Audio’s Orion Studio, Orion Studio Rev. 2017, Zen Tour, Orion32 HD, Goliath HD and Orion Studio HD audio interfaces (with Goliath, Orion32+, and Zen Studio+ to follow); Stay- Levin, and ALT-436C are available for Orion Studio, Orion Studio Rev. 2017, Zen Tour, Goliath HD and Orion Studio HD (with Goliath, Orion32+, Orion32 HD, and Zen Studio+ to follow).
More: http://antelopeaudio.com
