Founded by Grammy Award-winning mixer, producer and engineer Hugo Nicolson, Lisson Grove is a new boutique brand dedicated to ‘recapturing the finest studio sounds of yesteryear’. Underscoring this mission, its first unit is the R-124 valve compressor – based on the classic 1960s British studio units used extensively on all of the Beatles’ recordings.
Reverse engineering one of the highly-modified Altec 436 originals, the R-124 differs from its predecessor by using modern components. ‘Although the original models sounded fantastic, they always had difficulty producing adequate low end,’ Nicolson says. ‘By using new parts – especially modern, high-quality transformers – we’ve been able to faithfully preserve the compression characteristics of the vintage units while offering a much fuller bandwidth and bigger sound.’
Entirely hand-built, the R-124 is aimed at tracking, mixing and mastering applications. The 2U-high unit’s faceplate comprises a Balance control, chicken head knobs for Input and Output gain, a circular vu meter, rotary pots for Attack and Threshold, another chicken head knob for Release, and a power switch with bright jewel lamp.
Boasting a slightly faster release than the British studio units, the R-124 adds an Attack control, which can slow down the attack for mastering situations and other uses.
The Threshold control on the R-124 also differs in that it uses the dynamically changing compressed signal as its point of reference rather than a fixed voltage.
One of the features that Lisson Grove has preserved on this unit is the Infinity control, formerly known as Hold. In between each of the six recovery settings on the Release control is the infinity position, which is an extremely long recovery time. The Balance control, meanwhil, provides an easy way to balance out the two sides of the gain reduction valve, thus minimising distortion and feed-through thumps.
Rear panel connections include a power cord receptacle, quarter-inch jacks for the Infinity and Link, and XLRs for In and Out.
Already shipping, the Lisson Grove R-124 compressor commands a US retail price of $3,700.00.
More: www.lissongrove.us
